[mrweasel]

The slavery and working conditions in China no longer really surprises me, what I do struggle to understand is that Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.

I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China. What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals, continues to do business with China, solely to increase profit. It's absolutely disgusting. The mental gymnastics these people have to do to justify or just ignore the problems is beyond what I can even imagine.

[aleph_minus_one]

> What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals

Are you really sure that these people share your own moral ideals? ;-)

[octacat]

Western companies which cared, went a bit bankrupt sadly. We have negative selection here.

[rapnie]

Yes, a system called "capitalism" that works perfectly only in theory, and where bending rules creates winning conditions, and corruption is on always upward trend lines.

[financltravsty]

Patagonia? Chick-Fil-A?

I think when you go full B2B, you are destined to be a soulless corporate automaton.

[octacat]

Companies which sell though Amazon. Amazon uses a smart strategy of erasing the individual seller identity. Even if you already bought some item from some seller and very happy with it, you rarely would get similar item from the same seller. You usually would just get some which is first in the search, i.e. the one which makes Amazon the most profit.

If company cares about paying workers enough, your item would be more expensive, but you are still "noname" for the buyer on amazon. And now amazon would push your listing away, because it is expensive. Besides, the client will buy the cheapest option in a lot of cases.

There are exceptions though, when you more or less know what you wanna buy and from which exact company. But if you shopping for something like "massage gun" an have nooooo idea which ones are good or bad, sustanable or not - here you probably get something from the first search page with 5 star review and reasonable price. Not something from a company which cares about longevity of the product or about their workers.

And amazon workers are not living the happiest of their lives to begin with, so probably people would not shop their if the care about sustainability. People care about cheap prices and fast delivery though.

Chick-Fil-A has a lot of control about their operation. Sellers on Amazon have minimum control. It used to be that good price and good reviews would make your item easy to find, but now you also have to pay for it in more and more cases.

[isilofi]

> Patagonia? Chick-Fil-A?

There is certainly a niche catering to the handful of customers who do care, have the money to care, have enough information to care and get the opportunity to show they care by selecting the right vendor. But very often I think the consumer is just unable to care because of lacking money, lacking information or outright deception by the vendors and lacking offers from ethical vendors.

And the market unfortunately favors the non-ethical ones. Which doesn't make ethical ones impossible or non-existent, just less likely to succeed and therefore rare.

[aleph_minus_one]

> the market unfortunately favors the non-ethical ones

"The market favors" is just an corporate speak for "The customers favor", i.e. in this case "The customers unfortunately favor the non-ethical ones".

[Ancalagon]

Arguably the customer doesn't have clarity on this situation here. Customers vote with their dollars and the reason they vote for these companies is because their products are relatively speaking the cheapest for some particular level of quality.

The resolution should be on the western governments to tax or fine the ever-loving crap out of companies and their products that utilize systems like this. Then the products' end prices will reflect the true cost to the consumer because any ethically-produced product of equivalent quality should be cheaper.

[isilofi]

Not in this case. Since the non-ethical market participants are non-ethical, they tend to use non-ethical means: like hiding from or like lying to their customers about where and how their products were produced.

Therefore it is not really an informed decision of the customer that makes them successful. It rather is the lack of transparency of the market, due to the non-ethical sellers lying and regulation being too lax.

[skrtskrt]

Chick Fil A? Is just another fast food chain, but it has associations with evangelical Christians and funding anti-gay positions.

That's your example of a company with a conscience?

[dragonwriter]

Just because the conscience may be aligned in a direction you find morally objectionable doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Of course, a conscience, in and of itself, is only as good as what is aligned to.

[taco_emoji]

That's why the word "supposedly" is there

[pera]

> Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE

They do care about profit margins, which is why they outsource slavery.

[isilofi]

Nobody in power in industry and almost nobody from the consumer side cares about working conditions in any typical outsourcing country. Quite the opposite, "less regulation", "lower cost" and things like that are directly caused by ignoring worker rights and human rights (as well as a few other things).

China is not alone in this, just more present in the HN-relevant IT/tech sector. But clothing in southeast asia, mining in africa and south america, logistics/trucking in eastern europe are relevant examples from other regions and industries.

I don't intend to disperse responsibility here or distract, quite the opposite: One of the main reasons the aforementioned abuses can continue is that "the civilized west" systematically ignores those problems on all levels. There are some EU regulations coming up to improve this situation, but we'll have to wait and see on those...

