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So I have an LG television, and now I'm always going to wonder if it came from the same factory and its construction utilized the same dangerous equipment. Does give me a sick feeling after reading this.

I'm considering replacing it, but how would that even happen? We have farms that pledge ethical treatment of animals, but I can't even think of an electronics manufacture that pledges any kind of ethical treatment of factory workers. That's pretty sad. I'm sure that Samsung factories, for example, have similar conditions.

The sad part is that all of these factory workers are just placeholders until robotic technology advances a bit more.

3 comments

This is why the notion of “voting with your dollar” as a hedge against deregulated industries behaving unethically is the worst joke in lassaiz-faire capitalism.

> I'm considering replacing it.

LG uses planned obsolesence. So it'll bust a capacitor within 5 years. You can replace it yourself for around $20 if you have the tools, but most get a new TV from a different brand.

> ... all of these factory workers are just placeholders until robotic technology advances a bit more.

Sorry, that's a cop-out. I somewhat agree with you up until that point, and the sad truth is probably that the only way to avoid feeding the beast is not own smartphones or advanced electronics. Full-stop. Which leaves you hanging out with Stallman. Each of us makes this call.

But to say that "all of these [people]" are just placeholders, and robotics is just "a bit" further away strikes me as rationalizing. We're probably several decades from wide-spread, pervasive, advanced robotics automation. Heck, auto assembly lines and such have had advanced robotics for several decades already. A whole-sale transition to a post-worker economy is definitely not just-around-the-corner. As a society -- let alone a global population -- we have never succeeded in reducing day-to-day work, despite all the automation we have at our disposal. We just set out expectations higher, to something that still takes 40-hour work weeks to accomplish.

I didn't mean that as a rationalization--it actual makes the exploitation even worse, I think. I feel like the momentum of research around factories is invested in reducing the number of human workers rather than making conditions better for the ones still needed. That's the inevitable direction to head, but it does create a lost generation.

Meanwhile, you are right--we'e had advanced robotics for a long time. But I feel there's recently been an explosion in computer vision; the kind of thing that's only recently made driverless cars a practical reality. Combined with the crash in costs for computational power, I think we're about to witness a moment in history where the march towards automation is going to become really accelerated.

"We're probably several decades from wide-spread, pervasive, advanced robotics automation. Heck, auto assembly lines and such have had advanced robotics for several decades already. A whole-sale transition to a post-worker economy is definitely not just-around-the-corner."

It's not as simple as "is the technology there". It's a balancing act between costs. Is it cheaper to hire people to work these factories, or is it cheaper to dump some R&D money into robotics and then install them? There's also a degree of uncertainty with the robotics, but ultimately workers can be replaced either because robots become cheaper or because workers become more expensive.

It's really not a rationalization because I don't feel it justifies mistreating workers, but it's worth keeping in mind that there is a tipping point. Part of the problem is that you or I or the workers on the line have no idea what that tipping point is, which creates a lot of FUD, which corporations happily exploit. "Oh, you really don't want to ask for benefit Y, that just might make the robots cheaper...".

And as far as people still working 40 hours a week, you're right. But what do you think this lady is going to do (even if she had her hands) if the robots replace factory workers? McDonalds is already doing some pilots of replacing their in-shop workers with robots, and the cashiers are now just kiosks. How long is it before all the low skill jobs are gone, and the displaced workers don't have the money to learn skills?

Depends. An acquaintance of mine moved his small textile plant from Italy to India in 2009, and ended up not even unpacking a good third of the machinery because it was cheaper to do those tasks by hand, and because having a higher employee count helped with local politics.

Is it justified to create a market for abuse if the want for what is produced is strong enough?