As an owner of several Apple products, I’ve been tracking the disturbing story of working conditions inside the Foxcomm factory in China, where the iPad is assembled. People tend to forget that the relative low cost of our electronics are not just the result of technology, but also of the continued exploitation of labor. According to an undercover report,
Liu had his most interesting chats with other workers during meals. Some told him that they envied workers who are sick. They get leave approvals and can get some rest. They also discussed about accidents in the factory: One worker got his finger cut-off during production. A few workers think that the machines are cursed. They believe it’s dangerous for them to use the machines.
Another worker spoke about one of the favorite activities in the factory lines: He likes to drop stuff on the floor. Why? Workers spend achingly up to eight hours standing up, so they feel that squatting down to grab a fallen object is the most restful moment of their working day…
According to one worker, they can’t live without these dreams. They dream of becoming rich one day. Some spend part of their salaries buying lottery tickets and betting on horse races.
Of course, these working conditions would be no news if it weren’t for the wave of suicides in the factory.
Apple as well as Foxcomm executives are responding as one would expect, with stress counselors, psychiatrists, and false promises. Oh, they’re even installing a nets as deterrents.
It’s obvious to anyone that these are band-aids and aren’t addressing the root problem. Of course, wage increases or better working conditions wouldn’t accomplish that either. The fundamental problem is that in industrial capitalism, workers are alienated from the fruits their labor. These psychological damanges should surprise no one, as Karl Marx saw this alienation as a systemic part of capitalism. The exploitation that inherently occurs along with it certainly reduces the workers’ material standard of living, but that’s only half the problem. The idea that these conditions are unique to Apple, Foxcomm, or China is simply naive.
Forget about Apple. Everything for sale inexpensively in the US today is because of labor exploitation. Apologists say that those people wouldn’t have any jobs otherwise and would still be poking sticks in the ground for a subsistence living.
Meanwhile, the workers of the developed world are seeing their accustomed lifestyle threatened by forced competition with the wages and benefits of workers in emerging countries. They have already been forced into taking on unsustainable debt to sustain their standard of living for some time, and they are tapped out. The great leveling is taking place, and it is having a profound effect on the developed world as well.
Nick, you said, “[...] workers are alienated from the fruits their labor.”
What does this mean?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
It means a few things: the repetitive nature of industrial labor means that the worker has no relationship with the object s/he is creating; the product is ultimately appropriated and sold by someone not involved in the labor process; and (although this is more generally called exploitation) the profit generated by that appropriation and sale is never controlled or spoken for by the worker.
“Alienation” is an important philosophical, psychological, medical, and legal term. Philosophically, it means separating what naturally belongs together.
The economic idea is that workers invest something of themsevles into what they produce, and economic rent, that is, profit in excess of a reasonable return on investment, alienates or separates workers from the value they create to this extent.
Marx’s idea of “surplus value” is that a product is worth the materials and work that go into it, and profit is an expropriation of the value of that workers create, since there is no surplus value to be gained from the materials. Marx’s analysis has been criticized by inadequate to the facts of modern technological societies in which innovation and ROI play a role.
Contemporary Marxists can admit that Marx’s analysis is dated but that the principle still applies, namely, that there is just profit that rewards all contributions proportionately and that “excess profit,” i..e., economic rent, remains an expropriation of the surplus value of labor and amounts to exploitation.
This is a problem now for two reasons: First, developed societies have experienced a growth of productivity recently for which workers have not been proportionately compensated. Workers complain that they are being under-compensated, while owners point out that the increase in productivity has come from technological innovation, not harder work. Workers counter that technological innovation requires smarter work.
Secondly, a great deal of work that is not yet automated is being offshored to take advantage of lower labor costs (wages, benefits, and protections). The fungible nature of labor in a globalized economy has resulted in reduced bargaining power of labor in developed countries.
