About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Thursday, February 07, 2013

My problems with Made in China


by Massimo Pigliucci

Lately I have been on a quest for a more mindful and ethical way of living, particularly as regards my buying habits. It is not easy, I tell you. Yes, there are — of course — apps for that,  but let’s not kid ourselves. Trying be more ethical (or at least less unethical) requires work and will likely cost you more than if you don't give a crap about the environment, workers’ conditions, or the use that corporations make of the money you send their way when you buy their products.

At any rate, one of the things I have taken to avoiding is purchasing things that are “Made in China” (henceforth, MiC) or — to be more precise — things that are made in China by non-Chinese corporations. (Yes, yes, my Apple products are the obvious big exceptions. But Apple has been sensitive to complaints about workers’ treatment, is a significantly environmentally conscious corporation, and its products kick everyone else’s ass by a long shot. Besides, I said I was trying to be more ethical, not a saint.)

My decision has actually caused me a significant amount of difficulty, as it is nearly impossible to find clothes or kitchen utensils (the two major items usually on my shopping list, other than food and books) that are not MiC. Try it as an exercise in globalization appreciation and you will soon get a very clear sense of just how pervasive Chinese products are in the United States (and, I presume, elsewhere).

Since this is costing me a bit of effort (and money), it better be a decision based on sound reasoning. Which brings me to a standard objection I encounter when I say that I try to avoid MiC: what do you have against Chinese workers? The sentiment behind said objection seems to be a utilitarian argument that goes something like this: i) There is at least a partial trade-off between buying Chinese and, say, buying American (because presumably each of us has a limited purchasing power); ii) American workers are already far better off than Chinese workers; therefore: iii) buying Chinese helps Chinese workers significantly more than it would help American workers; therefore iv) buying MiC is actually the ethical thing to do! QED

I could, of course, point out that I am not a utilitarian, and indeed I will return to this point below. But that would be a bit too fast and far from philosophically satisfying. So here are three more articulated reasons I try to stay away from MiC.

Reason #1: The Chinese government makes money off my purchases and uses it for unethical aims. If you are a foreign company wishing to do business in China you will likely (though not necessarily) enter into a partnership with the Chinese government, since ⅘ of Chinese acquirers, which greatly facilitate foreign investment, are in fact state-owned enterprises (China is far from being a fully capitalistic society, although Chinese-only businesses have gradually been given an unprecedented degree of market freedom over the past few decades). This means that a good chunk of my money will go straight to coffers of the Chinese government, which has used its gigantic financial and political muscle to pursue a long list of policies that I abhor (e.g., the occupation of Tibet, the constant threat to the independence of Taiwan, a large number of cynically self-serving obstructions at the United Nations, and of course the suppression of its own people). Of course, pretty much every government on earth (certainly including the United States) engages in actions that I abhor, so this is a matter of degree. But much in life turns out to be an issue of quantity, not quality, so there.

Reason #2: Foreign companies shifting production to China have an ethical debt to their own previous workers. A number of well known companies have made their name because for a long time they produced high quality products by using skilled and, broadly speaking, well paid workers. When these companies move production to China (or other cheap labor places) they pocket huge differential profits at the expense of the workers that built their reputation (and not at all rarely they do so while still getting tax breaks from the country whose workers they just sacked). And no, much of those gains don’t go either to the Chinese workers or to the consumers, they end up in the pocket of investors and CEOs. I consider this sort of shift profoundly unethical, pace Thomas Friedman and his freakin’ “flat” world. While this type of consideration is particularly cogent for MiC, it also applies to any company based in nation X that suddenly moves production to (much cheaper, less regulated, more exploitable) nation Y. For instance, I have recently noticed an extremely irritating trend of the type “Designed in France, Made in Vietnam,” to which I respond that I’ll buy Designed and Made in either France or Vietnam, but not an exploitative mix of the two, thank you very much.

Reason #3: My ethical concerns are built on an expanding circle, and China is at the other end of the world. I have found that this is the most difficult point to get across, since most people tend to reason ethically using a utilitarian framework, whether they realize it or not. As I have argued recently on this blog I think that we — as individuals, not as societies — have asymmetrical moral duties toward other people. Most obviously, we owe particular attention to our family and friends, but also, I think, to our fellow citizens, and only eventually to the whole of humanity. This is most emphatically not because some people are better than others, but because relationships (which one cannot possibly have with the whole world) are matters of degree and carry associated commensurable duties toward individuals (up to a point, of course, as discussed on my second post on Aristotle vs Rawls). This really shouldn’t be very controversial: lots of people think it a good idea to “buy local,” because they want to reduce the environmental impact of their choices and because they belong to a community which they wish to support. Accordingly, I prioritize buying things made in New York (my local community), and in the United States (my extended community), and only then do I go beyond that, other things being equal (see Apple disclaimer above).

Of course, much of this applies not just to MiC, but to many other instances where workers are exploited or autocratic governments take advantage of capitalist greed. Still, it seems to me that China is by far the worst offender, both in terms of the sheer number of companies and products involved, and in terms of its huge (mostly negative) influence in world politics.

