Ethical supply chains will become a badge of honor in the future for the upper class who can afford it... but the masses consuming the majority of the products driving the price down to slave-labor proportions will require a cultural change.
There is something deep in human nature that sees something it wants and narrows our thoughts to just getting that item. Maybe its a holdover from our Hunter/Gatherer instincts. But we seem to be using it to hack our minds to ignore the damage we do to our fellow humans in the process of acquiring.
We may need to aspouse minimalist ideology at a mass scale (something I see in fellow Gen Yers.)
Around half of all eggs laid in the UK come from free range hens (1) - I believe this increasing proportion is partly due to a sticker requirement to mark eggs with 'Eggs from caged hens'.
I wonder what effect there would be on the electronics industry if all iPhones in the EU had to be sold with a prominent sticker 'Produced with slave labour' ? I honestly think that regulations can nudge the behaviour and expectations of 'the masses' through this kind of labelling.
The problem is that "free range" is easy to define.
Which criteria should we label for that are meaningful in other countries across the world?
Made by workers:
Receiving Minimum wage (which one)?
Receiving Free healthcare?
Working a maximum of 8 hours / day?
Over the age of 16? 18?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but defining what is acceptable is not easy. Don't forget that in most western countries no access to free healthcare would be defined as unacceptable. Also in some poor countries 14 year old "kids" have fought against anti-child labour laws because they were the only provider for their family and there is no help from the government regardless of your condition.
"Free range" actually isn't so easily defined, and most "free range" eggs, come from hens living in conditions that most reasonable people would still consider absolutely appalling.
Yea, now I aim for pasture raised which is essentially the gold standard here in the USA and implies the hens lived primarily outdoors and ate what they wanted.
Lots of time "free range" is the same as caged, just... without the cages. The hens are too fat to go anywhere anyways.
"Free range" isn't the label used in the example you replied to, but "from caged hens".
The problem isn't trying to define meaningful labels, but to record the most salient facts. For starters: record and disseminate the human hours exerted and wage paid for each manufactured item.
2 Assemblers @ 1 hr/each @ $2/hr
1 Packager @ 1 minute @ $1/hr
etc
Consumers may then dynamically choose based on their current preferences. I don't think it's an ideal system, but it would be a significant improvement over the current situation.
That makes sense to me. If we accept that the market isn't perfect, and that all participants do not have perfect information (or even as a corollary market participants will not always recall or connect known information to the transaction they are considering), then increasing awareness of market information allows the market to perform better. In this case, people want free range eggs for whatever reason (there could be many, but I'm sure we can all think of the obvious ones), and making them aware of that helps them make that decision.
Imagine a state passing a law requiring stickers like that, but not outright banning items known to be produced by slave labour. The message would basically be that yes, we are fully aware that some products are made with slave labour and we are OK with that (as long as it's clearly marked).
I agree! I the US we have focused more on branding the positive aspects (local, organic) and socially stigmatizing the negative (e.g. labeling smoking). But as I mention above, that ends up making a class distinction more than real change.
It's impossible to prove that the entire supply chain for any electronic device is 100% free of exploitative labour conditions. Metals are fundamentally untraceable and a modern device contains components from hundreds or even thousands of suppliers, sub-contractors and second sources. All it takes is one manager twenty steps down in the supply chain to lose a piece of paper and your chain of custody is broken for a sizeable batch of devices.
In practice, every electronic device would be required to carry such a warning label simply as a precaution, rendering it meaningless.
The point the article seems to be making, though, is that pretty much everything is made with slave labor. Phones, computers, tabletops, tombstones, shrimp, fish, steel, sugar - everything. So you'd be slapping the "Produced with slave labor" label on everything, which probably wouldn't change behavior.
> Ethical supply chains will become a badge of honor in the future for the upper class who can afford it
The same society whose middle and lower classes are demanding ever lower prices at the cost of inhumane treatment of workers is the same society which produces the upper class you hold that hope for. I think you must be living in a different world than I am, because the upper class I'm familiar with is just as happy as everyone else to have their goods produced by the not-quite-but-almost-slave labor described in the article.
I agree that this will require a cultural change, but at all levels. The upper class isn't going to jump on that any sooner than the rest of us without a major shift.
The badge of honor is, of course, meant pharisaically.
