General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 361

Is it that paradoxical though? There's a long line of historically regarded "progressives" in certain fields that were undeniably regressive in others. It raises the question that if to be seen as progressive one must live a certain way in all aspects, and that to someone else, no one is progressive enough. I've never really understood the measuring contest because it seems so much time gets spent telling people that are, almost undeniably, trying to do good they're not doing enough or in the right way.

 

I'm not a fan of that aspect myself, though I think it's a bit more nuanced then how you've presented it. However the EU ruling has no bearing on that.

 

Apple's child labor policy and their audit system is now used by UNICEF, and any violations (there were 3 in 2015) lead to:

• fund the worker's safe return home
• finance the worker's education at a school chosen by the worker or his/her family
• continue to pay the worker's wages
• offer him or her a job when he or she reaches legal age to work.

Labor & Human Rights - Supplier Responsibility - Apple

 

Of course the people/workers get the short end of the stick. This is capitalism. I am against capitalism, therefore I believe setting your country up as a tax haven to court some of the largest, most anti-labor corporations in the world is bad. If I were Ireland (which is in the EU so?) or a country outside the EU I would try to build socialism. I don't really get the point of this post.

 

I don't recall the aspect of capitalism that says a governing body has the authority to dictate how a country (or city, or community) determines its economic policy. That is what is causing Ireland to get the short end of the stick no?

I also don't know that I would try to "build socialism" and therefore alienate myself from the global economic community. Seems lofty and short-sighted.

 

Well, no, it's not paradoxical because "progressivism" is just relatively socially forward thinking corporate liberalism at this point. If you think gay people should be allowed to get married and trans people should be allowed to use the bathroom they choose, you are, I guess, a good progressive even if you run a corporation that exploits workers and gives you millions of dollars in salary and bonuses. Maybe they could just shoot for 'not being a capitalist pig,' step one of which is 'not being a CEO.'

 

And someone else would say step one is not being on the internet arguing about politics, but being in the trenches. To someone everyone isn't doing what they should.

 

Ireland isn't getting the short end. Companies are drawn there because of their tax policies. Like Delaware in the US.

 

The short end of the EU ruling, as opposed to Apple getting "punished".

 

Well, this argument was certainly being made by those who wanted to break with the EU, Ireland wants to remain a part of the EU which means subjecting itself to its regulatory apparatus. That is beside the point and you're mixing together two separate ideas. Apple, in itself, has nothing to do with Ireland's autonomy. Apple is making the argument that being taxed or regulated in such and such a way will affect jobs. This is rhetoric one is accustomed to hearing in America, but is a lie. It is a lie because it isn't based on any objective economic facts or data. It is based on a consensus within the business community and when it is invoked, we should understand it as the threat of a capital strike if the laws don't correspond to their desires. In one sense, you are correct that those companies would leave if Ireland made its tax system more radically progressive, but the underlying assumption that this is an inalienable economic truth is a falsehood. If you're really interested in seeing what happens when that is taken to its logical conclusion, take a look at how Kansas is functioning.

 

Sorry. Misunderstood. Although I guess I don't understand how this is true either? Unless the ruling were to stick and drive companies out of Ireland.

 

How awful.

 

Right.

 

Well, I don't really know much about the ruling and never claimed to. My first post was conditional - in the case that apple is getting screwed because of the ruling, I don't feel bad for them. In the case that Irish workers are getting screwed, I feel bad for them. But the root of that isn't this ruling, the ruling is a judgement by a neoliberal psuedo-superstate presumably in service of sustaining itself. I feel bad for Irish workers getting screwed by neoliberalism as a whole.

 

Well, it's really odd to me that you would draw a dichotomy between arguing about stuff online and doing activist work. They're not mutually exclusive, obviously, and I know you don't think they are. With that in mind, I don't know why you would bring up that argument as something ostensibly equally valid to thinking being the CEO of a multi billion dollar corporation is diametrically opposed to having the best interests of working class peoples at heart.

Yes, someone could say that, and I would disagree. Yes, to someone everyone isn't doing what they should. What is your point?

 

And I think that if a regulatory body wants to make changes to a country's tax law it should not be applied retroactively.

They're saying if the incentives for them to be in the country leave, they and other countries will leave. That means it will affect jobs. If the argument is that those displaced workers will be able to find other work or not is definitely something worth looking at, but the argument of specific jobs being lost in the interim is not a lie - they will leave. Your argument for the abstract: that jobs will still exist or be created regardless of certain company's investment in the area is good, but the specific: these companies will leave, is an objective reality.

My only comment is on the specific case here.

 

I didn't say they were. I said that to someone, everyone isn't progressive enough, and by extension the argument of weighing who is or isn't is a fools errand that goes nowhere good.

I said that to someone, everyone isn't doing enough. That is literally my point.

 

It is one of the reasons why I believe that Apple needs to be held to account on all fronts, including this one. I feel badly for Irish workers, but their predicament is connected to those in China and Sub-Saharan Africa.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/18/10786714/apple-samsung-child-labor-cobalt-congo-amnesty


Report: Apple Labor Practices Still Fall Short

 

I've read both of those; I didn't say their suppliers are perfect.

 

I went back and reread your first post where you said that in response to someone saying it's paradoxical to call Tim Cook a progressive - is your point that people are trying to do good, and because someone will inevitably find a flaw in the way they're doing so, it's not worth discussing if they're being good enough?

 

My impression is that:

1) Will corporations leave Ireland if they are taxed more heavily? Probably, yes.

2) Is that bad for the people who work in Ireland for these companies and rely on those jobs? Yes.

3) Did Ireland set itself up for this when courting these corporations? I'd say so, because corporations are amoral / immoral. You see, all over this country, the remnants of what essentially amounts to a capital strike--employers that left when conditions didn't meet their desires--and what the communities surrounding those remnants now look like. If you set up a country to promote corporate interests, you can only really expect the bare minimum from those corporations. They will almost always leave when the conditions aren't optimal for them. In fact, I'd go so far to say that you cannot simultaneously be truly concerned about the *long-term* wellbeing of your citizens and cater to corporations.

4) When Apple, or any other company / corporation, removes their investments from a place due to rulings or regulatory changes like this, they don't do it because they *must*--they do it because they prefer to move elsewhere and increase profits, which will always be done at the expense of the workers and communities they are leaving behind. Plus the ones they exploit.

 

If it is a known fact that, no matter what, no one is being good enough, what's the point in discussing it? If it's an accepted fact no one is good enough, what value comes from the discussion? It's a snake eating its tale forever.

Sidebar: I'm going to go spend the next few hours working on trying to figure out why this Twitter bug keeps showing up. So I won't be responding for a while, I'll try and catch up when I get back.

 

Well, some things/people are actively bad. One of them is capitalism. Some of them of are CEOs of capitalist corporations. I don't particularly care if Tim Cook is trying to do good, I think he is bad. So I'm going to say he's bad. This is being framed as "Tim Cook is good, but not good enough." I strongly disagree with that. It's not a matter of nitpicking tiny bad things he's done to say he isn't good enough. It's that he just isn't good.