It is of course conceivable that things will change sufficiently over the years to lessen the impact of some of my objections to MiC, though recently the trend has actually been in the opposite direction. Objection #1 is the most likely to be ameliorated at some point, if China keeps moving toward a fully capitalistic society, with the economic gain of the government eventually reduced to just that originating from taxes. Objection #2 may also decrease in impact if workers in underdeveloped countries organize and gradually obtain more rights and negotiating power. This seems highly unlikely at the moment, and in fact would buck the global anti-labor trend of recent decades. Objection #3 will, however, remain in place because it is to a very large extent independent of conditions on the ground. Another way to look at #3 is that I simply object to the loss of local culture which is the inevitable result of increased globalization. For a while now it has been very difficult to bring back meaningful gifts to friends and family from my trips abroad, for the simple reason that the same limited number of corporations owns retail outlets pretty much everywhere on the planet, and those outlets sell pretty much the same products to everyone on earth. I guess I truly do see the very idea of a multinational corporation (particularly bestowed with the legal rights of personhood) as the great evil of the 21st century. But that’s another story for another post.

63 comments:

  1. You'll get no counter-arguments from me, Massimo, although I admit that I'm in no hurry to adopt your personal austerity measure of avoiding all products MiC.

    Still, as an IT person, I feel obliged to add that I've gotten by just fine over the past few decades without Apple products. As I see it, you (like many folks, especially "creatives") just really like their products, and it's not like the alternatives are any less MiC.

    Still, given Apple's profit margins (at least until the last quarter), I think it's understandable that it garners more negative attention than its competitors.

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  2. I'll have to check, but it doesn't seem to be especially hard to avoid MiC in Europe. IT-Technology-wise, I use mainly Korea and Taiwan (agree with mufi, the quality-argument for Apple always struck me as strange, plus they have some unsavory practices which have nothing todo with the MiC topic), and even for clothing we actually have a few manufacturers locally.

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  3. Massimo,

    I appreciate your wanting to avoid MIC products, but what is missing from your comments is the conscious U.S. policy of maintaining a high dollar.

    As economist Dean Baker writes:

    "The value of the dollar really has to be front and central in any effort to restore U.S. competitiveness since it is by far the most important factor determining the relative cost of U.S. goods compared with goods produced elsewhere.

    If the dollar is 20 percent above its proper value then it is equivalent to putting a 20 percent tariff on all of our exports." see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/a-competitive-dollar-the_b_1242076.html

    The proliferation of Chinese goods doesn't happen by accident. It is a deliberate policy to keep corporate interests happy to the detriment of the vast majority of the U.S. population.

    A lower dollar would also help many ways with our current economic situation -- but no! -- got to keep Wall St. and the Banksters happy.


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  4. The Apple special pleading is curious. For example: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/technology/apple-suppliers-causing-environmental-problems-chinese-group-says.html?_r=0

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  5. Despite how the Atlantic (and others) construe the Citizens United ruling, it did not actually confer "personhood" on corporations. The distinction is perhaps very subtle, and the decision is stupendously bad, of that there's little doubt.

    ... and I enjoy your blogs enormously.

    sean s.

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  6. Good post. This is an issue I've grappled with myself, and not quite arrived at a satisfactory conlusion. While I have been having more virtue ethics leanings of late--some of which is due to reading your posts on the subject--I do still find myself reflexively thinking as a utilitarian. I wonder, do you think there is a good utilitarian case to be made for MiC, your objections notwithstanding?

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  7. Tom,

    yes, of course, the issue of import/export is much more complicated than just the Made in China component of it, and it does include US monetary policy. I don’t think, however, that that observation in any way alters my basic considerations.

    Bertrand,

    that article is old. Apple has since responded by inspecting and reassessing working conditions with their China suppliers. They also recently announced that they are bringing back some manufacturing to the United States.

    Björn,

    well, I think utilitarianism suffers from a number of issues, as detailed, for instance, here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

    Once you adopt a different ethical framework — virtue ethics in my case — then you reassess everything accordingly. That said, please note that in one of the essays linked in the main post I do say that virtue ethics doesn’t really work at a societal level, only at the individual one (which makes sense, since the fundamental question in virtue ethics is not whether something is right or wrong, but rather what kind of life one ought to live). When it comes to third-person ethics I favor a Rawlsian type of contractarianism.

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    1. Massimo,

      You wrote,

      >I don’t think, however, that that observation [on monetary policy] in any way alters my basic considerations.<

      Respectfully, I'm arguing that it SHOULD alter your basic consideration.

      If we don't buy the MIC widget, millions of others will -- as long as it is priced cheaper and dominates the market to such an extent that it takes 6 hours of shopping to find a U.S.-made widget.

      Instead of someone spending 6 hours of their time trying to find a U.S.-made widget, they'd be much better off spending the 6 hours trying to persuade the powers that be to change monetary policy.

      It's a much more effective way to deal with the ethical situation than simply not buying MIC -- attacking the root of the problem instead of the branches.

      Delete
    2. I don't understand your argument, you want a weaker USD?

