Submitted by Waken in AskRaddle

A lot of people seem to think it's O.K. to buy electronics made in China. We get to buy products considerably cheaper than we otherwise would, and China by all accounts is growing, developing, and modernizing as a nation due to all the cool stuff they now make for the world. There is only one problem with that reasoning. 21st Century China has an atrocious human rights record, and almost all human rights watchdogs report that China is becoming more and more repressive each year. Freedom House put it this way in 2018: "It's worth noting that, in its attitude toward political dissent, the Chinese Communist Party has proven much harsher than the old Soviet regime of the Brezhnev era. Modern Chinese sentences are longer, the prospects for early release are far worse, and the Chinese authorities are generally unmoved by pleas for leniency from foreign diplomats." Basically, consumer dollars from around the world are not gradually creating a gentler, freer, more prosperous and more modern China at all. They are making the Chinese Communist Party richer, stronger, bolder and more aggressive and repressive in every respect. To the question: knowing what the human rights situation is in China, and that consumer dollars and euros flowing into the country from abroad is making things worse, not better, is it at all ethical to buy electronics or IT products manufactured in China?

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/china-and-tibet

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-grows-more-repressive-1539125565

https://freedomhouse.org/blog/china-global-leader-political-prisoners

12

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

celebratedrecluse wrote (edited )

tw: real talk

Fuck your ethics.

I, for one, am stick and tired of the liberal posturing on this website.

No, you're not better than anyone else for your particularly neurotic consumer choices. Half of yall frankly want to seem better, smarter, and more compassionate than average-- I suspect that's the main, or only, thing that draws you to the vicinity of radical communities. Yall need a reality check. This type of absurd poser behavior is a big part of why political struggles don't generalize: people who focus on this shit are engaging in a form of respectability politics, retooled to hit the pleasure centers on anarchist brains.

Accept now that we all, as individuals, are part of the problem. Accept that collectively, we can be part of the solution. Accept that your soy curls and recycling bins do not make you a better person.

there is no such thing as ethical consumption

8

conseil wrote

Well- what else are you going to do? We're all on this site, and every electronic product you can get I assure you has Chinese parts, and I don't think substituting those for Vietnamese products does much good.

Just get old shit and call it a day.

4

heckthepolice2 wrote

Eating ass is the only ethical consumption under capitalism

1