Yes, I also read that very paragraph and highlighted it to copy in to a post over here for further discussion (and with much the same conclusion as you). Here were two others from later in the article:
:"The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day."
Not just slave labour, but Chinese-government subsidised slave labour.
:"The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day."
China is lifting itself out of poverty and they aim to be the most powerful country in the world, not a cheap labour factory. Meanwhile the US is a rich developed country with over 2 million slave labourers (prisoners) living in dormitories, subject to violence and working for less than a chinese laborer with fewer rights. I would rather buy an iPhone made by aspirational Chinese than victims of the war on drugs. I tend to avoid US products due to a perception that US employees don't get decent wages or health care compared to other developed western democracies.
"I would rather buy an iPhone made by aspirational Chinese than victims of the war on drugs."
One of the weirdest statements on this topic so far, it supports the hypothesis that humans are not rational (and likely are completely f*ing insane) when it comes to arguing theology, philosophy or politics. Let's just take the gloves off (or better, pull out the guns and start shooting) - we're obviously better designed to do that than to come to any reasonable compromise (it is always a compromise, not an agreement) through speech.
P.S. Am reading Maurice Ashley's "England in the Seventeenth Century". That was a period chock full of political/theological/philosophical madness. Threads here show humans remain as "rational" in their thinking as they were then.
Both the book and this topic are a hoot until one realizes that some of those involved were/are in responsible positions. My conclusion so far: Taleb's description of Black Swans is optimistic: we're much more likely to see some civilization-crumbling in our lifetimes that we formerly thought.
It's been a quiet and peaceful ride down the river so far but I'm going to buy a barrel and some tar - I think the roaring sound I hear ahead is a waterfall.
:"The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day."
Not just slave labour, but Chinese-government subsidised slave labour.
:"The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day."
... no further comment.