      6 hours to find American made items, not sure if serious..

      Delete
    3. @Cognitive Dissonance,

      Yes indeed, I DO want a weaker U.S. Dollar.

      The 6 hour figure was obviously something I pulled out of my hat, but whatever time is spent trying to find U.S. made products (not so easy as you might imagine!) would be better spent lobbying to change monetary policy.

      Delete
  8. Interesting post. The utilitarian case for buying foreign goods and outsourcing is actually a bit more complicated than your synopsis. Here's how I would state it.

    --> One dollar and/or one job means a fair bit more to a typical worker in China than to a typical worker in the USA (although the differential is not as big as it once was - higher Chinese productivity has translated into higher Chinese wages in the last decade or so).
    --> This is partly due to declining marginal utility of money (finding a $20 bill is less of a boon to a richer person than to a poorer person) and partly because of the higher purchasing power of money in China (a dollar goes 3.6 times further in China than America).
    --> Moreover, the USA’s welfare system, flawed as it is, makes the (temporary or permanent) loss of an American job less of a blow to an individual than the loss (or lack of existence) of a Chinese job.
    --> This being the case, even pessimistically assuming that globalization is basically a zero-sum game and that +1 Chinese jobs translates directly and simply into -1 American jobs, and +$1 spent on MiC goods translates into -$1 from the pockets of the American public, prima facie it appears that more good is done by these dollars and jobs in China than in America.
    --> But the real situation is better than that, because lower production costs for companies employing Chinese labour result in a consumer savings in America which at least partially offsets any income or job loss to US companies/workers. (It’s worth noting here that cheaper consumer goods typically have a larger positive impact on the poor than on the rich - thus this benefit is “progressive” in nature.)

    Having stated this argument, it's not clear it applies well to China anymore. But it definitely works for poorer countries.

    However, there is no getting around the redistributive effects of such policy within America, which do tend to impact blue-collar workers disproportionately, I believe. Whether this effect is offset by consumer savings is a question I do not have the wherewithal to answer. But I still think a trade policy that ends up having domestically mildly regressive effects could be justified if the gains to foreign workers are proportionally great enough.

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  9. I broadly agree with Reason #1.

    However, Reason #2 (foreign companies shifting production to China have an ethical debt to their own previous workers) seems awkward, as do many attempts to graft the ethics of interpersonal reciprocity onto a huge market transaction. How far do we want to take this "owing" paradigm? If a company rescues the economy of a small town, does the town owe the company low wages in perpetuity? If a company keeps me on payroll during a lean time, do I owe them some unpaid labour when things improve? (I am taking for granted that if a company can have an ethical debt to previous workers, then the converse can also be true in principle.)

    >I have recently noticed an extremely irritating trend of the type “Designed in France, Made in Vietnam,” to which I respond that I’ll buy Designed and Made in either France or Vietnam, but not an exploitative mix of the two, thank you very much.

    This seems rather extreme. The modern economy is built on the notion of comparative advantage, and so very often uses inputs from multiple countries - probably in a majority of products. On another note, do you know how expensive labour is in France? The recently elected (socialist) government considers it to be a crisis.

    >My ethical concerns are built on an expanding circle, and China is at the other end of the world.

    First of all, note the dissonance here with any claim that not buying MiC is partly due to a concern with exploitation of Chinese workers.

    Second of all... well, I just disagree with you. It's completely acceptable to me that I have more ethical duties toward family than friends, friends than strangers. But it's completely implausible to me that I have more ethical obligations toward a randomly chosen Calgarian than a randomly chosen resident of Chicago or Chongqing. (By the way, Peter Singer certainly did *not* mean for the expanding moral circle to imply a hierarchy of duties that justifies partiality!)

    >lots of people think it a good idea to “buy local,” because they want to reduce the environmental impact of their choices.

    Well, they are misguided. The whole argument for local being more environmentally friendly relies on transportation, neglecting production efficiency (I could grow mangoes in Calgary, but the inputs required would dwarf any purported energy savings in transport). Moreover, even thinking *only* about transport, a huge semi transporting hundreds of tons of food, be it the worst of gas-guzzlers, probably uses less fuel per kilo of food than some small-scale producer bringing a few tens of kilos into town in their pickup truck. I like (some) local food for the taste, but it is an environmental net harm as compared with conventional foods (ceteris paribus and most of the time).

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    1. Buying local is more than just the environmental effect. For example, my wife has a small business, with most of her customers local. Any Euro we spend on locally produced goods is money that has the potential to flow back (minus tax etc) - any MiC Euro is more or less lost. Even w/o a business, locally spent money is translated into local taxes and thus local infrastructure.
      This is why the randomly chosen local Calgarian is less of a stranger than the person in Chongqing - I guess you could call it the ethical Bacon-number ;-)

      Cheers
      Chris

      P.S. Btw, people who are really serious locavores don't eat mangoes if they aren't grown locally. The evidence regarding the energy balance sheet is not at all clear then anymore...

      Delete
    2. >Even w/o a business, locally spent money is translated into local taxes and thus local infrastructure.

