Friedman's Appoval of Apple

On February 27th there was an article posted in the Daily Mail online about Apple using child labor to make iPods and iPhones. It claims that they discovered eleven 15-year old children working in factories during an audit. In my opinion, a 15-year old is perfectly capable of working. This is different from sweatshops that force 10 or 11-year olds to work long hours in horrible conditions for very little pay. Friedman might say that the 15-year old children are simply trying to obtain total freedom, which stems from economic freedom. This can only happen if one has a job and is earning pay. If a 15-year old is unable to work because of a law, then this is an economic restriction that the government implies which keeps teenagers from obtaining total freedom. It might be argued that Friedman is only speaking about adults when he talks about economic and political freedom, although he never specifies.
The article also discusses long working hours for employees at some Apple factories in Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, the U.S., the Czech Republic, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It talks about how Apple ignores some labor laws in order to make the most profit. Friedman would probably say that these actions are simply how capitalism works. Furthermore, he says that capitalism is imperative for a person to obtain political freedom. This is a trickledown effect where the political freedom leads to total freedom. He goes on to describe how is the ways of business change how it is necessary for the government to change. This is a very cynical view, but possibly he would say that the government needs to change its labor laws to better suit the ways the business works, therefore bettering capitalism.

Flawed Life Activity for Marx

On February 10th there was an article in the Chicago Tribune that talked about a man killed in a Connecticut power plant explosion. The man’s brother and fellow workers stated the substandard safety on the job site along with the pressure to complete the project very quickly. They claim that there was a lot of tension over the job and the laborers were working seven days a week for up to thirteen hours a day or eighty hours a week! The workers had a negative attitude towards the job overall and would not benefit personally from their intensive work. The safety plan and regulations are still being examined to try to determine the cause of the deadly explosion that stemmed from a gas line. The safety agencies are not ruling out the possibility of fatigue or negligence of the workers to be the cause of the explosion.

The moral issue here relates to Marx’ idea of estranged labor or a life activity that wrongly benefits someone else. It more directly relates to the film Harlan County USA with the thought of workers being commodities. If a laborer dies, it does not affect the company at all; they can just hire somebody else. Marx expresses that the life activity of a man should yield something that the man uses to benefit himself. In this case the power plant explosion, the labor of the man was not to benefit himself. This man’s life was taken while he was laboring to merely earn a wage as opposed to benefitting himself or his family. He was estranged from his labor just like all the other workers at the plant who are controlled by the capitalist. They do as they are told in order to make a wage to sustain their life even though it is impossible for them to move to a higher class.

Marx believes that a man’s labor should yield a product that will better his own life instead of laboring to make another man a profit. With this sad story, a man’s life was taken while working extreme hours on a project that he did not believe in only to earn a wage to sustain his life.

Link to the Article: www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-power-plant-explosion,0,4223586.story