Philosophical Vegan Forum

I was suggesting someone to go vegan as it reduces suffering and because animals are treated badly. The person replied with saying that I am using a product of human slavery and it's pretty silly to worry about animal suffering since I am still using a smartphone and everything else assembled by slaves in China. What are a vegan's opinions on this?

He's/she's committing the fallacy of relative privation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_o ... _privation

Actually, that particular approach beginning with, you're using a smartphone, is more usually part of an appeal to hypocrisy since smartphones typically contain componetry manufactured from animal products and hence are not vegan products.

Smart phones are not assembled by slaves in China, they are assembled by paid workers who choose to work at the factories, and are glad to have the jobs to buy shoes for their children and send them to school to have a better life.
Are their lives awesome? No. But it's a socioeconomic situation that denying them jobs will not help. It will take generations for these families to dig themselves out of poverty through education, which is what expanding economy and infrastructure into these poor regions provides.

We SHOULD support manufacturing in poor countries, because this is the only economically viable work they can do.

However, that said there ARE potentially certain dopant chemicals used in the semiconductors that could come from Africa (or North Korea) and may actually be mined by slaves.
I can't even find any reliable information on this; China still seems to be the world's largest producer.

This is an issue in terms of suffering (Chinese, and other developing countries manufacturing is not, and does more good than harm), but it's a very small one (like I said, I can't even find any reliable information on it, and I think Africa stopped being a major source in the 90's). It doesn't make you a hypocrite to contribute small amounts to suffering, while advocating reducing the largest and most significant sources of suffering. Some sources are harder to avoid than others, and electronics are one of those things that's hard to avoid.

In terms of technology (and how to do better), use used stuff. Previous generation devices, buy them (or get them free) from friends or family. Don't buy them at pawn shops or on the internet unless it's from somebody you know, since that supports the market in phone theft. Recycle as much as practical. Beyond that, don't worry about it. Unlike veganism, which is an easy choice to make that makes a huge difference, it's not practical to avoid technology, and doing so would only make a minute difference (if any positive one at all, since supporting technology probably does more good than harm; refraining from technology may be a bad thing for the world).

Let me jump back to the Bible. Remember the parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep? Leaves behind the flock of 99 to look for the one lost member. Why? Not out of love or respect. He looks because all 100 are going to end up as mutton, and even one sheep is a big loss. Steve Jobs (or whoever) didn't wake up one morning and say, "Golly. I'm so worried about the Chinese and whether they can provide shoes for their children."

Steve Jobs walked into his office one day, turned to his accountant and said, "Where can we put the factory to make the new smartphone?"

And the accountant said something like, "The cheapest place is in China. Sir."

And that was the end of it. Steve Jobs had one goal: Apple, Apple, Apple. If that meant pumping mutagenic runoff into the aquifers that watered a bunch of villages? Well boo-friggin-hoo.

Don't look at any of these issues just from one facet. Look at the whole thing. The people who make your smartphone are being used. So are the people who sew your underwear. And the people who sew soccer balls. And so on. And so on.

Are you a hypocrite? Yes. So are we all. But there are degrees of hypocrisy. There's the blind hypocrisy that simply ignores the issues (think, Steve Jobs). And there's the "necessary" hypocrites. I can't find underwear that isn't sewn in sweatshops. Do I go commando? Well, it's the same thing with my outer clothes, so I'm not actually improving the situation. My hand is forced.

Vegan-wise, I can control the entire issue. I do not HAFTA eat meat. I do not HAFTA wear leather. There are options.

Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned something back in the day about how you couldn't go after racism or sexism or any of the other -isms one at a time. You had to go after them all simultaneously. That is, you couldn't suddenly have a moment of zen about how it was wrong to have "colored" washrooms but still think it was fine and dandy to smack wifey around it she didn't have dinner ready when you got home.

If you throw out your iPhone, you still have your bank, which uses the same materials in its servers. Back in the 1980s, Donald Woods (Wood?), who wrote the book that was turned into the movie "Cry Freedom" told of how the anti-Apartheid crowd would go to U.S. banks. "Divest your holdings in South Africa!" And the banks would all say, "We have shareholders. We have to return a profit on their investment." And Donald Woods (Wood?)'s reply was always, "Drugs and prostitutes will give you even higher profit margins."

It isn't hypocrisy when you literally have no realistic other choice. Steve Jobs and his morally bankrupt cohort aren't interested in improving anyone's life. All they want is money, celebrity and power. If that means torturing kittens, they'll do it. If it means pretending to care about the environment, they'll do it.

On the things you CAN make a decision, do so. And always see the opposition for what they really are.

alex11230 wrote:Steve Jobs (or whoever) didn't wake up one morning and say, "Golly. I'm so worried about the Chinese and whether they can provide shoes for their children."

It doesn't matter what their motivations were. Indeed they were likely neither good nor evil motivations, simply profit. It may speak to the character of these CEOs, but it's irrelevant to the consumer, and the ultimate ethics of the practice as supported by the consumer.

The bottom line is that, from a rational consequentialist perspective, it is BETTER for these people to have the option to take these jobs than not. You are not harming them by giving them the choice to work, at least if we're careful with the economics and don't crash their economies (this happened in Japan, you have to be careful not to drive up labor prices too fast by over-paying workers so you have time to convert to a consumer driven economy, but China is controlling its currency more carefully to prevent that, and promoting domestic consumerism in the cities; the CPC is actually pretty well advised by its economists, who are Western trained).

alex11230 wrote:If that meant pumping mutagenic runoff into the aquifers that watered a bunch of villages? Well boo-friggin-hoo.