The upshot is that a lot of workers are seeing themselves working harder and not getting to share in the increased profits, as corporate profits increase and compensation doesn’t seem to reflect it. Employers counter that compensation has not fallen, eve though wages have, because of increased costs of benefits, in particular health insurance.
I suspect Marx visualized production lines of factory workers, each turning one screw as an unfinished product moved past them. Today, that concept has become rare, at least in America. Here’s a quote from EconomyWatch:
“In 2007, 1.2 percent of total US GDP was contributed by agricultural sector. Industrial sector made up 19.8 percent of US GDP in 2007. Services sector made up 79 percent of US GDP in that same period.”
Are the data correct and still reasonably current?
As for China et al, I question whether product “alienation” really describes the problem of children standing 12 hours a day in a sweatshop for pennies an hour. Forget product “alienation.” The problem is: standing 12 hours a day in a sweatshop for pennies an hour.
Could it be that product “alienation” is just a newfangled, fancy word for working too hard, under bad conditions for too little pay? Didn’t we once call that “slavery”?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Oh, I forgot to ask. Specifically, how much profit is “excess.”? What’s the dividing line? Or does it depend on whether it’s your profit or my profit?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
You raise good points, Rodger- I think in the context of the US, alienation is soo 1920s, or something like that. But, in a developing economy, it’s very new.
“Could it be that product “alienation” is just a newfangled, fancy word for working too hard, under bad conditions for too little pay? Didn’t we once call that “slavery”?”
I guess in the US I’d call it exploitation. However, even in a service economy, I can still see ways in which exploitation and non-appropriation can psychologically alienate an employee from his/her labor.
As for “excess,” the Marxian definition of surplus-value could work here, although maybe it’s too harsh, given the role of capitalist’s in furnishing technological progress (something I think Marx underestimated).
I got to see “alienation” some time ago when I was living in rural Iowa at the time of the family farm was replaced by agribusiness. I saw people cry over having to leave the land, even though they worked much harder than they would even in the most grinding factory job. They didn’t make a lot of money, although they did OK selling their land, but they gave up communities that consumed to a significant degree what they produced. That way of life was ending, reminiscent of Chekov’s play, “The Cherry Orchard,” which ends with the sound of the cherry trees being chopped down.
I think we can see the definition of “excess” in maldistribution of income and wealth such that there is a demand gap at the lower tiers of society forcing people either into a substandard lifestyle or else borrowing excessively to keep up.
A well-functioning society distributes income in order to distribute demand and wealth in order to create national prosperity, rather than measuring progress chiefly through growth. Distributive justice is not only about fairness. It is also good economics, which means proper management of the society, whether it be a family (household), firm, town, city, state, nation, or world.
Tom, I empathize with your desire for fairness together with growth, but I’ve spent so much time battling debt hawks and their hazy beliefs, I’ve become accustomed to looking for specifics, and have trouble with words like “excess,” “substandard” and “proper management.”
I don’t know how “a well functioning society distributes income,” though Finland may be some people’s example, or close to it.
There is a question about what a “well functioning society” really is. For example, is it a highly competitive, highly ambitious society, where “getting ahead” is paramount, and progress is measured in comparisons? Such a society, by necessity, will have many people “left behind,” but be the one to send a man to the moon.
Or is it a society where competition is minimized, and most people live satisfied lives at approximately the same plane. No one gets ahead, so no one falls behind, and so they are less likely to reach for the stars.
Never believe the world has your attitudes about “well-functioning.” Poor people can be happier than wealthy people, despite what outsiders may think.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Rodger, these terms are loose because they are subject to interpretation politically. MMT provides a reality-based economics that sets forth some options under a fiat regime, for example, and these will be viewed differently by people across the political spectrum.
I don’t think there is an ideal society in the sense that it can be specified precisely, but I do think that it is possible to recognize significant departure from the “normal.”
For example, in psychology and philosophy it is possible to conceptualize an ideal human being as a person of “virtue” and a society as a community of such individuals. Has such as society ever existed? No matter. It is a goal to shoot for, in education, for example.
