It's a several edged sword this one. One's relationship to the means of production & relative affluence would alter your relationship to this issue. If you're being paid a decent wage, relative to the weighting of your geographical area and the cost of the product that you're buying, then surely you're ripping people off if you expect them to work harder for their dollar. If you're relatively poor and someone offers you a decent Behringer or whatever, at a knockdown price, you take it. It's not that political conscience is a middle class luxury, it's that political conscience is a consequence of being part of the global elite. When it comes to buying hardware, we all basically have to make our own assessment. I'm not so well off relative to most computer users, rich compared to the world average. I've just cobbled my first computer together out of bits that no-one else wanted & you bet some of those bits were made in sweatshops in China and they didn't get a penny from me. However I've never owned the latest version of anything, my family were the last on the block to get a colour TV &c... My relationship to my means of production allows me to do one significant thing, which in my mind currently outweighs th opposition. I can use free software and show other people in a similar situation to me how to gain access to a world previously only occupied by (relatively affluent) graduates and businessmen. As probably one of the least affluent members of this list I like to say that if any of the rest of you got hold of a copy of one of my CDs, say at a knockdown price from a dodgy vendor, quite honestly, I'd simply be glad you were listening to it. I'm too blown away by having access to all the latest software for the best operating system I've ever seen - to really care. It's done wonders for my little f00f bug P133. Actually, I get a bit emotional about it sometimes. take care & take it often tim hall tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Tuesday 18 February 2003 12:31, Chris Cannam wrote: > Daniel James wrote: > >> South Korea had the same situation into the 70s and 80s. How do > >> you suppose those countries got where they are now? > > > > That assumes 'where those countries are now' is somewhere where we'd > > want to be. Taiwan may be rich but that doesn't mean you'd > > neccessarily want a Taiwanese factory workers lifestyle. > [...] > That part is probably true of any sweatshop phase in a country's > history (British factories in the 18th-19th century or whatever), > but because it's now so easy for the foreign employer to move > production among regions or countries, because these tax-exempt > factory zones are now so widespread, and because the employees > are not directly employed by the company commissioning the work, > there's also little opportunity for a country to attempt any > change to the tax status of the factory zone or its labour laws > once a region has become established, and no possibility for the > factory owner to exert any leverage on the commissioning company. > [...] > I think Taiwan always had more of an opportunist backyard factory > culture in which the tax and working regime of the country as > a whole was favourable to cheap production, but at least the > employees and their families were able to extract some benefit. > > In other words, the newer tax-free zones are not a clever ruse > by the people of these countries to attract foreign investment. > They're designed entirely from the outside, by the corporations > that want to use them and the organisations that promote their > interests, and sold to the governments of the countries involved > in the name of the "obvious" modern benefits of free markets and > capitalist reform. Never mind that this isn't actually how > America became Rich and Free, that's how the idea is sold.
