Do you have any moral obligation to ignore goods or services produced through labor practices that offend you?Some say Apple is responsible for enriching themselves at the expense of Chinese slaves, some of them children.
The other side of the coin says that Chinese are lined up to work in those factories - their standard of living is better than the average Chinese, so it is a good thing...it is developing China to the First World.
Children in India begin working at a very young age, real work. Many work instead of school.
It's that, or starve.
We Americans have a lot of comfort from which to decide the moral Rights and Wrongs of the world. Free trade is good - it is pure Capitalism. Pure Capitalism is bad, it takes advantage of the weakest.
While we think of such things and condemn the Chinese father who would ever permit his daughter to work at such a factory, many of us do so while typing on an IMac, IPad or listening to an IPod.
Denninger says we do have a moral obligation to help stop such abuses. His solution is to tax everything coming from China. That makes sense from a practical perspective, if not a moral one - the profits from our Chinese made goods are buying Chinese made AK's for Chinese bred lads...
But, is there a moral obligation to choose not to financially support a product or service made with slave labor...
Here's Denninger's piece.
Kerodin
III