[octacat]

"It is not a bug it is a feature it seams". The only way to solve it is to make buying from local producer and from China the same, i.e. extra import taxes. But these import taxes nobody likes, so nothing is done. Just a couple of years ago there was no VAT when buying from China in EU (or it was barely enforceable).

Government is also kinda "happy" in the short run. It is easier to hide the real inflation. Before I could clothe in EU produced stuff, and now I can only clothe in asia produced. But I still get the "same" thing as a consumer, even if my real salary lost some power.

[liendolucas]

Another huge problem is that most of the time there's really no other choice than to buy "Made in China". Even if you have the money and willing to spend more.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE

They do, they hired killers to murder Union leaders in Columbia

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr...

[reaperman]

*Colombia (Columbia is a clothing company). At least in American spelling.

[dieselgate]

> Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.

Western Consumers don't care either

[constantly]

I’m a western consumer and I care.

[d3w4s9]

Thank you and 5 other people in the western hemisphere. Shein shoppers definitely will take notice.

[ClumsyPilot]

If that were true, western companies would spend billions to hide their complicity in slave labour

[octacat]

The people would be like: "If our company does not benefit from chinese slaves, someone else will and steal our profits!". Which is kinda sadly true, because Amazon does not care were the stock items come from. You can produce in countries with strong work laws, but it is just too expensive.

(same with countries where we get energy resources from - they don't have ideal reputation for human rights, but they are cheap).

It is kinda simple: you can buy a tshirt from Italy produced in Italy and having price tag 3 times more. Or you can buy from China... Now think you are a company with thin margins and have to do the same... And your items are after getting sold on Amazon, which algorithms would force you to sell as cheap as possible, otherwise your item would not be seen in the search results.

[razakel]

>It is kinda simple: you can buy a tshirt from Italy produced in Italy and having price tag 3 times more.

And it will still have been made by a slave.

[vladms]

The companies respond mostly to what the public is willing to do about something. If the only thing people do is complaining on social networks then companies will not address the issue. If people will avoid a certain company based on their behavior then they will change it.

[bell-cot]

> ...the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals, continues to do business...

SUPPOSEDLY - just like Big Tobacco has always wanted everyone to know the scientific truth about the health effects of smoking tobacco, right?

Capitalism optimizes for profit. If some profits need to be foregone or spent on pretending to share the moral ideals of the consumers - that also gets optimized, to minimize performative idealism and its costs.

[d3w4s9]

Does it even matter? Lots of products on Amazon are produced by non-Western companies which very likely have questionable labor practice. Oh, these days people buy thing on Temu and Shein and things are shipped from outside the US. Consumers always look for the cheapest products, and nothing will change as long as that is true.

[badpun]

> I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China.

Do you really believe that Chinese are different from US in this regard? I.e. that most Chinese people believe that it's perfectly ok to exploit people to the bone, because they have alternatives? No, they, just like us, believe it's a rotten thing to do, and agree to it only because well, they have no alternatives. No different than the extremely exploited workers in hellish factories in XIX century US or England.

[krageon]

The west is built on the back of slavery, and this has never changed. It has just been moved to where we don't need to see it.

[hackerlight]

> continues to do business with China ... It's absolutely disgusting.

I want to inject some nuance here. Competition in the labor market, which drives business to low- or middle-income countries like China, is really really good for the typical low-middle income person in China. If wealthy countries pulled out entirely, then China's GDP per capita will probably drop from $12,000 back to sub-$5,000 and you will be causing more suffering for the people you're concerned about. By all means, advocate for better pay and conditions and regulations, but don't advocate for pulling out of poor or middle income countries with lax labor protections entirely. It wasn't clear to me which avenue you're arguing for but I feel it's an important point worth stressing.

[holoduke]

No fuck that argument people use to whitewash bad/harsch working conditions. "A low income is better than no income". "Better be employed as a slave than unemployed" is basically what they say. Inless its not a close relative or your own kids working there. You would immediately change your opinion if thats the case. That fucked western hypocritical way of thinking needs to stop. Its really bad. Better everyone being a poor rice farmer than working in shit factory.

[thaumasiotes]

> Better everyone being a poor rice farmer than working in shit factory.

Why do the poor rice farmers line up to apply for factory jobs?

[hackerlight]

I said that X is bad but Y is worse. It seems you're not even trying to challenge that claim, instead you're saying X is a "fucked western hypocritical way of thinking" and "you would change your opinion from X to Y if you had family in that situation". Then your concluding sentence is "Y is actually better than X" but you didn't even make the case for that in the first place. Unconvincing. I am honestly disgusted at the virtue signalling and moral grandstanding. You would condemn people to the worst depths of poverty because ... well it's not entirely clear to me what moral depravity would cause someone to adopt that position.

