Jiro comments on How to Build a Community - Less Wrong

13 Post author: peter_hurford 15 May 2013 05:43AM

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Comment author: Jiro 16 May 2013 07:14:21PM *  12 points [-]

Her'es a quote from Wikipedia about those Foxconn suicides:

The suicide rate at Foxconn during the suicide spate remained lower than that of the general Chinese population[8] as well as all 50 states in the United States.[9] Additionally the Foxconn deaths may have been a product of economic conditions external to the company.

I was pretty sure this had been debunked before, but the story keeps getting spread around for ideological reasons.

I'd also point out that just because a geek calls something Mordor doesn't mean he literally thinks it's as bad as Mordor. All it means is that he thinks it's worse than his current living conditions, which only amounts to "people in the US are better off than people in China". IBM and Microsoft get called the Evil Empire all the time, without killing anyone.

Comment author: Multiheaded 16 May 2013 07:27:41PM *  0 points [-]

I was pretty sure this had been debunked before, but the story keeps getting spread around for ideological reasons.

I'm pretty sure that thousands upon thousands of stories like this - where the "normal" functioning of global capitalism is inseparable from some brutal social repression, delegitimizing the ruling narrative that economic "efficiency" and ethics/human decency should be separate magisteria - have never made it to the Western press, or only made a tiny splash. For ideological reasons.

Here's a more thorough account of China specifically:
http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/

...By depicting Chinese workers as Others – as abject subalterns or competitive antagonists – this tableau wildly miscasts the reality of labor in today’s China. Far from triumphant victors, Chinese workers are facing the same brutal competitive pressures as workers in the West, often at the hands of the same capitalists. More importantly, it is hardly their stoicism that distinguishes them from us.

Today, the Chinese working class is fighting. More than thirty years into the Communist Party’s project of market reform, China is undeniably the epicenter of global labor unrest. While there are no official statistics, it is certain that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of strikes take place each year. All of them are wildcat strikes – there is no such thing as a legal strike in China. So on a typical day anywhere from half a dozen to several dozen strikes are likely taking place.

Comment author: khafra 24 May 2013 04:26:39PM *  2 points [-]

I'm pretty sure that thousands upon thousands of stories like this - where the "normal" functioning of global capitalism is inseparable from some brutal social repression, delegitimizing the ruling narrative that economic "efficiency" and ethics/human decency should be separate magisteria - have never made it to the Western press, or only made a tiny splash. For ideological reasons.

I agree with your point, in general--I don't think imperialism, economic or otherwise, is often all that great for indigenous populations--but in this specific assertion, I think you're falling prey to the hostile media effect. I've seen coverage of Foxconn suicides in some pretty doggoned mainstream western media.

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