The upper class I'm familiar with consumes products by people like Brunello Cucinelli who goes to great lengths to verify the ethical sourcing of his products. They eat localvorically, and in general buy ulta-high end goods that they research a bit before purchasing (because they are finicky about many aspects). This new hobby is a ultra-status conversation piece that can be traded at parties. You should be able to name the region your boat deck's teak came from, and then drop that the hunting rifle you just had hand crafted has a recovered Lebanese cedar stock that came from an old chest of drawers.
Ethical sourcing is privilege, yes, and status as well.
That doesn't mean it's wrong.
Food in particular is a source for this controversy. Over the past fifty years, the population of the planet has doubled, but food cost as a proportion of the economy has halved. This is due to the techological advances of "green revolution" agriculture - tractors, transportation, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Cheap food comes at the price of health and environmental damage, among other things. (want slavery? Check out the chocolate supply chain.) And it's not a huge luxury to eat more ethical foods. Middle class people can afford it.
For the middle class, it requires you spend more money that you likely don't have on an intangible benefit that doesn't factor into your bottom line equation. Upper class folk will concern themselves with Davos-esque visioneering, societal progress, and "downshifting" as their free time and resources allow themselves to explore new ethical practices.
The true middle class is focusing on critical value trade offs (getting more for your money) and family unit stability. This narrows their energy away from the broader problems and closer to matters of survival. Consider how even Whole Foods or "Goop" is seen by your average middle class individual -- a spot for dilettantes to overpay for apples rather than a representation of hope for working farmers and healthy children.
I think the upper-class must steer away from the concerns of themselves and shoring up their wealth and towards a reinvestment on society, something the recession in the US and depots in Russia and China have set back as members now fear assets could disappear at any time. A portion of the super-class (Gates, Buffet etc) have already tried to evangelize this with some progress -- whilst facing opponents like the Kochs and others who seem to have a more socially adverse ideology.
Depends on where you live, maybe. Here in Minneapolis, quality food is a thing, not just for the rich, but for the middle class and even the poor. Sure, there are always tradeoffs, but we're not living on the McDonalds dollar menu and Maruchan Ramen - not if we can afford better, and most can.
The real cost of quality food isn't so much money as time. My daughter does most of the cooking for the household, because she loves it. She spends a couple of hours a day at it. I love to cook too, but I don't spend hours a day cooking, because it's not a good tradeoff in my life.
What happens everywhere, they go find something else to do. And the odds of that being ethically better go up as fewer at the top order from unethical suppliers.
Current failings of our world are not excuses not to improve it, or to be better people.
On another note, a personal attack is not appreciated here, regardless of where I work. Your comment history is rich with these types of things. We are happy to have you here, but please think about contributing more constructively.
Lets assume it costs more to make a job ethical (fewer hours, higher pay etc) - otherwise why not do it now? This means higher prices for consumers, so they now buy fewer products. This means less products need to be produced, so fewer persons are employed in making these ethical products. What happens with the workers who are now redundant?
Concretely, if an iPhone is replaced on average every other year but goes up 30% to the the ePhone (ethical phone) it is now only replaced every 3 years. This means fewer ephones are produced, which means that roughly 1/3 of the workforce is no longer required. What are those 1/3 to do?
The question here is really "Do they have the resources to move to where the work is?" Immigration to work better and earn more, whether temporarily or permanently, has been happening since transportation became a thing. Go to Dubai and see how many Pakistanis are doing jobs there. Or look in the average American commercial kitchen and count the Mexican and other latino immigrants.
Almost everyone in America is a descendant of immigrants, for that matter. In many cases, those immigrants were fleeing violence and persecution, their passage paid by overlords who felt it was very decent and moral of them to ship the people overseas rather than just killing them off (i.e. the Irish in America).
Those help, yes. Not absolutely necessary, though - every wealthy country in the world relies on illegal immigrants. Transportation is more of an issue (and can itself turn into a form of indentured servitude).
It is impossible in the near term. One only needs to look at what happened when protest against child labor resulted in companies no longer using child labor in their supply chains. Ideally, those children should've been cared for by welfare, but in many places thew welfare system either wasn't there, wasn't able to handle the change, or it was too slow to aid. Many of those children ended up in a worse situation; some even changing to even worse illegal professions to survive.
Now, in the long run, that will be better than just keeping the status quo. But we should remember that a quick change can be significantly worse in the short term, especially one where the focus is incorrectly applied (in these cases, the focus is on goods being produced by a child labor instead of the conditions that result in children working to begin with; ending the child labor does not end the conditions and will sometimes make things much worse).
