[yters]

The 'someone will do it anyway' defense is not morally legitimate. Just because everyone else is doing it, does not make the action ok.

Luke 17:1 Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come."

[solidasparagus]

I'm not interested in sounding morally superior, I'm interested in actually helping people who need help. And if you want to do that, you need to accept that 'stop buying cobalt' is not currently a solution that has any chance of improving the state of things.

[yters]

How does 'continue buying unethically sourced cobalt' improve the state of things?

Ideally, it is a dual solution of don't buy the unethical kind, and set up an alternate ethical supply chain to the same region so workers can switch to a better work place.

But, if the latter is not possible, one can at least help decrease the market for unethical cobalt by ceasing purchase.

Plus, it is not a matter of seeming morally superior. If one option is morally better than another, it should be chosen, regardless of the consequences.

So, for instance, if Jesus is correct, that it is immoral to be a path of scandal, then one should choose to not be a path of scandal, even if the state of the world otherwise remains unchanged (e.g. unethical cobalt mining continues).

[bluGill]

In what situation? In the case of Cobalt it probably doesn't.

In the case of rubber the big companies do provide better jobs for the families they employ than anything else, ensure the family gets modern medical care (as opposed to "witch doctor" care anyone not working for them gets), and the children do go to school and so have the ability to get a better job latter. The companies looks the other way in harvest season then families are taking their kids with them to work, so long as the kids are in school. Child labor for sure, but you can honestly argue that the children are better off despite that.

You can decide if you accept that as better or not, but it is a reasonable argument that child labor isn't always the worst possible.

Sadly I don't think in the case of cobalt the above applies.

[yters]

Yes, there is no inherent problem with child labor, especially if parents are involved and the companies are committed to ethical treatment of their workers. Many children today perform chores around the house, and in more agriculture societies help on the farm or in the family shop.

[celticmusic]

This is a discussion about child labor that is resulting in their deaths.

[shantly]

Mandating that companies stop buying cobalt from suppliers who don't document things well is absolutely a legitimate, non-pie-in-the-sky way to effect change.

The idea is that demand for documented cobalt will go up, prices for it will also go up, poorly-documented cobalt producers will have lower demand for their product and their profits will be harmed, the ones capable of fixing their shit so they can sell more-expensive documented cobalt will do so, relieving documented-cobalt supply, and when the dust settles cobalt will be a little more expensive but most of it will be documented.

This is basic policy-building how-to-make-the-world-less-shit using market forces for (old-school) conservatives stuff, and is the backbone of one of the most important & influential strains of political and economic thinking around. It's not remotely radical or unrealistic.

[solidasparagus]

That is not a new idea, even in the DRC and it has been an abject failure. Conflict gold, diamonds and coltan still flow out of DRC despite efforts to not buy undocumented minerals. In highly corrupt and impoverished places, documentation doesn't mean anything. One bribe of a few hundred dollars and your Congolese conflict mineral is now clean, documented Rwandan mineral.

[shantly]

Efforts, but have companies been made to pay a cost for failing to source "ethically", even when they say "well gee we tried and it's just really hard"? Things tend to get more serious when money is on the line, rather than just PR. Doing it right would clearly take verification, not just documentation, which means requiring access for outside inspectors.

[solidasparagus]

You can't prove that a certain mineral came from an unethical production location - that's the core problem I believe. How would you punish a company for using conflict minerals if no one can figure out if given minerals are conflict minerals?

[shantly]

Force them to figure it out or start impounding goods? Impound their goods if you can't, for any reason, gain access to inspect any part of their declared supply chain for occasional surprise inspections to verify it is as they say it is, until such time as they switch to recently-inspected suppliers or gain you access?

I don't really get how this is much harder or less practical for the state or states implementing the law than most laws governing corporate behavior, and particularly laws governing imports. Yes a law would have to be drafted, passed, and enforced. I don't think any part of that's particularly less reasonable or more unlikely than in the case of any similar law.

In short, you punish companies for either using conflict minerals or if you're unable to determine to a reasonable level of satisfaction that they are not using conflict minerals. Likely they'll want to make sure you can determine such, and will pressure their suppliers to make it happen, in the usual ways markets do things (suppliers that make it easy and do it right and develop a reputation for having few fine-inducing screw-ups can charge more, those that fail miserably at it may just go out of business and be replaced by others who aren't terrible at their job, pretty soon everything's a little more expensive but we have a decent idea of what comes from where)

[celticmusic]

You're asking the wrong question.

The question isn't "have we completely stopped blood diamonds", the question is "have we lowered the demand for blood diamonds".

If the answer is yes, then the strategy is legitimate and worked. We may have more work to do, but the argument that we must wait for perfect before attempting to make improvements is asinine.