Hundreds Riot, Thousands Protest at iPhone Factory in India (scmp.com) 122
The international news agency AFP reports on "a violent rampage at a Taiwanese-run iPhone factory in southern India" leading to over 100 arrests. About 2,000 workers were involved in the protest, reports the Verge, citing the Indian Express newspaper.
The workers are protesting over allegations of unpaid wages and exploitation, according to AFP. "Local media reported workers saying they had not been paid for up to four months and were being forced to do extra shifts..." Workers at the Taiwanese-run Wistron Infocomm Manufacturing near Bangalore smashed glass panels with rods and flipped cars on their side... CCTV cameras, fans and lights were torn down, while a car was set on fire, footage shared on social media showed...
A local trade union leader alleged that there was "brutal exploitation" of factory workers in sweatshop conditions at the iPhone manufacturing plant. "The state government has allowed the company to flout the basic rights," Satyanand, who uses one name, told The Hindu newspaper... Labour unrest is not uncommon in India, with workers paid poorly and given few or no social security benefits.
The workers are protesting over allegations of unpaid wages and exploitation, according to AFP. "Local media reported workers saying they had not been paid for up to four months and were being forced to do extra shifts..." Workers at the Taiwanese-run Wistron Infocomm Manufacturing near Bangalore smashed glass panels with rods and flipped cars on their side... CCTV cameras, fans and lights were torn down, while a car was set on fire, footage shared on social media showed...
A local trade union leader alleged that there was "brutal exploitation" of factory workers in sweatshop conditions at the iPhone manufacturing plant. "The state government has allowed the company to flout the basic rights," Satyanand, who uses one name, told The Hindu newspaper... Labour unrest is not uncommon in India, with workers paid poorly and given few or no social security benefits.
Wake up, Timmy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple should be monitoring their outsourced factories if they don't want a bad reputation.
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Apple should be monitoring their outsourced factories if they don't want a bad reputation.
Do you really think Apple cares about their "reputation?" Think back to all the numerous negative things Apple has been doing to people. Over and over again.
As long as women keep going "Oooh, shiny!" and buying Apple's overpriced iThings without a second thought, Apple is the golden goose that just keeps laying.
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Oh who am I kidding, they don't even need to do that.
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Nope, a quick soundbite in the news about how they're going to do something incredibly woke for people that don't really need it, and the masses will soon forget about the people that actually do have problems.
Same as it ever was. (Score:2)
...reports the South China Morning Post (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider the source. This is the South China Morning Post reporting of labor unrest in a factory owned by a Taiwanese manufacturer making things for an American company in a nation that competes with them for manufacturing jobs.
It seems likely that something happened and I’m not denying any of the claims they made, but the only comment in the article from anyone actually involved is one from the manufacturer, who says these were unknown outsiders that came in and smashed things up, not their own emplo
Does the Times of India work for you? (Score:5, Informative)
Consider the source. This is the South China Morning Post reporting of labor unrest in a factory owned by a Taiwanese manufacturer making things for an American company in a nation that competes with them for manufacturing jobs.
It seems likely that something happened and I’m not denying any of the claims they made, but the only comment in the article from anyone actually involved is one from the manufacturer, who says these were unknown outsiders that came in and smashed things up, not their own employees. Given the source, I’ll take the article with a grain of salt.
Here:
https://timesofindia.indiatime... [indiatimes.com]
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Yup, thanks!
This is specifically why I said I didn’t deny anything they claimed, just that I wanted to see it from a more reputable source before accepting it as gospel truth.
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But the corruption levels of India is high and trade union officials are open to bribes too.
There was a long agitation in another Indian owned copper smelting factory in deep south called Sterlite [wikipedia.org]. Lots of allegation about pollution etc and very long protest by public, not workers. It turned violent after some 100 days of peaceful protests. And riot police shot protesters, some died, and eventually the factory was shuttered.
Now the ruling parties are claiming, the protesters were all p
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+1.
And unlike the Chinese, the Indians believe in their right to protest. It does not take that much to set them off.
Rs 2,900 crore? (Score:2)
I think that means Rs 2,900,00,00,000 (is that how an Indian would write it??)
Roughly USD 393,000,000.
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I originally saw this on Reddit, that's a pretty big group of outsiders: https://old.reddit.com/r/Publi... [reddit.com]
Re: ...reports the South China Morning Post (Score:2)
What reason do you have to doubt what they write, in particular?