This is an important lesson. Even the most noble of intentions come with unintended consequences.
It's one thing if the situation was a matter of children being forced to work. If a kid finds work on purpose to help himself or his family eat and you suddenly make it illegal without removing the NEED for him to have to work to help his family then you've made the situation worse while instituting a policy to make yourself feel better.
My view on politics as I've gotten old has gone squarely to the singular point: No complaints. No rules. Solutions or shut up.
If generations are exploited and then we decide we can no longer carry the ethical burden of exploitation, then we have a responsibility to help them recover as well (or hell, reparations).
But in these "We must keep the slaves so they don't starve" arguments, there's always a nasty whiff of condescension - the implication that they cannot care for themselves, without handouts. Given freedom and sufficient resources, most people will choose to better their circumstances. Humans fed themselves for a long time before they were enslaved. Getting back to feeding themselves may not be easy, but it's certainly not impossible.
I poked at a different part of this post, but I'm glad you replied with tihs. You've isolated a big problem with the rhetoric in this thread. Kipling would be nodding at a whole bunch of it.
The problem in the responses is the logical inconsistency.
In my reply, I said if they were being forced to work (aka - slaves) it was not okay but if they went out and choose to work it was another story.
In your response you cited a "we must keep the slaves so they don't starve" argument...which is not at all what I said. That's the logical disconnect that happens in many political discussions of these types. You're arguing with something I didn't say unless I'm misreading you, because it partially looks like you're agreeing with me as well regarding people choosing to better their circumstances.
They're slaves because they are prohibited from bettering their circumstances. Now, if you abolish the slavery and then say "You're free now! Go better yourself!" without giving them any resources with which to do so - if they lack the tools to feed themselves - they'll starve, yes.
To better themselves, they need to be able to make something where they're at, or be able to go somewhere else. If they're sitting on ruined land, unable to leave, that's a problem that can't be solved with mere hard work. But that's a problem that would not have happened without the slavery in the first place.
> My view on politics as I've gotten old has gone squarely to the singular point: No complaints. No rules. Solutions or shut up.
This is a really good way to make sure that important things aren't talked about (and, it should go without saying, disproportionately hurts already marginalized people even further). Complaints about a situation are step one of finding a collaborative solution. It may take time to get there, and the process might be annoying (heaven forfend). But I would suggest considering the circumstances you find yourself in that allows you to find them annoying, and being charitable about the search for a solution instead of decreeing from on high.
I expect people who are not in positions of decision making power to talk about things and complain about things.
I expect people who are campaigning on the basis of those complaints to be able to explain why the problem is a problem and exactly how they plan to solve it along with the expected ramifications of their solution.
Campaigning on complaints without being able to extrapolate those details is essentially nothing more than pandering.
> Complaints about a situation are step one of finding a collaborative solution.
Can parties opt-out of your definition of a collaborative solution, or does your definition of collaborative include forcing people to participate, whether they wish to do so or not?
Of course you can opt-out. But rejection goes both ways: we live in a society, and there are consequences to being asocial and antisocial, and depending on the problem, and the solution, that might be a thing. But you can always leave if something's so untenable, if you can find somewhere with rules more to your liking.
Can I choose not to leave, if I respect other people's natural rights?
My issue about leaving is that if I have done nothing wrong, I shouldn't have to flee from others who wish to violate my rights. Instead, they should respect my right to be unmolested.
Interested in your thoughts, if you wish to expand on this topic.
I tend to fall in line with Rousseau in that "natural rights" are not relevant in a societal context and that what we conceive of as rights exist only in the context of the society that grants them--basic social-contract stuff, subordination to the general will rather than subordination to the will of other citizens being as close to optimal as a practical society is likely to become. I think that the notion of "rights" as something sacrosanct is frankly hilarious and that jurisprudence should not rely on them, but rather build upon the notions of the body politic (and in practice this is what happens; see the contortions in many SCOTUS rulings that are a legalistic form of "yeah, we get it, the zeitgeist has spoken"). This has its drawbacks--demagoguery is a threat, for one--but I contend that there isn't a better method that doesn't enshrine one particular group of people as being Special Enough to enjoy a place of permanent privilege.
