[ale] [Semi-OT] Re: More reasons to adore Microsoft

Thu Apr 15 21:07:04 EDT 2010

---- tom <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote: 
> On Thu, 15 Apr 2010, Jim Kinney wrote:
> 
> > You raise some interesting points. I am just too pessimistic about human
> > behavior when profits are on the line.
> >
> > Notice I said profits and not jobs.
> >
> > The profit part will always trump the job part until the job of the profit
> > maker is on the line. If the American tech companies could get their
> > products made by 4 year olds working until they died on line so profits
> > would go up $0.01 per share, they would sub it out 5k layers deep so it
> > didn't touch them.
> >
> > In the mid 80's a chemical company in W. Germany had an accident and an
> > explosion which led to a large leak of (forgotten) nasty chemical into the
> > Rhine river. It was very bad. It took nearly 10 years for the river to
> > support life again.
> 
> If we are thinking about the same incident, that was a Swiss firm in 
> Basle. Fire in a warehouse or something of that sort, and the drains were 
> not sized for that possibility. And yes, the competition is supposed to 
> have taken advantage of the situation to make their own dump. Whether or 
> not that was ever proved I don't recall at all.
> 
> >
> > Downstream of that plant, another chemical factory heard of the disaster and
> > decided to dump their tanks of toxic waste into the Rhine while the upstream
> > leak was going past.
> >
> > They got caught. The worker who turned the valves was sent to prison for 2
> > years. The supervisor who told him to do it got 5 years. The manager who
> > passed down the order got 7 years. The executive who was in charge of that
> > entire chain of command got 10 years. The company C-level brass were each
> > personally fined millions and forced out by the courts and barred from from
> > holding executive positions in the chemical industry for life. The company
> > was itself was taken by the courts and sold off to their competitors for
> > essentially pennies on the dollar. The stock holders got exactly shafted.
> >
> > The German court did something the US courts are loathe to do - pierce the
> > corporate veil.
> >
> > Number of chemical company dumpings since then - 0
> > Number of accidental dumpings since then - 0 - all of the other companies
> > put in huge retaining walls and extra layers of barriers so they would NEVER
> > get clobbered like that. Germany now has one the most eco-friendly chemical
> > industries in the world. And they are profitiable.
> >
> > So if we want to stop the gross injustices done by companies for profit, our
> > courts have grow a spine and shred the corporate veil. Managers make the
> > decisions and they should be held accountable.
> >
> > So for the China company issue, we can't change things there. But we can
> > grab the execs who made the decision to buy from them by the fiscal throat
> > and shake them like a pit bull. Once they learn that they WILL PERSONALLY be
> > held accountable in court for the business of their company, they will think
> > about their options before they sign deals.
> >
> > If the courts in the Hague had the clout the should have, they would be
> > hauling in some of these international conglomerates for "crimes against
> > humanity" charges for the horrendous labor, pollution and corruption
> > problems they create when they strip a country of it's resources and abuse
> > the poorest of the poor as slaves.
> >
> > Lastly, we, American consumers ( I HATE THAT TERM!!!) are ultimately to
> > blame for lacking the moral, political and intellectual fortitude to not
> > indirectly support things we wouldn't want our children to do or see or know
> > about and instead turn a blind eye to the consequences of our consumption
> > addiction.
> >
> > </soapbox>
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Michael Trausch <mike at trausch.us> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 2010-04-15 at 11:56 -0400, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> >>> Oh boy.  I'll wear asbestos for this.
> >>
> >> Maybe.
> >>
> >>> You did catch that the young man narrating his terrible story was
> >>> supporting his entire family with this job, right?
> >>
> >> Aye, I did.
> >>
> >>> I know that I can choose not to work overtime, but if I don't work
> >>> overtime, then I am stuck with only 770 RMB [$112.67 per month] in
> >>> base wages.  This is not nearly enough to support a family.  My
> >>> parents are farmers without jobs.  They also do not have pensions.  I
