aelephant

Thanks for the link! Good reading. Whether or not people are working for Foxconn is not up to me. If Foxconn is a horrible company that tortures it's employees, then those people should leave. If there are other people who are willing to be tortured, then that is their choice. We can only assume that people make rational choices, so working for Foxconn & being tortured must necessarily be better than the alternative for the people who choose to work there. The only time buying an iPhone becomes a moral question is when there has been a violation of morality -- when force has been initiated. As long as people are not being *forced* to work for Foxconn against their will, buying an iPhone is supporting the business that is offering its employees the best possible benefits. If there were better benefits elsewhere, Foxconn's employees would go work there instead.

So I brought this up to my friend, & they basically equated buying a stolen phone to buying a phone made by people in less than ideal conditions. Basically, if I refuse to buy a stolen phone, it only has the desired effect if *everyone* refuses to buy a stolen phone. In an economy like China's, even if I refuse to work in Foxconn because the working conditions are poor, there are plenty of people who will be willing to. How would you respond?

So I had a very short discussion with a friend of mine about why she won't buy an iPhone. I remembered I had read that the working conditions at Foxconn are actually much better than working conditions elsewhere because everything has to be very clean when working with delicate electronics. She countered by saying, "Just because the working conditions are better, doesn't mean they are good." At the time I didn't know how to respond, but a few minutes later what popped into my head was, "Compared to what?" I think it didn't come to mind immediately because her argument was already a "Compared to what?" kind of argument. If Foxconn is the best possible job that person X can get, you are (in part) depriving person X of the best possible job he can get by NOT buying an iPhone. If no one bought iPhones & Foxconn closed it's doors, what would happen to all of the people employed there? Go back to making footballs or shoes? Go into the sex trade? Just curious how others would have responded. (PS I don't think it is immoral to not buy an iPhone)

I was looking at some of the claims made in the section about Japan & had a hard time finding anything to support them. Specifically, I found 2 claims: 1. Japanese children were swaddled & placed into "ejoko" boxes, which gave them a psychological fear of being surrounded or enclosed. A Google search for "ejoko", "ejoko japan", "ejoko box japan" turns up nothing, as far as I can tell. The reference in the text is to deMause's own journal. 2. Incest, particularly mother-son incest, is rampant in Japan. This seems to be a media perpetuated myth as far as I can tell. The reference in the book is a reference to an article published by deMause in his own journal. Wikipedia references historical incest (which occured in many countries, not only Japan) & a Google search only produces results either a) discrediting this claim or b) citing deMause. It could be that no one else has research or published about these topics, but it seems unlikely. It could be that such research or publications have been suppressed to "save face". I just don't know. Maybe someone with better Google skills than I can find some supporting evidence. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Interesting! I didn't know about the train incident. I thought they just wanted to control the media reporting until they had their story well-rehearsed. Regarding making people disappear, I've heard about plain clothes police officers abducting journalists, never processing them officially, never telling them their being charged with any crime, confiscating their equipment & then releasing them after the event they were attempting to cover has blown over. To me if you can pick someone up off the street & hold them prisoner with no repercussions, it would be just as easy to hold them indefinitely or dispose of them. Quite scary to think about.

Really appreciate your reply. It is fascinating to read about. I talked with some of my Chinese coworkers & they basically said that because the government controls the military & there is no alternative government, that is why the Communist Party is still in power. I do think the CP is still quite ruthless, they are just able to do it in a way that it doesn't get sensationalized. The other part is that they control the mainstream media almost completely, so the only place it would get it out is on the Internet or person to person. I believe that if an individual were hurting the government, they would make that person disappear immediately, no questions asked. I've heard it said that a government that feels it has to control everything so tightly (the media, the censorship on the internet, etc) is a very fragile government. It makes some sense. The CP could also be fragile in the sense that within the party, there have to be struggles over who will wield what power & what will be passed on to whose kids.

I enjoyed these 2 podcasts, but it got me thinking, what is going on with China? Stef points out that Kings stay in power by changing "you can't overthrow me" to "you mustn't overthrow me"; if you do, you're a sinner & you'll burn in hell or whatever. In states like the US, politicians stay in power by claiming they have the right to power because they were voted for. In China they are atheists, so there is no threat of sin or punishment after death AND they aren't voted for. Is China setup just like a proto-human tribe where the alpha is only in power because no one is strong enough to overthrow him? Just curious if Stef or anyone else has any thoughts about this. Hopefully I've understood the podcast. If I've made any mistakes please correct me. Cheers! - aelephant