Re:...reports the South China Morning Post (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider the source. This is the South China Morning Post reporting of labor unrest in a factory owned by a Taiwanese manufacturer making things for an American company in a nation that competes with them for manufacturing jobs.
This is so hilarious to anyone who knew about SCMP. Hint: it has nothing to do with China except for the name.
SCMP is an English newspaper in Hong Kong, and has quite a long history. I.e. it was there when HK was still a British colony before 1997. So, have a guess, what customers do SCMP serve during colonial times, say 1980s? Answer: the British expats in HK, and the affluent English-fluent locals.
SCMP has been and still is very pro-western and anti-communist, and they are definitely not going to make up news about China's rivals to make them look bad.
The general ignorance of anything China related is exactly why the western world have no idea how they should deal with China. For example, just look at your government (I dare say would be true for most western countries), can the supposed "China expert" working inside even read or speak Chinese? How could the government formulate any sensible strategy towards a country that they can only learn from hearsay?
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Indeed, it's quick shocking how many supposed experts on China actually don't speak or read the language, maybe have never even been there, and spout complete nonsense about it. Unfortunately because of all the anti-China rhetoric lately they can get paid for that kind of rubbish.
Japan isn't much better, I've read so many bizarre and clearly made-up stories about it. I imagine Korea probably gets the same treatment.
Then again even European countries aren't that much better off, at least going by the UK pres
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Not hard to understand, it's just the "China bad" mindset.
India wants tech companies to manufacture there?! (Score:2, Insightful)
The way to solve things like no payment, or overtime, or violation of labour laws, is in a court of law, or making strikes marches and demosntrations, not trashing the factory.
Wistron is a visible enough target, and their customer, Apple, is even bigger, so even a wiff of a picket and a lawsuit from the workers will get domestic and international attention, making the wheels of justice to spin faster.
Trashing the factory and burning down equipment? Well, you bet that the next big manufacturer will think tri
India has laws (Score:4, Informative)
As for a court of law, good luck with that. India is intensely corrupt. You've got about as much chance of getting anything out of the courts or the gov't as you do of Vishnu popping over and sorting it all out.
When you back people into a corner and give them no options expect violence. I think the phrase the kiddies are using is "fuck around and find out".
Re: India wants tech companies to manufacture ther (Score:2)
India has laws that, for things like iPhone, in order to sell them in India a specific portion of them must be manufactured there. So, yeah, if a tech company wants access to the 1 billion person market that is India, they're gonna have to make stuff there.
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Unicorn farts create rainbows with pots of gold at the end of them, didn't you know? They can use some of that gold to pay the judge a higher bribe than Wistron, too! Workers have all the power, it's just the poor abused C-Level executives that we need to worry about!
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International attention? Maybe on SlashDot, but I don't think that Wistron or Apple are too worried about our opinions. Is the NYT or WP going to risk tens of millions of dollars in Apple advertising revenue to point out that Apple's pledge to protect workers' rights isn't worth the electrons it was published with?
Go talk to ten random people and ask them if they have ever heard of issues with working conditions at any of the iToy factories anywhere, go ahead, we'll wait. . . .
One of the ten did? Were th
This is the way. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you refuse to pay your employees and they raze your business to the ground and tell the world you're a cheapskate, you have only yourself to blame.
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If you refuse to pay your employees and they raze your business to the ground and tell the world you're a cheapskate, you have only yourself to blame.
If you're an employee of Apple and can't manage to figure out a more sensible way to make a point about being treated unfairly by your employer, you have only yourself to blame when you raze your (only?) fucking source of employment.
On the contrary I expect they have many employers who won't pay them to choose from.
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Maybe Apple can front the salaries (Score:4, Informative)
"“While an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 per month, his/her salary had reduced to Rs 16,000 and, subsequently, to Rs 12,000 in the recent months. Non-engineering graduates’ monthly salary had reduced to Rs 8,000. The salary amount being credited to our accounts have been reducing and it was frustrating to see this,” an employee alleged. On Friday night, the employees started discussing about their salaries on their floors and some alleged that they had received only low as as Rs 500 in their bank accounts. The anger turned into violence by the time the shift ended, the employee added."
If true, carry on.
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I don't know why they are complaining. 8000 Rs is $108. If they don't eat, they can save up and buy one of the iPhone SEs they make in just 4 months!