      Possibly true, although don't forget about consumer savings from buying foreign goods, which can then finance other local purchases. I do not assert that this "makes up for it," so to speak, but many people forget to put it into the accounting at all.

      >This is why the randomly chosen local Calgarian is less of a stranger than the person in Chongqing - I guess you could call it the ethical Bacon-number ;-)

      Well, this pretty much sounds like a self-interest theory of ethics, then.

      >Btw, people who are really serious locavores don't eat mangoes if they aren't grown locally. The evidence regarding the energy balance sheet is not at all clear then anymore...

      Yes, I probably shouldn't have chosen that example. My intent was to show an obvious case of bad production efficiency drowning out energy savings in transport. It's true that moving the conversation to other food goods makes things "less clear," but only slightly less. Read the paper I linked, it makes the argument pretty well.

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    3. @ian:

      >a dollar goes 3.6 times further in China than America<

      Sounds like you agree with me on the over-valued U.S. dollar (relative to China).

      >the USA’s welfare system, flawed as it is, makes the (temporary or permanent) loss of an American job less of a blow to an individual than the loss (or lack of existence) of a Chinese job.<

      Isn’t that equally an argument for improving the welfare system in China? (See “harmonization upwards” below).

      >But the real situation is better than that, because lower production costs for companies employing Chinese labour result in a consumer savings in America<

      What of other considerations? Would it be O.K. to achieve lower production costs for companies by employing child labor? Prison labor? Slave labor? In many countries, those who organize for higher wages are found in a ditch mutilated and dead the next morning. Why isn’t THAT taken into consideration when determining the “fair” market price of labor?

      >cheaper consumer goods typically have a larger positive impact on the poor than on the rich - thus this benefit is “progressive” in nature<

      How do you buy even cheaply priced goods if you do not have a job? Is it a “positive impact” to have your widget priced 10% lower if your wages are 15% lower due to outsourcing?

      >But I still think a trade policy that ends up having domestically mildly regressive effects could be justified if the gains to foreign workers are proportionally great enough.<

      I agree. The problem should be seen not as a shift of power from U.S. to China/India, but a shift of power from working people all over the globe to transnational capital.

      >On another note, do you know how expensive labour is in France? The recently elected (socialist) government considers it to be a crisis.<

      Maybe labor is expensive there because the workers are treated decently. Rather that trying to harmonize downward (in a race to the bottom to find the cheapest, most exploited labor on the planet) how about trying to harmonize upwards? Then, we would not have a “crisis” of competition with exploited labor.



      Delete
    4. @ian:

      I cannot resist making further comment on your “progressive” statement:

      >cheaper consumer goods typically have a larger positive impact on the poor than on the rich - thus this benefit is “progressive” in nature<

      Progressive? You’ve got to be kidding me! One thing these measures definitely are NOT is progressive! That’s why they have to be “fast-tracked” and rammed through Congress in the dead of night with little or no participation from Labor Unions and the general public. That’s why they are vehemently opposed by Labor Unions and Consumer Advocate groups.

      Articles touting the benefits of these measures are found in the pages of the Wall St. Journal -- quoting twits who never had a blue collar job in their lives.

      The exportation of jobs will hit poorer people hardest and leave professionals (like doctors and lawyers) relatively untouched because their professions are protected.

      Cheaper consumer goods come at a cost: the exportation of jobs puts downward pressure on the wages of the jobs that remain. The remaining jobs will be fewer, have harder working conditions and pay lower wages.

      None of that will matter to rich people who do not work for a living or have their professions protected.

      They will enjoy the benefits of cheaper goods and services and pay nothing in terms of harder working conditions and lost wages. They will continue to collect their dividends (which will be bigger than ever due to reduced labor costs to corporations) and reap all of the benefits with none of the costs. The poor will be very, very lucky if what they save in the price of consumer goods amounts to even a small fraction of what they will have to pay out in terms of harder working conditions and reduced wages.







      Delete
    5. ">a dollar goes 3.6 times further in China than America<

      Sounds like you agree with me on the over-valued U.S. dollar (relative to China)."

      So if the yuan were valued at, well, whatever value you want, dollars wouldn't go further in China? Sorry, but this statement of yours makes no sense whatsoever. Dollars go further in China because China's poorer than the U.S., not because of currency manipulation.

      Delete
    6. @Tom D.
      >Isn’t that equally an argument for improving the welfare system in China? (See “harmonization upwards” below).

      Absolutely. But that is beyond Americans' control.

      >What of other considerations? Would it be O.K. to achieve lower production costs for companies by employing child labor? Prison labor? Slave labor?

      Um... No? Sorry, do you think that most production cost differentials between countries are the result of child/prison/slave labour? If not, what purpose does this comment serve other than to raise the rhetorical temperature?

      >How do you buy even cheaply priced goods if you do not have a job? Is it a “positive impact” to have your widget priced 10% lower if your wages are 15% lower due to outsourcing?

      I think I have made it pretty clear that a lot depends on whether those two numbers are 10% and 15%, or 15% and 10%. And that I'm not sure, given my shaky economic knowledge, which is the case. But that it's worth mentioning because trade protectionists usually *completely forget* about cheaper goods as even being a *factor* in these considerations.

