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Last major Chinese food poisoning scandal I'm aware of, that killed 8 babies, resulted in 2 executions, 3 life-in-prisons (including the CEO), and 7 government officials getting fired.
They take this shit seriously. Wonder how it'll shake out.
They take getting caught seriously, not the stuff they get caught at. Remember the government essentially has its finger in every pie so this kind of thing is not bad because it endangered people’s lives, it’s bad because it makes them look bad and might impact their exports.
This is it exactly. They (gov) literally don't care if anyone gets hurt, they just care what the world's perception of them is.
Wut. I'm not sure if this is a distinction without a difference, or a subtle distinction that I need a better grasp on continental philosophy to comprehend.
It's like saying a state doesn't take murder seriously - they take getting caught seriously. It's technically true if you parse it a certain way, but ultimately meaningless
Something can be bad for multiple reasons. Also, there's multiple actors here. The operators of the state-owned enterprise have different incentives than the regulators
What I’m saying is that because most large businesses in China are either directly controlled by the government or run by ranking party members, someone in power probably already knew this was going on and didn’t care because it made them money. What they do care about is getting caught, made to look foolish, and ruining China’s ability to export cheap, unregulated, and often dangerous crap across the globe. That’s what gets you punished in a situation like this in China, not the actual endangerment of people.
That's just how an effective political system works. The governor and the people they appointed to cut expenses for Flint MI's water system didn't care enough about the potential consequences for the people of Flint because they knew there wouldn't be severe consequences for them.
No system functions because it depends on people being good kind caring people.
Since you seem to be willfully misunderstanding what I was saying or what I was replying to, I think we’re done here.
I understand exactly what you're saying, you are saying that Chinese officials don't really care about endangering people's lives, they just care about the consequences for doing so.
I'm telling you that's how all political systems work.
.ml
It's a shame when China takes things more seriously than the western world.
Like, a there's a million reasons to hate them, but how they deal with companies endangering lives isn't one of them.
Kind of. It depends on how egregious it is. Companies endangering lives by pitting melamine in mile - jail. Foxconn endangering lives by overworking people in work camps - 👨🦯
But I definitely give you that some of the more egregious cases are taken more seriously than in the west.
Oh, Foxconn again. a) Suicide rates of Foxconn workers match that of Mainland university students (and is way lower than the overall average but that would compare the young often male workers against elderly rural ladies) and b) it's a Taiwanese company.
Don't get me wrong though they're still awful but they're not that awful. Also they're pulling out of China, wages are getting too high.
I like how you think that's somehow a defense of Foxconn and not showing that it sucks to live in China overall.
Not really. 14 in a year out of 1m employees makes a rate of 1.4/100k let's see how that number compares to WHO statistics. Armenia has a rate of 1.4 in the 25-34 age range, and it's the second lowest. China average in that group is 5.9.
What you're looking it is the suicide rate of people of a population which thinks it has a future: Students got into university, kids from poor villages made it into Foxconn to make money -- yes, minimum wage, but they're making money. Their alternative would be working on the family farm for much less than that (though including room and board). Or work in construction, a much more physically demanding and dangerous job. There's not many options in China for rural people.
There's a fucking fuckton to criticise about Foxconn not to speak of China or tankies or capitalists in general. This isn't one of those things. On the contrary, focussing in on a false narrative detracts from actual issues such as worker's safety, forced overtime, the right-out military company culture, etc. When did you last hear about those things? Did you hear about them, ever? Nah, it's always the suicides.
I'm pretty sure less than 14 people in a year jumped off of Google's headquarters.
(Insert virtually any other non-Chinese corporation or factory not located in China in Google's place.)
I'm also pretty sure Google didn't have to install suicide nets.
Google doesn't have a million employees. It also doesn't have company barracks, if a google engineer wants to off themselves they're probably going to do it at home or on the Bay Bridge, not at headquarters. Where you probably can't open the windows on the upper floors.
But if you can find suicide rates of google employees -- not just on-site, but overall, I'm all ear. You can look at literally any population, it's never going to be zero.
What? You mean other corporations don't require their employees to sleep at their jobs?!
But I'm sure that can't possibly have anything to do with mental illness leading to suicide, hence all the suicide nets on the buildings of all of those other factories. Oh wait.
As far as I'm aware it's not a requirement. They're there to make money and the company barracks are cheap. Students in the US also aren't required to live in dormitories, but more often than not they do.
Sorry... are you comparing student dorms with factory barracks? What shithole college did you go to?
I'm not American. I lived in a flat when studying. From what I've heard you can't even cook in US student dorms that'd be an absolute no-go for me. Also, roommates are required and you get no choice in who that's going to be.
But maybe a better comparison would be to bunks on an oil rig... with the difference that Foxconn workers aren't required to sleep in barracks, they're free to sleep elsewhere. No such option on an oil rig. You also see temporary accommodation on larger construction sites. Or farmers offering bunk-beds to seasonal workers.
Sorry, you're now comparing permanent living conditions to temporary accommodations? Accommodations which are actually nicer than what Foxconn provides?
Oil rig living quarters:
Foxconn living quarters:
Yes, practically the same.
People don't work long at Foxconn. Poor, rural Chinese get a job at those kinds of places to have money to settle down somewhere else, to open a small business, to re-invest into the family farm, whatnot. They're thinking "I need this and this much money to open a noodle shop, if I live in barracks It's going to take me X months to have the money together, if I rent an apartment X+Y months", and then they do it.
