Master Class [148]: Ethical Smartphone
In 2012, a flurry of articles appeared in the North American media about the ethics of buying a smartphone. There were reports of abusive labor practices at factories in China, as well as violent consequences of raw material sourcing from Africa. For example, the Taiwanese firm Foxconn was called out for harsh working conditions at a plant in Chengdu that makes iPhones for Apple. Workers, some of them underage, were required to live in crowded dormitories and toil in unsafe conditions. They were forced to stand through long workdays, resulting in swollen legs, with some unable to walk by day’s end. This and other facilities were plagued by suicide attempts, obliging Foxconn to install netting at its Shenzhen factory to catch workers jumping to their death.
It gets worse. Smartphones require rare minerals such as tantalum, much of which is sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where production of the mineral finances bloody conflict. Rival militias force local people to work at dangerous mines, extort minerals from self-employed miners, and torture and mutilate those who do not comply.
Apple took steps to address working conditions at the far end of its supply chain. Workers at Jabil Circuit plants reportedly work on their feet for 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week, while making iPhones. Those at the Zhen Ding Technology Holding factory in Shenzhen, China, are “pressured into working 65-hour weeks, made to sleep on plywood beds in bleak dormitories, and harassed by the facility’s security force. The work is so exhausting that some of the estimated 15,000 workers choose to sleep through their lunch breaks instead of eating.”
Media reports like these pull the guilt strings of Western readers, and one might argue that they do little more. Few consumers are going to foreswear smartphones on their account. They may attempt to switch to a more “ethical” phone, but it’s unclear that one phone is significantly less implicated than another. There are other products for which an “ethical” consumer choice may be available, such as fair-trade coffee and other certified fair-trade products; however, even the benefits of fair-trade choices are debated.
There seems to be little an individual consumer can do. While the media tug at our guilt strings, our effort to influence the market is like pushing on strings. Activists tell us that if consumers as a group agreed to boycott unethical products, we could accomplish something.
The basic problem is that a significant portion of the world economy relies on exploitation of labor. Many products we buy are tainted, from bananas to sugar to Christmas tree ornaments. One of the most frustrating cases is clothing. Much of the Western world’s clothing is manufactured in Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have suffered a series of fires and other disasters in substandard garment factories. The worst so far is the April 2013 collapse of a poorly constructed factory complex outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, which left at least 1129 workers dead and many others with debilitating injuries. Although ominous cracks appeared in the building the previous day, employees were told to continue working or else lose their jobs and several weeks back pay (payment of wages is typically delayed to exert greater control over workers). These factories supply major North American and European brands, high-end and low-end. Garments are sourced from sweatshops in a number of other countries as well. It is practically impossible for the average consumer to avoid buying them, short of hiring one’s own tailor or joining a nudist colony.
A key question is whether “ethical” consumer choices are actually required by ethics, or merely assuage our conscience and make us feel better. We should bear in mind the central role of guilt in many Western cultures. Although shame-based cultures rely heavily on dishonor, loss of face, or ostracism to enforce social norms, guilt-based cultures rely to a greater extent on an internal mechanism. Transgressors are supposed to be tormented by a bad conscience even if no one knows about their evil deed. As a German proverb puts it, Ein gutes Gewissen ist ein sanftes Ruhekissen (“a good conscience is a soft pillow”).
A guilt-based mechanism has the advantage that it requires less direct supervision and may be more efficient for that reason. On the other hand, guilt is a blunt instrument, and feelings can mislead. One may feel guilty about committing a relative to an institution, or writing a negative performance review, when either is the only ethical action. “Let your conscience be your guide” is dangerous advice, if by conscience one means the capacity to feel guilty (it has several other senses historically). Westerners should be wary of guilt-tripping in the media, given our susceptibility to it. It is a good way to attract readers and online clicks, but it may not lead to ethical action.
Let’s see if we can address the smartphone issue with our analytical brains rather than emotional conditioning. Buying a smartphone for almost any reasonable purpose is generalizable, because it is practically generalized already. Almost everyone in the world under a certain age and of sufficient means (or often insufficient means) has one. The utilitarian question is more difficult. First, there is the matter of whether the smartphone market may in fact benefit workers, on balance. Perhaps it is better to have a bad job than no job, a job that pays much less, or a life of rural poverty.
Let’s assume, however, that smartphone sales result in net harm to workers. That leaves the question as to whether my individual smartphone purchase causes more harm than good. It clearly benefits me and perhaps others with whom I interact. It is much less clear whether it has an effect on workers or industry practices. It’s true that there is no strict futility argument here. I can’t necessarily say that if I don’t buy the phone, someone else will (unless a new model has just been introduced and customers are queuing up at the Apple store). Nonetheless, the phone on the shelf has already been manufactured, and it is unclear that a one-unit difference in sales will filter its way back through the distribution network to affect future orders and production quotas in any measurable way. If I were to obtain my phone from a local sweatshop, where each phone is manufactured on order by backroom workers under the crack of a whip, and if these workers would spend the day working in a comfortable office if I don’t order the phone, then there would be a clear utilitarian case against buying the phone. But in our modern world, the connection between consumers and producers is far less direct.
A similar analysis applies to violence that may accompany the sourcing of raw materials. If I were to order my phone directly from a Congolese war lord, who would immediately turn around and extort the materials from slave labor, and if these laborers would be released for the day otherwise, then my order would violate joint autonomy. However, if I buy a phone at the local Apple store, the connection between my purchase and violence in West Africa is extremely tenuous. It is even harder to establish an obligation based on autonomy than on the utilitarian test, because a violation of autonomy requires a more direct connection. I must be rationally constrained to believe that my individual purchase will definitely result in enslavement and/or debilitating injury, rather than reducing expected utility, which is calculated on the basis of probabilities.
The complexity of world trade makes life ethically easier for affluent consumers. Their very lack of influence over the system, as individuals, may absolve them of any obligation to change their purchasing behavior. It’s a great age in which to be an affluent consumer, but not so great to be at the far end of the supply chain.
So, what can we say about smartphones? If my phone is a frivolous plaything that could just as well be replaced by a less controversial diversion, then there might be a utilitarian case against buying it. If it has real benefits in a highly connected world, however, and if my work would be hampered without it, then these factors outweigh the highly speculative negative effects of my individual purchase. I can use my phone with a “clear conscience.”
This doesn’t mean that no one is responsible for correcting abuses in the global economy. Those in the best position to improve matters are the major firms that source from low-income countries. Legislators and government regulators can also play a role.
Even individual consumers can influence the world in small but tangible ways. They can use their ethically tainted smartphones to talk up the matter on social media. This may help convince the big firms to modify their behavior. Unlike forgoing a smartphone, posting an intelligent blog comment has no downside and almost certainly a small positive effect—on the level of discourse if not directly on the global economy. It benefits the individual as well, as it requires minimal effort, and that effort hones the individual’s ability to discuss ideas. There are other avenues of influence as well. Individuals can support politicians who favor labor protections, or write them letters. Again, the effort is small and has a nonzero albeit tiny chance of making a difference. It is much harder to make this kind of case for a simple exercise of consumer choice.
Friends, that’s it for now. Thanks for Reading.
You can reach me by email at theprinciplesgs4@gmail.com