      >Maybe labor is expensive there because the workers are treated decently.

      France has severe labour cost problems as compared with many European countries which do not treat their labour force any worse.

      >Progressive? You’ve got to be kidding me!

      My point is that cheaper consumer goods (bracketing all other factors involved with outsourcing) save the poor proportionally more money than the rich. Thus, they are "progressive" in the same sense that a progressive income tax is progressive. If food and clothing make up a large proportion (maybe 60%) of your expenses, then cheaper food and clothing makes a big difference to you. This is generally true of the poor, not of the rich.

      >The exportation of jobs will hit poorer people hardest and leave professionals (like doctors and lawyers) relatively untouched because their professions are protected.

      I do not dispute this.

      >The poor will be very, very lucky if what they save in the price of consumer goods amounts to even a small fraction of what they will have to pay out in terms of harder working conditions and reduced wages.

      See my comment on 10% or 15% above. This is an empirical question that neither of us appears to know the answer to.

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    7. @Steve

      Suppose a US dollar was valued at one ten-millionth of a yuan.
      Do you still say that would have no effect on how far a dollar would go in China? I was speaking of how the dollar is valued relative to the yuan. So if the only thing changing is how much the dollar is valued in China, then it wouldn’t go as far. Policy is altering the value of the dollar relative to the yuan and thus altering the balance of trade. Of course, what’s true in any case is a utility argument: a given issue of currency means more to a poor person than a rich one – but that’s true internal to the U.S. as well as in U.S./China relations -- that’s why I argue for harmonization upwards.

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    8. @Ian
      Items in order:

      *Improving conditions in China is NOT beyond control. It depends on the issues the U.S. chooses to bring up: worker conditions or entry of Goldman Sachs into China’s financial market, or bootleg copies of Bill Gate’s software – guess which issues they choose?

      *My purpose is not to raise the rhetorical temperature, but to give extreme and undeniable examples (child/prison/slave labor) of what is a continuum affecting what wages are paid and how cheaply goods can be produced. Massimo mentions this in regards to Apple – Apple monitors Chinese factories for involuntary labor (as do Hewlett-Packard and Dell). This is done because the Chinese DO use such labor – so I’m not making it up. Such deliberate policies ARE a factor in the cost differentials, as are policies of keeping people uneducated so that they are forced to accept low paying jobs. I do not claim they are the only factors.

      *You were the one the brought up the issue of cheaper goods (obtained by moving jobs to China -- let’s keep the issue in context here) being progressive. Thus, since you claim that the over all effect is progressive, the burden of proof for 15% vs 10% is on you. For my part, the evidence I offer that such policies are regressive is the opposition such policies have from Unions and Consumer Advocate groups – who have studied such issues and who represent the interests of the people you are claiming to help with cheaper goods at the expense of lost jobs.

      *Need to quote you on this one: “France has severe labour cost problems as compared with many European countries which do not treat their labour force any worse.”

      Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. If other Euro countries have smaller labor costs, then they are not spending as much per worker. Then ipso facto they are not treating their workers as well.
      They are either paying them less in wages or paying less on safety for workers, retirement, etc. (unless they have some magical way of making a Euro go farther that France hasn’t heard about). Maybe you’d better explain that one to me a little better.

      *As I wrote to Steve, a utility argument of a given unit of value meaning more to a poor person than a rich one is always true, but you are neglecting the cost of how cheaper goods are obtained (the 15% vs. 10% argument above). If it were just cheaper goods without the cost of fewer jobs then I would agree that it would be more meaningful to a poor person.

      *We agree (halleluja!)

      *The 15% vs. 10% argument again.

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    9. > I think I have made it pretty clear that a lot depends on whether those two numbers are 10% and 15%, or 15% and 10%. And that I'm not sure, given my shaky economic knowledge, which is the case. But that it's worth mentioning because trade protectionists usually *completely forget* about cheaper goods as even being a *factor* in these considerations.

      See mufi's Krugman quote below; you can pretty much translate that to all Western economies. Real median household income has been flat since the 80s, so have expenditures. (For the US, play with FRED, lots of interesting data in there.)

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    10. Just to head off any potential straw men, Krugman historically tends towards trade liberalism, but then he also tends towards a Rawlsian view of the welfare state/safety net, which does not yet obtain in the USA to the same degree that it does in, say, Canada or Western Europe. He's also been critical of China's currency manipulation, although I believe that he's softened up on that view, based on recent policy changes there.

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    11. @Ian
      Items in order:

      *Improving conditions in China is NOT beyond control. It depends on the issues the U.S. chooses to bring up: worker conditions or entry of Goldman Sachs into China’s financial market, or bootleg copies of Bill Gate’s software – guess which issues they choose?

      *My purpose is not to raise the rhetorical temperature, but to give examples (child/prison/slave labor) of what is a continuum of policies affecting what wages are paid and how cheaply goods can be produced. Massimo mentions this in regards to Apple – Apple monitors Chinese factories for involuntary labor (as do Hewlett-Packard and Dell). This is done because the Chinese DO use such labor – so I’m not making it up. Such deliberate policies ARE a factor in the cost differentials, as are policies of keeping people uneducated so that they are forced to accept low paying jobs. I do not claim they are the only factors.