> >>> also need to worry about getting married which requires a lot of
> >>> money.
> >>
> >> Yeah, I caught that.  I haven't finished the whole document yet, but I
> >> am pretty far past that point.
> >>
> >>> What do you suppose they will do if we self-righteously boycott the
> >>> factory and it closes? It basically sucks to be poor, especially in a
> >>> poor society. This is not news. I agree that these workers are
> >>> exploited. I agree that Microsoft is helping to facilitate a cruel and
> >>> unjust work environment. But what alternatives do these people have?
> >>
> >> Alright, so we have the following common ground that I can see thus far:
> >>
> >>      * These workers are exploited.
> >>      * Microsoft uses this factory's exploitation of its workers to
> >>        produce product.
> >>      * This exploitation is cruel and unjust, as the word
> >>        "exploitation" implies.
> >>      * That we identify this sort of behavior/exploitation as cruel and
> >>        unjust likely means that we can agree that this is also this
> >>        behavior is generally "wrong", whether you attribute that
> >>        "wrong" to ethical incorrectness, moral incorrectness, or both.
> >>
> >> As to what alternatives these people have---if the situation stays the
> >> same as it is currently, they really don't have much of one other than
> >> to flee their awful environment entirely and take their families with
> >> them if they can at all.  By not using these factories that do these
> >> things that causes harm to the factories.  By extension, it causes harm
> >> to the workers of the factory, temporarily.  The factory will have to
> >> let people go, or increase production requirements, or perform _some_
> >> action which is going to cause temporary injury to the workers that are
> >> there.
> >>
> >> However, if there is a downward trend in the use of such labor,
> >> something will have to change.  That is a certainty.  The places which
> >> employ such labor would have to make changes to keep their clients.  If
> >> that translates to higher prices, so be it.  Is it really worth it to
> >> pay $1 less for a mouse because the people that put it together were
> >> paid a ridiculously small sum of money to do it?  Isn't it worth it to
> >> pay more for that mouse to pay for, at the very least, more fair working
> >> conditions than the labor that is being used there?  I think so.
> >>
> >> If everyone thought that way, what would happen?  These shops would no
> >> longer be profitable.  Therefore, they would no longer operate.  And if
> >> they did find a way to continue operations by only taking business from
> >> people/businesses in their own country, then at the very least we can
> >> say that we aren't perpetuating their means of doing things.  Maybe that
> >> would then be the appropriate time for a trade embargo or some such
> >> thing.  I don't know.
> >>
> >> What I do know is that the type of argument you present is commonly
> >> known as "Morton's Fork".  It is like saying, "by buying Microsoft
> >> products you are encouraging this behavior and therefore causing injury
> >> to these children; by not buying Microsoft products, you are not giving
> >> Microsoft money to give to the factory to give to the children and
> >> therefore causing injury to these children."  It seems to me a somewhat
> >> naïve view of what possible choices there are in a situation such as
> >> this.
> >>
> >> Ultimately, the other thing that I do know is this:  without any change
> >> at all, the system continues on.  Will there always be crap like this?
> >> Probably.  That does not make it right for people to support it, nor
> >> does the fact that the children and family will have to find other means
> >> of income (and businesses will have to find other revenue streams) make
> >> it any more right to support it.  There must be another solution, but
> >> that solution _starts_ with a firm, "No, that's not the type of thing we
> >> support," just as it has many times before with many other companies.
> >>
> >>        --- Mike
> >>
> >> --
> >> Even if their crude and anticompetitive business practices don't make
> >> you think about using their software, their use of sweatshops and child
> >> labor should:  boycott Microsoft like you would any other amoral child
> >> abuser:  http://is.gd/btW8m
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >

The point I think he was trying to make is that since some corporation somewhere (in some anecdotal story we can't verify)  did something bad; therefore ALL for profit corporations are evil.

--
doug mcnash