Hypocrite's Ball

I own a Kindle Fire.

For work, I have use of an iPad and iPhone.

I admit these are remarkable devices, capable of all kinds of tasks and magic that just a few years ago was unthinkable or unattainable, from making the Brothers Karamazov -- among other books -- extremely portable, to answering e-mails, taking photographs, making notes, or playing Angry Birds while waiting in the doctor’s office.

I like the feel of the iPhone; it’s sleek and stylish, and its heft is solid and reassuring. I’ve got photographs of my kids on it, a few hundred songs, some useful apps.

My Kindle library spills over with digital editions from some of my favorite authors: Philip Roth, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Shakespeare, Christopher Hitchens, Raj Patel, and Robert Scheer to name a few. My library is stored in the cloud, available whenever I want, and the volumes never gather dust or play host to silverfish.

My Kindle Fire, iPhone and iPad are arrayed on the table in front of me. As much as I admire them, I know these astounding gadgets are the products of Chinese workers, some of them very young, and some of them subject to dubious working conditions and treatment. I know what you’re thinking: why interject darkness into this otherwise upbeat tale of technological advancement. Why worry about some faceless workers on the far side of the world when here, on the fruited and blessed plain of America, we can purchase a Kindle Fire for $199 and an iPad for $500 or so?

Globalization isn’t our fault, right? It’s just the order of things, the logical result of “market” forces and trade agreements. It’s the reason we can buy so many of the things we need and enjoy at bargain prices; it’s why Wal-Mart and Costco thrive, and why Amazon wields enormous power.

Apple builds products in China because the work force is capable, cheap, plentiful and pliable. Annoying labor laws and costly environmental regulations are lax or nonexistent, and taken together these factors make China a manufacturing paradise, the sort of place corporate CEO’s have wet dreams about.

Apple claims to be unaware of any exploitation on the part of its Chinese contractors, but one would need to be deaf, blind and dumb to believe this. Coercion and exploitation hold labor costs down and push profits up.

Exploitation is the grease that makes globalization work and it doesn’t matter if the exploited are Mexican, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, or Chinese. Capital finds cheap labor the same way a Sidewinder missile finds its target. National borders are meaningless -- this is free trade, baby, not fair trade – and all rights and power and privilege are controlled and exercised by companies like Apple, HP and Dell.

The welfare of workers and the environment don’t factor into free trade equations; if they did, Old Navy might not exist.

Every time I buy a piece of clothing the first thing I do is look at the label to see where it was made, and invariably I find myself wondering about the people who made the item. Who are they? What are their working conditions like? How much are they paid? How many hours a day do they work?

A feel good aura surrounds Apple and Amazon, but that aura obscures a rapacious nature that leaves me unsettled. How much power is too much? Amazon plays hardball with book publishers, crushing the little ones, and forcing the big ones to make concessions. Small, local retailers cannot compete with Amazon’s economies of scale, its ubiquity and reach. It’s no less cutthroat than the days of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller.

My Kindle Fire, iPad and iPhone are mocking me. “You talk a good game,” they say, “but we dare you to take us out in the backyard and smash us to bits with an 8lb sledgehammer. Go on, put your principles into practice. Don’t be a hypocrite. If you’re so concerned about Chinese workers do something about it. C’mon, brother, talk is cheap. Bring the hammer down.”

I am a hypocrite.