To that end, there is no "right to be unmolested", and I would underline that particularly for--given the context of this thread--conceived-of rights that effectively serve to provide legal supremacy over other people. (Of which we have many.) "Done nothing wrong" can mean very different things to very different people, and while I am not in favor of ex post facto convictions or anything of the like, I am in favor of amending the rules to the game to be more equitable and, I hold, thus better for the aggregate of humanity--and enforcing them to that end.
So, no. The general will sets the rules of the road, and dissenters can comply (and seek to change that general will if they so choose; part of the societal privilege to try to change that general will is the societal responsibility to obey it when it breaks against you), accept the consequences of civil disobedience (the abrogation of the aforementioned responsibility in hopes of demonstrating injustice to encourage a change in that general will), or leave (fold your hand). As it happens, there are cases where I'd do the second and a couple where I'd do the third.
Source? I have a hard time believing that. If companies really stopped using kids in their supply chains, common sense would be for more adults to find jobs, which would result in better conditions for other kids.
In other words focusing on "conditions" misses the whole point: child labor is anticompetitive because it's all about lowering prices by exploiting the weak and the defenseless. Thinking about the "conditions" won't move the needle, not as long as child labor remains competitive. Child labor would happen near you if the law would allow it, because it makes economic sense to hire children instead of adults for half the price and there are always poor people to exploit.
Also, have you ever considered that some of those exploited children were born because child labor is a possibility?
One should not forget that an economy is a very complex beast, any changes have far reaching consequences and that doing the right thing is never easy.
Basic income is easy and would solve all of these problems. Just ensure everyone has the capital to satisfy their basic needs. Then if child labor emerged near me I'd know it was inspired by self-discipline or ambition and not poverty. I wanted to work when I was 14 but I wasn't allowed to. Apparently my employment was caught in the crossfire of the rich people exploiting poor kids and the regulators trying to stop them. You can't just ban the employment of poor kids. That's certain to fail politically. So ban the employment of all kids? Ugh. It doesn't have to be like this. Just make it impossible to be poor. You can say that it just changes what it means to be poor. In fact that's essential. When someone with food, shelter and the unsatisfied desire for an Xbox can't see themselves as poor it is only because there is someone poorer. I can't compete with this poorer person's desperation for security. They would do anything for food and shelter. Despite being a member of this new poor class I'm totally secure. I just want an Xbox. I won't enter a job market that is merely good enough for the desperate until I am also sufficiently desperate. Like much of America is becoming. The only solution to this problem is to extinguish the status quo of insecurity. The poorest of the poor need to be secure or soon none of us will be.
"Are you seriously suggesting that a humane system of production is impossible?"
I am reminded of Joseph Campbell:
“Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order."
No, there is not going to be pure and blameless system of production and consumption.
"Pure and blameless" need not be our standard for "humane". At the least we can accept that a system of production better than the one we have is possible; let's start there. For example, enforcing the existing debt slavery laws and having labeling laws indicating this status would be a great start.
The inhumane supply chain is feeding them because it won't allow them to feed themselves. Humans fed themselves for many thousands of years before the modern mechanisms of oppression were introduced. Remove the oppression, and they'll go right back to it.
The point is, without the exploitation, they would care for themselves. The original argument suggested that modern slaves would not be able to feed themselves without their masters providing the food. That's wrong.
The problem is you can't do a full social change. If all you do is stop the undesirable labor, you can end up with people unable to feed themselves. This has happened before with ending child labor.
I do, actually. Human civilization is 3-5 times older than the Romans, and human existence a hundred times older. The Romans had steel (swords and shackles), literacy, and a sophisticated transportation network. What we have today is just refinements on Roman ideas.
On HN, most people think of an iPhone3 as some sort of incomprehensible antique from the Dark Ages.
The point, though, is that Roman slavery wasn't very different from modern slavery. They had all the key elements we do - the tools to both imprison humans en masse and exploit natural resources, a standardized transportation network to move both troops to where the exploitation happened and and remove goods from where the exploitation happened, literacy and bureaucracy to manage large-scale, ongoing enterprises, etc. And of course, they had their moral rationalizations for brutality, especially brutality that happened somewhere out of sight.
Without metal, without roads, without heavy transport, without structured military units, without literacy, the tools for mass enslavement really don't exist.
Going from Hunter Gathers to farmers may have been humanities worst mistake, but we are so far past the carrying capacity of earth as human-gathers that we would have to kill 99.999% of the population to be able to feed the rest without agriculture and even the survivors would have to forgo things like antibiotics.