      *You were the one the brought up the issue of cheaper goods (obtained by moving jobs to China) being progressive. If the over all effect is really progressive, the burden of proof for 15% vs 10% is on you. For my part, the evidence I offer that such policies are regressive is the opposition such policies have from Unions and Consumer Advocate groups – who have studied such issues and who represent the interests of the people you are claiming to help with cheaper goods at the expense of lost jobs.

      *Need to quote you on this one: “France has severe labour cost problems as compared with many European countries which do not treat their labour force any worse.”

      Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. If other Euro countries have smaller labor costs, then they are not spending as much per worker. Then ipso facto they are not treating their workers as well. They are either paying them less in wages or paying less on safety for workers, retirement, etc. (unless they have some magical way of making a Euro go farther that France hasn’t heard about). Maybe you’d better explain that one to me a little better.

      *As I wrote to Steve, a utility argument of a given unit of value meaning more to a poor person than a rich one is always true, but you are neglecting the cost of how the cheaper goods are obtained (the 15% vs. 10% argument above). If it were just cheaper goods without the cost of fewer jobs then I would agree that it would be more meaningful to a poor person.

      *We agree (halleluja!)

      *The 15% vs. 10% argument again.

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    12. Thanks go to mufi for locating the relevant data about prices of consumer goods (I hadn't seen his comment when I replied to Tom), and to chbiek for the recommendation of FRED. I was surprised both by the smallness of the improvement and by the fact that it impacted the rich more than the poor.

      I still think the utilitarian argument kind of works, but you guys have convinced me that the "silver lining" for domestic workers in the form of cheaper goods is not very impressive at all.

      @Tom:
      >Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. If other Euro countries have smaller labor costs, then they are not spending as much per worker. Then ipso facto they are not treating their workers as well.

      You're forgetting e.g., efficiency losses due to bureaucracy, which may raise costs without benefiting workers. Analogously, Canada spends 10% of GDP on health care, while the USA spends 15%. Yet the Canadian system delivers better health care service (mostly because of efficiency gains due to the single-payer system - less bureaucracy, controllable insurance costs).

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    13. Ian,
      btw, where do you get that France's labor cost actually is problematic (political statements don't count, 95% of these have little to do with actual economics)? See e.g. http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_651.pdf - France doesn't look too bad there - especially since there is no empirical evidence to correlate labor cost to economic growth. (The paper talks about that.)

      Bureaucracy is often cited, but its net effect on unit labor cost is relatively small. (Again, don't believe anybody who only quotes the cost side.) I doubt you will even find much difference there in Europe, e.g. between France and Germany - we have a fairly inflexible labor market.

      When I have time I'll do some numbercrunching if you are interested.

      Cheers
      Chris

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    14. Tom,

      > Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. If other Euro countries have smaller labor costs, then they are not spending as much per worker. Then ipso facto they are not treating their workers as well.

      That doesn't follow, comparison of nominal wages (or labor costs) tells you little about how well workers are treated. Simple example: if costs of living in country A is half that than in country B, but labor cost is 75%, then workers in A are actually treated better (they can buy more with their money). If we are talking export industries, companies from A will be more competitive, but if they produce for their home market their profit margins will be lower than those from B.

      The numbers you should be comparing are unit labor costs (i.e. cost compared to productivity). But even these per se do not tell you much about how well workers are treated.

      Delete
  10. Isn't there something silly about preferring one country's people over another's, and then calling the whole prejudice "virtue ethics" as though you're doing philosophy?

    Regarding your first point, though, China exported much less under Mao and was a much poorer country. Also, its human rights record was much worse. I don't know if increasing the revenues of the Chinese government will make it more moral, but I certainly see no reason to think the reverse.

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    1. >Isn't there something silly about preferring one country's people over another's, and then calling the whole prejudice "virtue ethics" as though you're doing philosophy?

      I am, like Massimo, attracted to virtue ethics (on odd-numbered Tuesdays and Thursdays). But there is this concern that in practice, the theory is basically a rubber-stamp on whatever your culture tells you is good.

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  11. See, this is why I don't like this virtue ethics thing. It allows people put forth ideas like Reason #3, and say, hey, I'm just following a philosophy.

    The same problem is there with Objectivist rational self-interest.

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  12. Steve,

    > Isn't there something silly about preferring one country's people over another's, and then calling the whole prejudice "virtue ethics" as though you're doing philosophy? <

    No, there’s nothing silly about it, and I *am* doing philosophy. You may disagree with my reasoning, in which case you are more than welcome to provide counter arguments. Dismissing what I write as “silly” doesn’t help.

    brainoil,

    > See, this is why I don't like this virtue ethics thing. It allows people put forth ideas like Reason #3, and say, hey, I'm just following a philosophy. The same problem is there with Objectivist rational self-interest. <

    Please, don’t even think of comparing me to a so-called Objectivist. Your (and Steve’s) discomfort with virtue ethics is a well known problem. Virtue ethicists are criticized (by professional philosophers) because their framework doesn’t lend itself to clear relatively and simple answers to ethical problems — unlike, say, utilitarianism or deontology. Of course virtue ethicists think of this as a strength, not a weakness, because they think moral questions are a bit too complicated for simple calculations (utilitarianism) or rules (deontology). Nonetheless, I didn’t just assert X, I gave reasons for X. So your task is to provide counter reasons, rather than just say that you don’t like the whole idea. Ian has been doing just that, and I’ll respond to his detailed criticism below.