Not the first time, not the last (Score:3)
This article [cbsnews.com] explains why Apple, and other tech companies, don't keep too close an eye on their suppliers. And this article goes into a bit more depth [arstechnica.com] about how Apple and contracting companies hire and lay off tens of thousands of workers each year, and how Apple has debated how to respond to a new Chinese law meant to restrict the use of temporary workers.
All of this has happened before, and all if will happen again.
Excellent (Score:2)
Well, well, well... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, next time some neo-libertarian dude says how unconditional free trade is good, you should know he is full of it. I am not saying we should cut ties with those countries immediately, but we should start calling out the problem. Most people think the working conditions of the people building their electronics is not the first world's responsibility.
Oh the Outrage! Okay, Back to iWorship (Score:4, Informative)
No "living wages" in those factories.
But people love their iDevices and don't really care enough about it to do things like boycotting the products, having public protests at Apple HQ, or having an massive social media campaign against Apple. That sort of thing costs money and there's no money to be gained by doing so. There's no political gain for any lobbies for doing so.
And so the story disappears and people get back to looking up charcuterie arrangements on their iDevice.
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And before people start saying other companies use similar cheap manufacturers, remember that Apple products have the widest profit margins by far. Most Android brands, especially in mid-low segment, compete on razor thin margins which does not really give them the "luxury" of worrying about their manufacturing partners. But Apple does, and they often go on record and declare they "care".
I don't think that means what you think it means. (Score:2)
Okay, so, that makes Apple a potential ally for higher wages, and all the other companies straight up enemies of higher wages.
I sense that your goal was to paint Apple as somehow worse than those others. But the reasoning leads to the opposite conclusion.
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I've been ranting for 2 decades about how bad foreign outsourcing is. Now look. And it's only going to get worse.
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Perhaps you should.
Employees? Or thugs? (Score:2)
The "employees" entered the area while one shift was leaving, and ransacked the building.
Seriously, if you worked there the last thing you'd do is ransack the building, given the CCTV coverage.
Most likely they were local thugs trying to blackmail the company, not employees coming in on next shift.
Re: Employees? Or thugs? (Score:2)
Some of them have engineering degrees, and they "manufactured" iDevices. While not technological demi-gods, they would know how to handle CCTV, especially if violence is on the cards.
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Yes, but it doesn't take an actual engineering degree to "handle" a CCTV camera. If you work there, see it everyday, probably even helped install / maintain it, and work to manufacture electronic devices, you are already overqualified in the CCTV department. Engineering degree is just an icing on the cake.
They don't have money, but if they are working in such jobs, they need jobs. Police case could be a big deal in India, depending on the kind of job you want to get. Technical jobs frequently get a backgrou
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Re: Employees? Or thugs? (Score:2)
Neither is there any "thinking" required to "fix" CCTVs. Anyway, there are already arrests, CCTVs indeed were smashed : https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com].
But the assumption in this /. story about the marauders being workers is more into question.
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And severely overestimating the competence of the police. Very few, even here in the US, have any idea how to extract security video.
China's hidden hand (Score:2, Troll)
I'll be dollars to donuts that China's at work behind the scenes here. They want to keep Apple manufacturing in China, and sowing discontent and uncertainty in India is the best way to do that.
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Really? Nope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The South China Morning Post (SCMP), with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper founded in 1903. It is Hong Kong's newspaper of record
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As though the NY Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, etc. aren't full of people on the US gov't payroll. Project Mockingbird never did shut down,just changed its method of bribery.
Haha (Score:3)
Welcome to India. Uneducated population easily riled up with nothing to lose. I mean even if you rile up 1% .. that's 12 million people.
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I don't think it is funny at all. They won't even be wearing face masks. So while you laugh at them and Apple exploits them, are these people getting infected in their protests, because nobody actually cares for any of them. They don't have a proper education, they won't understand what is happening and rich people snarl (or laugh) at their existence as if that meant something.
Re: Haha (Score:2)
Damn those early 20th century American unionists! So primitive and uneducated. Why would anybody destroy their own workplace? Good thing the strike breakers KNOCKED some civility back into them! HAHA!
[Yes, this is sarcasm, and sad I need to say so because some people really would not get it.]
Re: Haha (Score:2)
What's sadder is when India, China, etc. finally get decent working conditions and wages, those at the top will find another part of the world to exploit.
