Designed by Apple in California, Assembled (by Slaves) in China

If you have read other posts you may know that I am not a fan of the introduction of Apple products in public institutions like universities (for the only reason that I do not believe tax-payer monies should be spent on boutique brands).  And while I have to grudgingly admire the success of the company, especially its incredibly successful marketing, I have to admit that I am probably more open than most to critical stories about the company and its products.  And I will be the first to admit that it is unfair to single out Apple in the above headline because the subject matter of this post in reality is a much wider problem and affects many Western corporations.

What caught my eye today was a story that Foxconn workers were ‘upping’ the pressure on management of the Chinese manufacturing company and threatening mass suicide if their demands over working conditions were not met:

‘Mass suicide’ protest at Apple manufacturer Foxconn factory
Malcolm Moore, Daily Telegraph (Jan. 11, 2012)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9006988/Mass-suicide-protest-at-Apple-manufacturer-Foxconn-factory.html

This is not a joke (or an Onion article).  Foxconn has become infamous for having to install nets around its factories in order to dissuade its workers from publicly committing suicide to protest unbearable working conditions.  This is a fact that I mention to my students as much as I can because it is indicative of the realities of North American technology consumption: our corporations ‘design’ the products, which are then manufactured and assembled in mostly Asian countries where labour is cheap, where labour laws are weak or–more commonly–virtually non-existent, and where rules governing pollution or working conditions are overseen by a authoritarian government (meaning they are really, really bad).

As I said, it is unfair to single out Apple because it is rare to find anything ‘tech’ related today that is manufactured in Western nations and by Western citizens.  But Apple stands out because it is considered as a premiere brand and the cult of Apple/SteveJobs is so strong that often its adherents are completely clueless as to how the company operates.  I see this constantly where I work as many assume that Apple products are somehow different from the product category in which they come from.  Macs, according to Apple Logic, are not PCs, even though the guts of a Mac are the very same components which show up in competitors’ products.  In many cases, as with the Apple A5 chip that is found in the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, components are actually manufactured by competitors (with respect to the A5, it is made by Samsung).  Again, why this is not recognized is all due to the strength of Apple’s pervasive marketing but it still does not paper over the fact (for those paying attention anyway) that Western companies–and by extension the emotional branding and satisfaction that we often derive from a inexpensive tech gadgets–are completely dependent upon the exploitation of people and resources in distant lands.  And with a company like Apple that is sitting on a mountain of cash (stashed in overseas bank accounts so as to not have to pay taxes in the U.S.) and which enjoys a seemingly ‘untarnishable’ reputation, it is sad that so many are so misinformed about the actual circumstances surrounding the company’s operations.

Can anyone say, ‘commodity fetishism’?