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    1. It's tough to provide counter arguments since I'm not sure what the original argument was, other than to point out that China is far away. Imagine I said that I would only buy stuff at white owned businesses, and would avoid black owned businesses. I don't think anyone would take my ideas seriously, even if I pointed out I'd start out with businesses owned by anyone ethnically Irish (like me) and then move on to businesses owned by people whose ancestors were from Northern Europe and so on in expanding circles, and it would take me a while to get to Africa. And I really don't see why your expanding circle is any better.

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  13. Ian,

    > The utilitarian case for buying foreign goods and outsourcing is actually a bit more complicated than your synopsis. <

    Of course, but your more detailed analysis doesn’t seem to me to change the gist of it, nor my objections to it.

    > Having stated this argument, it's not clear it applies well to China anymore. But it definitely works for poorer countries. <

    Indeed, and you may have noticed that my post is about MiC. I have far less of a problem buying from other underdeveloped countries. However, reasons #2 and #3 remain valid even in those cases, only #1 changes, if the country in question doesn’t engage in the sort of horrific foreign and internal policy that China has adopted.

    > there is no getting around the redistributive effects of such policy within America, which do tend to impact blue-collar workers disproportionately, I believe. Whether this effect is offset by consumer savings is a question I do not have the wherewithal to answer <

    Right. But I am concerned with workers’ rights and conditions (and environmental impact), not with consumer savings. It’s the same reason I don’t shop at Walmart.

    > I am taking for granted that if a company can have an ethical debt to previous workers, then the converse can also be true in principle. <

    You are taking wrong. I think the situation is asymmetrical enough that companies are entitled to little if any loyalty from their workers. Certainly that is the case for large corporations. Small businesses are a different issue, but even there, the situation is such that often it is far easier for the owner to find another worker than for a worker to find another job, which — added to the built in asymmetry of being a boss / employee — to me justifies a sometimes profound asymmetry of ethical relations.

    > The modern economy is built on the notion of comparative advantage, and so very often uses inputs from multiple countries - probably in a majority of products. <

    That is most certainly not a logical necessity, it is simply convenient for the company, which makes more and more money out of farming out more and more components to people who are paid less and work in countries where there are fewer labor and environmental regulations. That seems unethical to me, so I resist it.

    > note the dissonance here with any claim that not buying MiC is partly due to a concern with exploitation of Chinese workers. <

    I don’t see the dissonance. The three reasons I gave you are logically independent and mutually reinforcing, but they do not align perfectly with each other, so — other things being equal — one has to determine priorities: is the concern with Chinese workers exploitation more important than the fact that I think I owe more concern to my local community? And so on. As I said, no easy answers...

    > it's completely implausible to me that I have more ethical obligations toward a randomly chosen Calgarian than a randomly chosen resident of Chicago or Chongqing. <

    See chbieck’s response above.

    > By the way, Peter Singer certainly did *not* mean for the expanding moral circle to imply a hierarchy of duties that justifies partiality! <

    I am perfectly aware of that, but he doesn’t have the copyright on the phrase “expanding circle,” and I think I made clear in which sense I am using it.

    > The whole argument for local being more environmentally friendly relies on transportation, neglecting production efficiency <

    Again, see chbieck’s response above. I find that sort of criticism a useful cautionary tale for uncritical enthusiast of buying local. But your own scenario is clearly made up to force the point, and is unrealistic. For instance, why assume that the locals (but not the producers on the other side of the world) use “huge semi transporting hundreds of tons of food, be it the worst of gas-guzzlers”? Just so that your hypothetical carbon footprint calculations come out right?

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    1. >But I am concerned with workers’ rights and conditions (and environmental impact), not with consumer savings. It’s the same reason I don’t shop at Walmart.

      Consumer savings affects workers' conditions. You can't eat money, so decrease in prices is equivalent to a rise in wages.

      >For instance, why assume that the locals (but not the producers on the other side of the world) use “huge semi transporting hundreds of tons of food, be it the worst of gas-guzzlers”? Just so that your hypothetical carbon footprint calculations come out right?

      This is a misreading; I assume the exact opposite. The relevant question is fuel/kg of food, and by that metric a gas-guzzling semi with high capacity is *better* than a Prius with a crate of turnips in the back seat.

      Delete
    2. > You can't eat money, so decrease in prices is equivalent to a rise in wages.

      Only ceteris paribus - but in the real world ceteris is never paribus ;-)

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    3. Ian: Consumer savings affects workers' conditions. You can't eat money, so decrease in prices is equivalent to a rise in wages.