The whole migratory worker thing is a Chinese phenomenon, feel free to criticise it but most of that criticism should be directed at the CCP who are under-investing into rural areas at the expense of a couple of big, centralised, developments.
Also how often do I have to repeat "employees are not required to live in barracks" until you acknowledge it. In fact, I'm going to answer nothing but that until you say it in your own words.
How much is tuition in that place the dorm picture is from? I bet just living in the dorms is more than Chinese minimum wage.
I like how you just disregard everything that you are saying that turns out not to be true as if you never said it.
Here's something about their "voluntarily" staying in those barracks:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract
Quite the choice they're given there. Bunkers with eight to a room or bills they can't afford to pay.
I can't wait for you to ignore this like you've ignored everything else. Or maybe you'll dismiss this as Western imperialist propaganda?
Yes. That's one of the things you can criticise Foxconn for. Do it. Though they're certainly not the only company in China who are fucking over employees, making false or misleading promises, etc. China does not have rule of law, grease some party hands and you can get away with a hell a lot of illegal behaviour.
Also where in that article does it say that Foxconn would force people to live in the barracks. Not paying workers properly is one thing, actual slave labour, keeping people against their will etc. will cause the party to crack down on your operation, hard. Only they are allowed to do that.
Do you take me for a tankie? Count the number me and you criticised the CCP in this thread and compare, please.
Do you understand what a false choice is? The choice is either live in the barracks or pay bills they can't afford to pay.
Foxconn is not the municipal water supplier, the one you'd be dealing with if you don't live in those barracks. Those high water bills are if you live in the "free" barracks, i.e. they're fooling people into thinking the barracks are free (yay! I can keep all of my wages!) and then they're getting billed for the shower by the litre or something. It's scummy but TBH also quintessentially Chinese. Their roommates are probably telling them they're stupid for believing Foxconn.
And if minimum wage doesn't suffice to have your own regular apartment, with non-extortionary water prices -- well, complain with the CCP. Though, I have to add as a smug European, working full-time and not being able to make rent is also very much a thing in the US.
I knew the "whatabouts" would start eventually.
Well, I wouldn't want to live in China or the US. Heck even visit. They're both bad in their own ways, and also bad in very similar ways, in particular completely rampant capitalism.
Google isn't the equivalent to Foxconn. It would be more like Ford or some Detroit automaker.
Which one of them has suicide nets?
NYU and Cornell have done so
Google has had suicides, but no prevention schemes
The real answer is that the Detroit car factories aren't tall enough to kill anyone. People pick more practical locations like Hudson Yards or the Golden Gate Bridge.
One post ago:
This post:
Are NYU and Cornell like Ford or some Detroit automaker? Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you're defeating your own point.
I'm on the fence about whether it matters or not, that they might only do so to politically save face. ⚖️
At least they save face... Wouldn't mind some more face saving over here.
Where is "over here" for you?
If all you save is face, THEN YOU HAVE SAVED NOTHING. What do you mean we don't do this over here, this is all we fucking do. We don't solve problems, we just market them.
I can't recall any other countries executing their rich for things like this. Can you?
Especially in the west. In the west they just take a part of their profits as a trivial fine.
I can't have a conversation with someone advocating murder and wondering why I'm not impressed.
Advocating the death penalty for people who've committed mass social murder is not murder.
White collar crime like this is the only case where the death penalty might be useful, since these people actually do a risk-benefit analysis.
the flip side is they tend to take court cases involving individuals less seriously. Rulings are designed to be done in a quick manner and reletively speaking, cam be harsh with sentences. Culturally they care more for someone possibly related(but not guaranteed to be) get punished over verifying if said person is actually guilty of something.
its a system thats good if said perpetrator is caught fast, but terrible for the person who just happened to be there at the wrong time if a perp gets away.
tl;dr swift justice, but dont take as many precautions on whether they got the right person or not.
China just straight up doesn't prosecute if they don't have to, and when they do it's typically following a civil law system that's generally easier to prosecute than common law. It's the same reason why Japan has a prosecution success rate of over 99.8%.
Japan has a rate that high because MacArthur was a quasi-fascist who half assed reconstruction and they don't have the judicial concept of innocent until proven guilty.
If that were true it wouldn't happen in the first place. They only take it seriously when it's so bad they can't cover it up anymore. Something like this take ALOT of corruption.
When it serves them. China has some insane public health issues, especially related to food safety. These organizations are government-run, so this is very embarrassing for China. Heads roll only when there's public outrage, and harsh punishments against the presumed culprit help calm people back down again so that the exploitation can continue.
I remember this happening, and the pet food scandal just before it. Melamine was being added to pet food and milk powder to falsely increase their protein values. Enough to cause kidney failure and sometimes death. I used to do protein analysis for food products, and could see how easy it would be for food companies to cheat like this. The percent nitrogen content in a sample is used to estimate the protein value. Melamine powder contains a lot of nitrogen, so it's blended in to bump up the final protein values. Really shitty thing to do, knowing that it's toxic.
Yep, so seriously they shut down the app that brought this story to life https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/12/app-that-tracked-fuel-tankers-in-china-used-to-transport-cooking-oil-is-disabled
Almost like they care more about getting caught than the actual crime committed
Yeah some people are dying lmao