I trust regulatory policy much more than badges of honor. I always laugh when I see "fair trade coffee". Is it really fair trade? Do most people care about it? Would the socially conscious hipster just as easily drink non-fair trade coffee if the budget got tight or they thought no one was looking?
You can't depend on people to do the right thing. That's why we have laws. International labor laws will hopefully one day become a thing. In the meantime we have trade agreements. We shouldn't allow import of slave produced goods to western societies. IMHOP.
Maybe we'd make more progress if we stopped denigrating people for trying to do what they can. It may not be enough, but at least some people are trying to do _something_. But when you put people down this way, it makes them less likely to do anything, because no one wants to be labeled as vacuous and superficial (AKA "hipster").
I think this is a valid pushback against making lifestyle changes that are "something" but not meaningful, especially when this is used as a social cudgel. You don't get brownie points for rubbing other people's noses in the ineffective shit that you do in order to make yourself feel fuzzier.
Anecdotally, FWIW. I've been a vegetarian for about ten years. I'm not religious, but came to this decision after a lot of thought and reflection about my own ethics. I have no illusions that my behavior will help animals, meat packers, etc.; I just wasn't comfortable being a party to that system any longer.
I've been surprised, at times, that others can interpret this personal decision about my own behavior and beliefs as some "social cudgel" that I am wielding against them. I guess it doesn't take much to leap from "oh, are you a vegetarian?" to "you must think eating meat is unethical," to "you must think I'm evil for eating this burger," to "annoying snobby vegetarians, always acting superior and rubbing it in your nose."
Anyway. That hipster buying his fair-trade coffee might not be doing it to insult you. It might be something he's read about, thought about, and decided he cares about. He might figure that mostly it's an empty gesture, but maybe it'll do some good. If you want to buy some other coffee, he might be totally OK with that. Of course, YMMV.
As someone who's been vegan for eight years, I can empathize. There are definitely a lot of people very threatened by it.
That said, I think the "socially-conscious hipster" is less likely to be vegetarian or vegan and more likely to buy "free range" eggs and eat "happy meat". The thing that makes them hipsters is their lack of commitment and their willingness to abandon the position once something more hip comes along.
I'm sorry, I don't see any denigration. Just an example of human nature being human nature. I'm sure you can think of plenty more if the term "hipster" bothers you.
"I always laugh when I see "fair trade coffee". Is it really fair trade? Do most people care about it?"
Some people do care. Enough for an ever-growing range of products that are part of the Fairtrade scheme.
In the UK, the Fairtrade logo is almost universally recognised by consumers because you can find fair trade products in just about every supermarket (obviously the number of products varies by supermarket, but even discount Supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi stock a few items).
One major supermarket in the UK (Sainsbury's) sources all it's bananas under the fair trade scheme.
Fair trade has its critics and perhaps the scheme fails at times to live up to its ideals, but it's still a scheme worthy of support. And I'm glad it's going strong (at least in the UK - I think other countries have their own versions).
Here's an excellent blog post from the Fairtrade foundation on some common misconceptions about fair trade
Ya well... nothing human is perfect. Doesn't mean it can't be better (and it will be). But regulation generally trumps people behaving ethically on their own. Sadly.
Also, couldn't small bribes also be a problem in things like fair trade certification?
well, except that in a way.. regulation comes from the government, which is the collective us. I prefer that the government spends some money to work out what regulation would be useful so that the collective us can spend our money on fairly traded goods (as an example) rather than every person in the collective having to do that research constantly to overcome the hard sell and marketing lies that are produced to facilitate somebody making a quick buck and externalising costs which I wouldn't otherwise wish to pay.
As an example, if the government says that in truth, gravestones imported from India are largely produced by slave labor and then it refuses to admit them into the country. That means, that when my relative died and I am not really in a frame of mind to research the supply chain of the headstones and the sellers lay on the hard sell, I can still be assured that I am not funding this terrible system. I would welcome that..
There is something deep in human nature that sees something it wants and narrows our thoughts to just getting that item. Maybe its a holdover from our Hunter/Gatherer instincts. But we seem to be using it to hack our minds to ignore the damage we do to our fellow humans in the process of acquiring.
We may need to aspouse minimalist ideology at a mass scale (something I see in fellow Gen Yers.)