Americans, why not boycott Chinese goods?
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.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:43 am
That is very noble, but people as a society are greedy. We see a cheap end-product. People figure that it’s going to happen whether they buy the product or not, so why should their budget suffer when nothing will change as a direct result.
It’s the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" complex.
Americans are more concerned with the price of gas or their coffee getting cold. It’s a shame that these human rights violations happen, but it is such an integral part of the global economy, people would rather just leave it alone.
Another argument is "without these factories, little Yun-Lao won’t have a bowl of rice to eat, therefore i’m helping support a third world nation by buying these $400 Nikes."
Everyone has their own skewed view of foreign products. For the most part, people don’t care. It sucks, it’s a terrible thought, but simply put, we don’t care. As long as our wallets don’t suffer, we just don’t care.
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common sense
January 16th, 2010 at 2:25 am
We could never go shopping again…
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January 16th, 2010 at 2:57 am
They do not use slave labor.
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January 16th, 2010 at 3:09 am
Proud to say that all toys given this Christmas were American made.
Well, except for the Nintendo DS – no getting around that one.
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January 16th, 2010 at 3:17 am
""We won’t buy your goods until you pay your workers fairly and make efforts to improve their work conditions""
because most Americans are not willing to pay $30 for a three pack of undershirts
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January 16th, 2010 at 4:00 am
Obama would never boycott his credit card!
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January 16th, 2010 at 4:45 am
forget money. slave-labor makes the world go round. has since the beginning of this once-great nation.
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January 16th, 2010 at 5:03 am
ahahahahah, maybe on paper that would look good, but in real life thats next to impossible… almost Everything I mean EVERYTHING is made in China…
Does it include people made in China too lol?
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January 16th, 2010 at 5:25 am
Obama is strangling America. Can you blame them for trying to save a buck ?
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January 16th, 2010 at 5:32 am
Republicans probably have billions of stocks in China. China always did well under Reagan and Bush. They are probably very upset at this question.
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January 16th, 2010 at 6:05 am
I try to buy American or Danish.
Ghandi was a nazi sympathizer, by the way.
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January 16th, 2010 at 6:45 am
I agree its wrong, but we would have to boycott everything almost in America, really look at everything you own 90% is made in china….. cheap, who can afford a boycott why not ask the Gov to subsidise since they do that with everything already.
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January 16th, 2010 at 7:18 am
I make the greatest efforts in buying USA. But that is hard to find, you should not shop at large stores, where everything is mass-produced.
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January 16th, 2010 at 7:50 am
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.
____________________________________
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.
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January 16th, 2010 at 8:24 am
But General Tso Chicken so good.
Me likey many much.
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January 16th, 2010 at 9:08 am
there is no slavery in China. You are ignorant. That is as far as I got into your rant.
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January 16th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Simple, Faux News and Kieth Olbermann make the puppets fight among themselves vs banning together to follow your suggestion which I agree with.
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January 16th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Because I am hopelessly addicted to Chow Mien.
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January 16th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Yes, lets piss off China…
Christ… China will one day come around to the human rights way of things. But punishing an ally for their form of government of which their people support will do nothing but induce war between the rising super power in the east. We don’t want another cold war and we may not win it! So why start one when it can be avoided and close relation between the two main world powers can help put an end to war?
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January 16th, 2010 at 10:43 am
i really don’t think that we should boycott because its life and that’s how life works.i mean the people aren’t complaining so we shouldn’t either.its crazy that you would think that we should boycott chinese goods…..
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January 16th, 2010 at 11:31 am
We need to bring back the tariffs and boycott muslim oil too.
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January 16th, 2010 at 11:51 am
We cannot afford to boycott Chinese goods. We have to send them our money so they can loan it to our politicians to pay off their political cronies.
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January 16th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
If we did that, there would be nothing we could buy.
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January 16th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
We try extremely hard to only buy American made and Michigan made products. We have succeeded in several areas, our kitchen table, my mustang and our widow blinds (all made in Michigan)…but take a look at the label in your Levi’s. I can go to the closet right now and take out three pairs and they will have been made in three different countries, America not one of them. When we go to places like a furniture store, for example, we always ask where the product was made and we try to only buy from local companies. It is difficult but can be done.
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January 16th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Walmart
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January 16th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Nice thoughts but we have a few problems, first, you can’t hardly find a product not made in China or some other foreign land, which brings up a point about the exchange rate, ok even if you paid them the same per hour wage free trade still wouldn’t work, lets take John Deere for example, the heavy equipment maker has a plant in India, they pay the average worker there $56,000 Rupee a year, which is equivalent to $750.00 US dollars a year, now ask yourself can a U S citizen work for that amount a year? that’s what its going to take to compete. Now look at the illegals flooding into the USA to work, they bring the Mexican Mafia or Sinaloa Cartel or MS 13 with them, do we want that in our country? There is one cure and one cure only, cancel the trade agreements, shut the border, and clean America up, yes the big multinational Ceo’s and other executives won’t make their huge profits but the USA can become good again.
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