When does it end?
thats the final nail in the coffin (Score:3)
Nowhere to go.... (Score:2)
Good luck finding a "Made in the USA" cell phone. Maybe you can find a 'bag phone' from the mid 1980s that was made in the USA, but 1G has been shut down for some time now (IIRC).
China, and much of Asia is where America was at in the late 19th/early 20th century in regards to worker's rights and protections. Look up "Triangle Co Shirtwaist Fire" for a fine example of how bad we were a century ago.
How bold of you. (Score:2)
Underpaying an employee is not the same thing as straight up slavery.
And not buying a product is not the same thing as fighting for human rights.
Killing the golden goose (Score:2)
So these people riot and destroy the business whose tax dollars fund those social programs they're demanding. Sorry, folks, but they institution they should be protesting against is the government that promises those social programs but fails to deliver on those promises.
So it was... (Score:2)
a mostly peaceful protest then?
Hipsters choking on their granola en masse (or not (Score:2)
I just love how we have posers claiming to be tree huggers, politically correct to the point of orthodoxy, and all that stuff, yet they can be seen using Apple products, as if Apple was some kind of saint.
"Posers" because I strongly suspect that's what most hipsters are, in order to fit in. If wearing MAGA hats and chanting Trumpist rot was 'cool', they would be doing that.
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To be consistent with the first part of your statement, communism does not seem to aim for that either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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There is this magical mythical thing called communism, where there's rainbows and unicorns at every corner, everyone lives a perfect and fulfilling life, and the poverty, disease and exploration of fellow human beings are all but extinct... and then there is real communist and every single example of its application.
In real communism you have plenty of "re-education" camps. Those are slavery camps.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Should you not ask him instead?
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I am sorry if this is something you feel entitled to.
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Re: "But why would they destroy their own factorie (Score:4, Interesting)
In capitalism, the hand that plants the corn gets to load the corn into the truck to market for resale. A hand that plants the corn and then eats it is more surrealism than anything else. Which is probably a better description of at least the past four years in this country.
Re: "But why would they destroy their own factori (Score:2)
"The hand that plants the corn eats it"
Maybe in medieval times, when you just had barely enough to survive on after your king takes most of it.
Or maybe you are refering to "off grid" living, in which case most of them are trying to get away from the economy as much as possible and are not interested in business or profits.
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Strange... everyone I know eats corn, but not one of them plants it...
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I guess you live in an apartment...
Here in suburbia it's not too hard to grow as long as the backyard has sunlight, water and good soil tilled with compost. Your local supermarket might even sell seed packets.
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I've lived in Suburbia all my life. Even better, it's Rural-Suburbia, where the homeowner's association lets you raise chickens in your yard. I know one couple who grows chickens, and the eggs might make up 5% of their diet, on a good year. Add in the homegrown jalapeno peppers and berries and you might reach a whole 6%. The other 94% comes out of their Social Security checks via Kroger. See, where I come from in Montgomery County, TX, everyone likes to drive an F-350 and idolize the self-sufficient cowboy
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I grew up in the city of Melbourne, Victoria. People around here have switched from sedans to SUVs.
I've only recently rediscovered a love for backyard horticulture; we did have chickens as a kid and my grandfather had a vegie patch in the sticks too.
Working the soil is therapeutic, even if 99% of what I eat comes from the supermarket duopoly. Oh and I hate mowing lawns - dig it up and throw in some spuds! :)
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My ultimate goal is to never have to mow again, and I'm well on the way. We live on a glacial esker though, pure sand and rocks, on a hill that if it existed in the Midwest would be a ski resort, so most of it is flowers, vines, and shrubs. I'll spend a few weekends weeding in order not to have to mow, I enjoy it. The tomatoes are incredible in our vegetable patch though, and the figs are to die for.
Re: "But why would they destroy their own factori (Score:4, Insightful)
We need balance that is not neoliberal third way welfare state bullshit. Something like 0% loans capped at $200k from the government for small businesses, one at a time per person, with planning, scheduled milestone based payouts, budgeting, oversight/accountability and mandatory domain specific business consulting. Do well and repay your loan from business profits and you can scale up with your next loan at +1% per iteration, +3% per $100k. The interest can go into a black hole as the government can issue debt at will.
