Dateline February 9, 2012 New York Times: The Dilemma of Cheap Electronics
“Last week, an important Times article set off shockwaves in the consumer tech industry by focusing on tragedies and working conditions at Foxconn, the Chinese electronics factory that makes Apple iPhones. It describes excessive overtime, crowding in worker dorms, improper disposal of hazardous waste and unsafe working con…ditions.
Apple isn’t the only company that builds electronics at Chinese factories. The truth is, almost all of them do.”
To reinvigorate “Make It In America” and “Made In America,” the government should create financial incentives and tax provisions to reward American companies that bring manufacturing back to the United States from abroad, all with the condition that the employees will share in the ownership benefits generated by the new capital formation projects. The result will be more broadened employee ownership and in-sourcing of jobs created by the new capital formation projects, and make America self-reliant.
Because American corporations are increasingly abandoning the U.S. to invest in productive capital formation elsewhere, America is experiencing the de-industrialization of America. Such overseas operations have the advantage of “sweat-shop” slave labor rates relative to American standards, low or no taxation, supportive infrastructure provisions, currency manipulation, and few if any environmental regulations––which translate to lower-cost production.
Economic globalization means a growing gap between rich and poor, technological alienation of the labor worker from the means of production, and the phenomenon of global corporations and strategic alliances forcing labor workers in high-cost wage markets to compete with labor-saving capital tools and lower-paid foreign workers, resulting in greater economic uncertainty.
