Jan 5, 2021 11:37 PM
The woke capitalism of Apple and Amazon makes hypocrites of us all
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tec...tes-us-all
EXCERPT: . . . Most of us are aware by now of Amazon’s dubious ethical record. In 2016, as part of research for his book Hired, James Bloodworth took a job at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire and discovered a “workplace environment in which decency, respect and dignity were absent”, with workers urinating into bottles for fear of being disciplined for taking a toilet break. But then, we tell ourselves as we click the “buy now” button, Amazon is hardly unusual among tech giants.
There is an Apple factory in Zhengzhou, China, that engineers have dubbed “Mordor” because of the high rate of suicide among its workers, while Apple, Nike and Coca-Cola are some of the companies currently lobbying the US Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced Uighur labour. It is bitterly hypocritical of Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, to issue a sanctimonious statement in support of Black Lives Matter, while at the same time his corporation lobbies against a bill that seeks to protect labourers - slaves, really - who are, among much else, being tasked with picking cotton, feeding a Chinese industry that now accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s cotton market.
But then here am I, hypocritical to the bone, condemning these misdeeds while typing on an Apple device. And I have to confess that I did, in the end, buy several Christmas presents from Amazon, as well as buying a couple from the local independent shop. I also sometimes put my money towards (fair trade!) biscuits containing palm oil, or run an errand in my (hybrid!) car when I should really cycle. I was vegan for a few years, and I didn’t give it up for any reason to do with health or money, but rather because I didn’t like being the awkward person who demands a special meal be made for her, and because I missed drinking breakfast tea and couldn’t get used to drinking it black. In other words, all of these moral blunders are a consequence of selfishness and laziness, not malice. But the end result is just the same.
I don’t like the phrase “on the right side of history”, since it arrogantly assumes history has a moral direction. Hilary Mantel expressed this sentiment in her 2017 Reith Lecture: “Each century speaks of the grotesque cruelties of the one that went before - as if cruelty were alien to the present, and we couldn’t own or recognise it. It seems we are doomed to be hypocrites - repulsed by the cruelties of bear-baiting, while polishing off our factory-farmed dinner.”
We can never predict who will turn out to have been “on the right side of history”, since such people are usually not recognised in their own time... (MORE - details)
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tec...tes-us-all
EXCERPT: . . . Most of us are aware by now of Amazon’s dubious ethical record. In 2016, as part of research for his book Hired, James Bloodworth took a job at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire and discovered a “workplace environment in which decency, respect and dignity were absent”, with workers urinating into bottles for fear of being disciplined for taking a toilet break. But then, we tell ourselves as we click the “buy now” button, Amazon is hardly unusual among tech giants.
There is an Apple factory in Zhengzhou, China, that engineers have dubbed “Mordor” because of the high rate of suicide among its workers, while Apple, Nike and Coca-Cola are some of the companies currently lobbying the US Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced Uighur labour. It is bitterly hypocritical of Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, to issue a sanctimonious statement in support of Black Lives Matter, while at the same time his corporation lobbies against a bill that seeks to protect labourers - slaves, really - who are, among much else, being tasked with picking cotton, feeding a Chinese industry that now accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s cotton market.
But then here am I, hypocritical to the bone, condemning these misdeeds while typing on an Apple device. And I have to confess that I did, in the end, buy several Christmas presents from Amazon, as well as buying a couple from the local independent shop. I also sometimes put my money towards (fair trade!) biscuits containing palm oil, or run an errand in my (hybrid!) car when I should really cycle. I was vegan for a few years, and I didn’t give it up for any reason to do with health or money, but rather because I didn’t like being the awkward person who demands a special meal be made for her, and because I missed drinking breakfast tea and couldn’t get used to drinking it black. In other words, all of these moral blunders are a consequence of selfishness and laziness, not malice. But the end result is just the same.
I don’t like the phrase “on the right side of history”, since it arrogantly assumes history has a moral direction. Hilary Mantel expressed this sentiment in her 2017 Reith Lecture: “Each century speaks of the grotesque cruelties of the one that went before - as if cruelty were alien to the present, and we couldn’t own or recognise it. It seems we are doomed to be hypocrites - repulsed by the cruelties of bear-baiting, while polishing off our factory-farmed dinner.”
We can never predict who will turn out to have been “on the right side of history”, since such people are usually not recognised in their own time... (MORE - details)