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Oh, lawsy, that number gets bigger and bigger every year, just like the death toll for the Cultural Revolution. Famine in the Ukraine was deliberate, they were growing enough food but Stalin deliberately diverted it. Very much like the Irish Potato Famine the previous century, where there was enough food grown in Ireland to feed the people but the lairds sold it to wholesalers in London because it was more profitable.
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Maybe I am misreading you, but to act like there is no difference between Feudalism and Capitalism is a stretch that even Karl Marx would call you out on.
Re: "But why would they destroy their own factori (Score:2)
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So not that much different then capitalism, which aims to give the workers as little as possible and instead give it to the often lazy elite, often those born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
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capitalism, which aims to give the workers as little as possible
You mean "capitalists", the owners, not Capitalism the system. And workers want to be paid as much as possible. The system tries to allocate resources efficiently, matching supply and demand.
This worked well for everyone when there was a strong manufacturing sector, willing to pay well for any labour, and unemployment was low. The proletariat became relatively wealthy.
But nowadays, supply and demand says those same people are worth $5/hr (after expenses) driving an uber, cleaning or doing deliveries.
This
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It's complex, It worked well at times, mostly when things were more balanced. The threat of communism led to laws enshrining workers rights, workers organized, things got better, corruption happened and things got worse again. Then unbalanced trade made things worse.
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"Corruption happened" - you mean, after the fascist fellow travelers (like Joe McCarthy) chased the socialists out of unions, and then the wealthy, under Raygun, went on a spree of union destruction, legal and illegal, and then brainwashed people to think they didn't need unions?
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That and gangsters taking over the unions.
Re: "But why would they destroy their own factori (Score:2)
No system ever tries anything. People try things, arguably some animals do too.
Systems also don't feel pain, joy, desire etc.
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No system ever tries anything. People try things,
That is short-sighted. People are systems. We are nothing but a colony of cells, each following their own chemistry and physics.
And yet, we behave as if those cells had a common purpose. Purpose, "trying" is an emergent property of systems. [wikipedia.org]
A society lives, reproduces, has a memory, builds machines, and plans for the future in a way that no individual can do. We have more in common with an ant colony than you imagine.
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Fair - though obviously taken out of context and missing the point.
The post I was replying to mentioned "Capitalism the system". This uses a meaning of the word system that categorically never tries anything, ever.
The word "system" has many meanings - here the context implies a specific meaning which you missed. Read on to find out the difference.
Societies based on systems are also, separately, systems - but that is another meaning of the word "system". A "system" X is different from the socio-econonomic-po
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"The system" doesn't "try to allocate" anything except divert surplus value anywhere it can be directed. If there is strong worker control, like in the highly unionized manufacturing sector in the middle of the last century, then it goes to the workers. Once unions and their pull in the government was eliminated the profits got directed to the rentier class, like in the latter portion of the century.
India has a "strong manufacturing sector", and you see the result of poor worker protections in TFA. Capit
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"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
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"Capitalism" is about stealing other people's labor.
There, fixed that for you. And I'd assume you're being underpaid to post this bs, by people who are really wealthy, while you're drinking Bud.
Re: "But why would they destroy their own factorie (Score:4, Informative)
The problem there always seems to be excess capacity for labor and hence capitalists take advantage of that situation. A century ago for example coal miners and laborers worked 10 hour days 6 days a week with no benefits while the "capitalist" built insanely opulent mansions. Enter unions and now we have the 40-hour workweek, sick leave, and an occasional paid day off.
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Granted, thirty-year mortgage loans do contribute to rising house prices, by allowing buyers to get the money to buy the expensive houses. Definitely an issue. However, the rest of your complaints don't hold up.
Building codes are there so people aren't creating structures that fall down and kill occupants, visitors, and people walking by. Likewise starting electrical fires, or causing plagues because of mishandling of fecal matter and other sewerage.
If the bank owns
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No. Capitalism does not aim to exploit peoples labor.
Well, this is an interesting test case for that hypothesis. Looking at this situation, I don't see any logically valid way to extend it to *all* capitalism, but clearly *some* companies do exploit labor. The most common way is reneging on promises relying on the asymmetric power, influence, and access to legal representation to ensure workers never get what they were promised.
When people sling around terms like "capitalism" and "socialism", they often mean things other than the economic theories per se. P
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Most successful capitalists are authoritarians. At that authoritarians seem to rise to the top in all systems as they'll do whatever it takes to win.