What we do require psychologically and legally is that people function within the bounds of “normality.” When they don’t, they need treatment and if that is not successfully in getting them to cope, they have to be institutionalized, either as incompetent or criminals.
I think we can look at societies similarly. While the boundaries are fixed, it is possible to identify different level of societal dysfunctionality, and then we cab attempt to identify the causes so that steps can be taken to correct them. Locking a significant portion of the population up and executing many of them is not an intelligent of civilized solution, and neither is either ignoring or rationalizing problems. That is the sign of addictive behavior, and I think that is a problem we now face.
As a person who has studied this for a long time, I can testify that modern society is largely characterized by self-alienation at all levels. There are very few well-adjusted people around, let alone virtuous ones, or we would not permit what is happening large-scale.
Should be “While the boundaries are NOT fixed, it is possible to identify different level of societal dysfunctionality.”
[...] covered the BP oil spill, our love and hate of cars, the future of small scale slaughethouses, the worker suicides in China, deficit debates, the movement for a separation of corporation and state, and Hilary [...]
The suicides probably were induced by one of chemical in the electronic circuitry that impairs a normal production of serotonin subsequently lower level of serotonin in the blood stream can provoke depression and consequently suicide.
@ Roger.
(Firstly I am writing this on an iPad.)
Re: your remark about alienation in china being in respect of poor conditions and long hours for low wage.
This is part of the problem, however the Marxist solution is not simply the improvement of these conditions. As such, the features of the alienation to labour cannot be restricted to the external features of the labour process.
I.e. Although we may be alienated from the act of our labouring for the reasons discussed, it will not eliminate alienation simply to do away with this alone because part of the value of labour is in what we create and the relationship that we have to our creation.
Thus, the intellectual satisfaction that may be gained from designing the iPad is not the same as the physical construction of it Forrest the issues of ownership, complexity of task and other aspects typical to capitalism.
There is an economics of alienation, which is capitalism because capitalism makes all relationships to labour external, whereas for Marx eliminating alienation involves recognition of the intrinsic value of labour and all its facets itself.
Question: why is the title of this article called capitalist alienation if the workers who are being alienated are living in a communist country aka China?
China has robust enterprise capitalism- this is irrefutable.
It is lovely to meet you again, albeit virtually, Mr Hickey. I studied at Brighton Poly some years ago. Thanks for holding this debate together.
Here we are, analysing exploitation–and Marx’s theory of alienation is still relevant, despite reservations of some of our commentators.
Points struck me that I wish to draw neatly from the discussion:
1. There is an inequality of alienation within most workplaces–those “higher” up in the management tend to be engaged, motivated, rewarded; those “lower” down alienated. I’m not certain Marx anticipated how complex differences such as this would make analysis?
(Incidentally, I’ve seen this difference in engagement/alienation reflected at work in the proportions of people smoking tobacco (ie significant differences in the valuing of an individual’s own life and health, in the most basic issue of self-esteem).)
2. The extractor of the profits and the buyer of the cheapy cheap collude in the exploitation of workers such as these unhappy Chinese factory workers.
In the thrill of the cheap, the buyer is oblivious to the true cost of a product, and in a removed environment (the mass-slaughtered chicken legs neatly wrapped in plastic).
3. Cheapy cheap products, like a badly planned tax or subsidy, benefit rich and poor the exact same monetary amount, but different value amounts.
4. Few consumers expect to pay the true value (including the environmental price) of a product, and can no longer value unique hand-made goods, such that,
5. Craftspeople and artists and their professions suffer too!
Finally, business and consumer collusions in China’s sweatshops are sickening for a number of meta reasons too–for instance, the Chinese economy is propped up by bad debts that result from corruption and will never be honoured by their owners or rescued by the State and those moneys, inefficiently used or corruptly taken, will certainly never benefit workers such as these.
Penelope Wood