[sgjohnson]

Except this has nothing to do with the west. The west is not responsible for working conditions in China in any way, shape or form. It's strictly a Chinese problem.

[peyton]

FYI China needs to import food. The alternative is famine for hundreds of millions of people, not bucolic rice farming.

[MrVandemar]

> what I do struggle to understand is that Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.

Here's what it is: in law corporations are essentially given a weird kind of personhood. It's that way so corporations can get things done.

Unfortunately, corporations aren't people: they don't care, they don't have ethics, they don't have morals, they don't have values, they don't have family, they don't have a conscience.

It's not an original observation, but due to this, the type of person a company most resembles is one of posessing profound psychopathological traits.

[aembleton]

> they don't have ethics, they don't have morals, they don't have values, they don't have family, they don't have a conscience.

Corporations aren't people but they are run and managed by people. I'd like to think that they have ethics, morals and a conscience.

[MrVandemar]

They don't. Companies are structures that attract and reward sociopaths and narcissists, and they're designed to maximise profit. Normal people aren't given the opportunity to weild any kind of power, but people with low empathy and high charisma scores, straight to the top!

[ejb999]

talk about mental gymnastics - you just said

"I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China."

so, give them a pass with what they are doing and then criticize others that are giving them the same pass, and also choose to profit from it.

What about people who buy stuff made in China? do they get a pass too? So the only party at fault is the middle-man? slave owners get a pass, consumers that enable the slave owners get a pass and the only party at fault is the evil middle-man corporations?

If its wrong, its wrong for all parties, if its OK, its OK for all parties.

[ako]

Western companies can't afford to care, as their consumers are buying based on price. Bad working conditions usually mean lower prices, and more success for the company using this.

You can't expect companies to fix this, this needs to come through politics and government. Unfortunately, these days governments who try to address it will be considered enemies of capitalism, considered leftish or communist. As prices will have to rise and consumers won't allow for that.

[sgjohnson]

> this needs to come through politics and government.

There's nothing western politicians can do to fix working conditions in China.

Embargo them? The working conditions in China won't get any better, and you'll simply put a lot of Chinese out of work by doing that.

Higher tariffs? That's just a tax on importing goods for China. While it helps the domestic manufacturing sector, it still does nothing to fix the working conditions in China.

Consumers suddenly start caring? The same as the "higher tariffs" scenario.

Any other ideas?

[cafeoh]

There is something western politicians can and should do to help working conditions outside the first world and it is exactly that: nothing.

I'd hope most people are familiar with the fact that the west, and specifically the CIA, later the NED and many different gov-backed orgs have been hard at work making sure the working conditions of those countries are either kept as exploitative as they are, or if possible made worse. Of course China is a fairly specific case, and while there obviously have been numerous cases of interventionism (like in the Tian'anmen square riots or Taiwan as a whole) stopping the endless anti-Chinese propaganda couldn't hurt (which I'm not accusing this article of being). It's absolutely obvious to everyone that the US and allies would jump at the first opportunity to meaningfully destabilize China's economy so, no, I certainly don't expect anything positive to be done for Chinese workers by western countries, and especially not by a country like the US that should very much look inwards when it comes to working conditions.

[ako]

Rules on products sold in the west. Most manufacturing companies already need to trace the origin of their components, so you could specify what products are and aren't allowed to be sold in the west.

[d3w4s9]

Yeah, until people just buy things on Temu which get shipped from outside the US and they don't even pay tariff, that sounds like a good idea.

[sgjohnson]

And how would that help the working conditions in China?

You’d just shift the manufacturing to a less hostile environment, where the government doesn’t intentionally make it hard to do auditing on modern slavery. Like India.

I just don’t see how it would help the Chinese labour situation at all.

[ako]

If china wants to deliver to the west they'll need to improve working conditions. Chinese companies will deliver at spec for lowest cost, if you up the spec, they'll adjust and increase cost adjustingly.

[Xelbair]

they care about profit. they have to. At least in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

[bantunes]

This argument always felt like a cop-out to me.

"Amazon is squeezing employees for maximum profit!" "Yes, they have to maximize profit by law" right, but there are also laws against union-busting, about workplace safety, etc, etc however _for some reason_ these other laws are second tier to a corporation's legal profit mandate.

[o-o-]

Do you have a source for "they have to maximize profit by law"?

[0dayz]

That one literally states it's uncertain if it is the case that corporations that are public have to maximize profits in the interest of the shareholders.