Clearly they use slave labor to mass-produce all of the goods you use daily. Various household paraphernalia, your electronic gizmos and gadgets, some of your clothes, etc.
Since their labor is a violation of human rights, don’t support it. The same goes with other countries of course, but I merely say American because of Obama’s attempts to address human rights issues in China.
Take a leaf out of Gandhi’s book – nonviolent, non cooperation. "We won’t buy your goods until you pay your workers fairly and make efforts to improve their work conditions"
It’s also much like Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. The only difference is he disobeyed his own gov’t and was jailed for it – now we disobey China and refuse to buy, and they lose money. If EVERYONE refuses to buy their goods then they’ll have to shape up.
That being said, I’ve been looking at my items and trying to find non-Chinese replacements. If you know any good cheap American, European, Canadian, etc brand names, do recommend.
Examples of slave labor in China:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1635144,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/asia/15iht-china.4.6160781.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6733564947664645042#
Many more when you google "slave labor in China". I am not the ignorant one here, the ones who don’t believe it are.
And yes, boycotting Chinese goods is virtually impossible. Kudos to the guy who bought American toys for Xmas. But just because it is difficult, does it mean it shouldn’t be done? Ask yourself that.
If you are OK with slave labor in China then obviously you don’t have moral qualms about the whole thing and you don’t have to boycott. If you DO have moral qualms and want to protest against China, I think this would be the best answer to doing so.
And it doesn’t matter if Gandhi was a Nazi sympathizer, I merely emphasize using his idea of nonviolent noncooperation to attain a goal. If you’re not ok with that, then follow Thoreau’s idea.
Unfortunately, boycotting Chinese goods is nearly impossible in America today. There are too many basic necessities that are at least partially made in China or other places that are just as bad.
NOTE: Not everything made in china or under similar conditions is properly noted on the packaging. Many commodities that are sold on exchanges during shipping don’t necessarily denote where they are from. Shrimp is a good example. A huge percentage of Shrimp comes from literal slave labor in China, this is not the ultra low wages of Chinese factories, these are literal slaves on ships forced to work in the industry. It’s nearly all shrimp because the ones who don’t use slave labor can’t compete. After the story broke, the industry is now working to clean that up and include labels on the packaging to indicate that the shrimp was caught under fair working practices. But it just goes to show, most people had no idea until recently, just looking for the label doesn’t catch these things.
On top of that, the label is from the LAST country where the product was assembled, often countries with good working conditions today. South Korea, in particular, makes fairly little today, but they are home to many outsourcing companies that slap a "Made in Korea" label on products as they ship through Korea on their way to the US and other countries. My computer was "Made in Korea". I have no idea where the chip was assembled, where the sound card was assembled, etc. etc. etc., but I’ll bet it wasn’t in Korea, that’s just where the final assembly and shipping occurred. Of course I didn’t even know that until after I made the purchase and saw where the delivery tracking started.
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I’m not saying that a boycott wouldn’t be good, but I favor a different approach: Legislation. Specifically, Fair Trade. Fair Trade is like Free Trade, except it includes labor, environmental, and product safety regulations designed to put every country on an even playing field and stop the incentive to race to the bottom. Such a system benefits nations that educate and motivate their workers so they can be more efficient, rather than countries that refuse to pay their workers and use dangerous conditions.
Obama campaigned on this point but has unfortunately done little about it in office. I understand it’s difficult to do, but when you’re the President, that’s not really a good excuse. Fair Trade creates domestic jobs because it prevents outsourcing except to countries capable of out-competing us on a level playing field. For example, we should be using India for tech support at night because it should be cheaper for them to be awake when we’re asleep, just because of time zones, but during the day, tech support should be cheaper here. The fact that it’s not shows the poverty level wages many of the people there are paid, reinforcing the caste system.
there email is newandgoodelectronic.com, please dont advise your opinion, only answer if you have delt with them or know anything about them. thanks