That's not what's happening, so it's irrelevant. Some kinds of consumerism do yield this. Fracking comes to mind. Not making shoes or underwear or assembling smart phones.

alex11230 wrote:Don't look at any of these issues just from one facet. Look at the whole thing. The people who make your smartphone are being used. So are the people who sew your underwear. And the people who sew soccer balls. And so on. And so on.

There is absolutely nothing ethically wrong with using others. Use is not comparable to abuse. In many cases, we use each other, and both parties benefit.
You could equally say that these Chinese workers are using Westerner's wealth and unreasonable demand for huge quantities underwear and smartphones to their own advantage.

Abuse is wrong, but use is not. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'exploiting' as long as it isn't abusive and harmful (as often is the connotation).

alex11230 wrote:I can't find underwear that isn't sewn in sweatshops. Do I go commando? Well, it's the same thing with my outer clothes, so I'm not actually improving the situation. My hand is forced.

Bullshit, yes you can find underwear not made in sweatshops. There is an entire market of high end underwear made entirely in the U.S.A., Canada, or Europe with exceptional modern working standards, and also largely automated.

You choose not to, because it costs slightly more (although that's nothing you could not easily afford).

However, I also choose not to because it's unethical. Even if the underwear was the same price, I would prefer to send that money to developing countries to help them develop. Western countries are in an economic bubble, and it doesn't do as much good to circulate the wealth internally.

If there were anything wrong with buying things made in China, I would not do it.

These aren't the best jobs in the world, but they are jobs, and they're a hell of a lot better than being unemployed or trying to scratch out a living with subsistence farming, having no savings, not being able to afford to educate your children, etc.

Do you personally know, or have you ever even met a peasant in one of these countries? Have you ever been to a poor country?
They are good jobs in the regions they exist in.
It's very easy to look at something like this from a rich, ignorant, spoiled first world perspective and be appalled, but it's also very very wrong (both factually and ethically) to oppose sweatshops.

http://www.valuesandcapitalism.com/reco ... weatshops/

The most reliable thing we can do is (in this case) just let the free market do its job. Where economic disparities are concerned, as long as we prevent monopolies and maintain the rule of law, bubbles ultimately pop, and regional wealth differences tend to diffuse through trade.

Government corruption is a problem. Slavery is a problem. Sweatshops are not; they're a symptom, and a process in the solution.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexrees/8-argu ... #.hp925rnD

"My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few."
-Jeffrey Sachs

Check out that Buzzfeed article, and the links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjsshqyAFh8

alex11230 wrote: If you throw out your iPhone, you still have your bank, which uses the same materials in its servers.

Even if it were wrong (which it is not), that kind of all or nothing mentality isn't useful. Somebody could say there's no point in going vegan since there are animal products in the roads we drive on. It's obviously not the case that imperfect or incomplete effort is useless.

You need to have a much better understanding of economics than you do to try to make economic arguments.

I'm glad this came up as so many people don't see clearly on the issue. Many of the workers in these "sweat shops" are aware that some Westerners refuse to buy their products because of their concerns about the working conditions. These workers are terrified that they will lose their jobs because of this.

It is good to encourage companies to improve the working conditions in their factories, but they will only listen as far as it is profitable. For example, efforts to reduce airborne lint in textile factories will reduce sick days so it makes economical sense to do so.

Don't fool yourself to believe that the working conditions will improve if you and enough other people boycott the product. The factory will simply shut down its operations, leading to even more local misery.

^ And I'd bet Jebus knows personally more workers in these shops than I've met.

It's a special kind of irritating when ignorant Westerners won't even listen to what poor people say they want, and pretend they know what's best for them instead (like shutting down sweatshops).

Jebus wrote: It is good to encourage companies to improve the working conditions in their factories, but they will only listen as far as it is profitable. For example, efforts to reduce airborne lint in textile factories will reduce sick days so it makes economical sense to do so.

To the extent it is profitable, they should.
I'm not sure if they even *should* cut into profits to improve general conditions, though.
Two shitty jobs are better than one marginally less shitty job. People with too much disposable income relative to their peers are more likely to waste it, so it will do more good to spread the money around more.
I'd rather employ two people at $3 a day than one person at $6, from a consequentialist perspective, and improving conditions with things like air conditioning, better ventilation, etc. if it's not profitable, is equivalent to the same waste of money (and reduction in overall jobs available).

What I would improve, and that is virtually free, is transparency -- particularly for the risks of injury, which some people may not be fully aware of.
Things like some kind of insurance for serious injury might make sense for people to choose, because a person losing a hand is much more serious than not having work (because that person can no longer work).
I don't agree with gambling, and I don't think most people (not Westerners, or people in third world countries) have the presence of mind to do proper risk assessment without education on the topic. They should be better educated on WHY they should choose the slightly lower paying job with catastrophic injury insurance vs. the higher paying job without, so they can make more informed choices (which comes back to letting them decide for themselves) in a competitive market (mandating a certain standard of insurance has its own problems, so that may not be a good idea, like people getting hurt intentionally because the insurance payouts are so good and the company has no choice).

I'm hard pressed to think of any case that education would be a bad thing. Very often, though, inflating incomes or purchase prices for goods or produce artificially is bad.