American left calls for violating Chinese worker’s human rights

[Jon Letendre]

Since a person owns herself, so she also owns her labor. She can sell some of it, or none of it—that’s a basic human right. It is why slavery is wrong—it forces labor from her, whether remunerated, or not. The issue is her consent. If her consent is present, it can’t be slavery.

Imagine a man whittling little wooden sculptures. He does it all day long, because he likes to and he sells the sculptures to buy food. He doesn’t like hunger, so he whittles. Now along comes an American leftie asking how many hours he whittles per day. Fourteen. The American leftie asks why he works so much. The man explains why but the leftie seems not to understand, stays fixated on the inhumanely long hours, and walks away determined to get a law passed to prevent such long hours, which, in his deeply confused mind constitute slavery. Now the whittler is in prison for violating a “fair and humane labor law.”

Two days ago, NPR did some follow-up on their fairytale story about working conditions in Apple’s contractor’s factories. A lady, a Chinese labor market expert, reported that workers can and do quit and switch jobs often (consent.)

This morning NPR did more follow-up: Apple paid for an independent audit of conditions and the major problem discovered is the long working hours. In the same report, one third of the thousands of workers interviewed said their top complaint is: they want more hours.

A legal limit on their work hours — hours they consent to and want to work — is a clear violation of their human rights, as plain and clear as slavery and the imprisonment of the whittler.

[BaalChatzaf]

A legal limit on their work hours — hours they consent to and want to work — is a clear violation of their human rights, as plain and clear as slavery and the imprisonment of the whittler.

The worker takes two or more jobs. Problem solved.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jon,

I notice that the complainers almost all use Apple products, or their kids do.

I wonder why they are not complaining about how cheap the items are. At the buying time, the time they take out their wallets, their concern about Chinese workers seems to take a hike.

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

Hi Michael,

Many customers feel guilty, they seem to imagine that if they met one of the workers they would be told: “Please stop buying Apple products. Demand for those products is the cause of my misery in a sweatshop,” when really they would be told: “Please don’t stop buying the products!” Without this job it’s back to the countryside for me, or to work in a real sweatshop instead of here, pressing chips into place and snapping cases together.”

It’s not the fault of Apple, Foxconn or Apple customers that Chinese workers have meager options compared to Americans. No, that’s Marx’s fault, Mao’s fault. Buying their goods is part of the solution for them, not the problem. As more capital gets invested, productivity of labor will rise and wages with it, as they have been, dramatically, and without unions.

Apple customers of the world! Stop buying the leftist crap and confusions! You have nothing but your silly, unearned guilt to lose!