      I don't know about prices in Canada, but to quote a recent post by economist Paul Krugman re: the USA:

      Nobody questions the fact that America has grown richer over the past several decades. The question is whether that growing wealth has trickled down to ordinary families, or gone mainly to a small elite...I’ve done a quick and dirty cut at the Consumer Expenditure Survey data, which unfortunately run only back to 1984, but which do give us spending patterns by income quintile. If you define “basics” as food, shelter, clothing, and transportation, it turns out that these basics accounted for 70.9 percent of overall spending in 1984, but fell to 67.0 percent in 2011 — suggesting some progress. But what’s driving that decline is the top quintile, whose spending on basics fell from 67.5 percent to 62.2 percent. The middle quintile’s spending share on basics was basically unchanged, going from 69.7 percent to 69.8 percent. source

      That said, I realize that the argument is as much about theory as about facts, but - granting that utilitarian theory has at least some appeal - I'd say that the facts provide some grounds for skepticism towards some of the utilitarian arguments for globalization.

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    4. PS: Upon further reflection, I think my previous comment greatly understates the socio-economic problems that have developed here in the USA over the past few decades (e.g. see here and here for more details on that). While I certainly don't believe that we can safely attribute all of these trends to globalization (or to offshoring and outsourcing), I do think it's pretty clear from the data that most working Americans today are worse off socio-economically than earlier post-WWII generations thereof were. More to the point, if that's where economic-utilitarian logic leads, then I say: so much the worse for the underlying theory.

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    5. Ian,

      >Consumer savings affects workers' conditions. You can't eat money, so decrease in prices is equivalent to a rise in wages.

      It's possible, but suppose I'm a worker near or at the bottom of my company and my salary was cut "due to overseas competition", and the average price of things around me has dropped too.

      Now if I don't buy the goods that have dropped in price, like technological goods, but I do buy and really care about some things like food (non-junk) that have risen in price, then for me the average drop in prices, and of my wages, have not translated into my ability to buy as many of the goods as I used to, quite the contrary.

      Delete
  14. Massimo (and Ian),

    >> The modern economy is built on the notion of comparative advantage, and so very often uses inputs from multiple countries - probably in a majority of products. <

    > That is most certainly not a logical necessity, it is simply convenient for the company, which makes more and more money out of farming out more and more components to people who are paid less and work in countries where there are fewer labor and environmental regulations. That seems unethical to me, so I resist it.

    The theory of comparative advantage per se does not have anything to do with outsourcing - it rather explains why trade can be beneficial to two countries even when one country is better at producing the good it imports. Question to Massimo: imaging MNC were forbidden. The theory of comparative advantages would still apply, but would your Reason #2 disappear?

    Ian,
    > Well, this pretty much sounds like a self-interest theory of ethics, then.

    I thought you accepted that you have more moral obligation toward family, friends etc.?

    > It's true that moving the conversation to other food goods makes things "less clear," but only slightly less. Read the paper I linked, it makes the argument pretty well.

    I am with you on the transportation/energy issue, but the paper is IMO pretty weak both on the economic and the social issues (e.g. for the latter, it completely ignores the community effects). As you mentioned, the equation is not that simple.

    Chris

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  15. In his book "Robot's Rebellion," Keith Stanovich makes a very interesting point about the charge of hypocrisy. To paraphrase, unless you are pursuing a low order or "wanton" ethic, or unless you are an impostor, then you will be liable to a charge of hypocrisy. In a more general sense, it takes a lot of effort and even increases anxiety to try to live ethically. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the examined life comes at great cost. So, I would say that if you never make a choice that requires holding your ethical nose (like buying the Apple products) you shouldn't congratulate yourself, but maybe wonder if you have set up a moral standard for yourself that's too easy to meet.

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  16. Ian,

    > But there is this concern that in practice, the theory is basically a rubber-stamp on whatever your culture tells you is good. <

    Indeed. Virtue ethics is a type of communitarian ethics, so your concern is well placed. And Aristotle certainly would have recognized that much of what we call ethical is a question of following the practice of our social group. But he also insisted that there are human universals, rooted in human nature, so that a virtue ethicist can balance the communitarian and the universal aspect of that ethical framework. But, again, if you are looking for simple answers then you have to turn to a more rigid system, like consequentialism or deontology.

    Besides, remember that it actually *costs* me a significant amount of time and money to avoid MiC, so my behavior is certainly not self-serving. Nor is it “what my culture tells me,” just check the advertisements from multinational companies we are bombarded with, or the sort of things that you find in most stores here in New York — that’s my “culture,” I’m afraid.

    > Well, this pretty much sounds like a self-interest theory of ethics, then. <

    It may, but that’s only because you are looking at it from a utilitarian perspective. I don’t see too much difficulty in conceiving a sliding scale of ethical duties (again, for the individual!), which become less and less pressing with less and less social connectivity. Because of the existence of political/economic units, such as cities and nation states, you are still far more connected to someone from Calgary than someone from Shanghai. That most emphatically doesn’t mean that you have *no* ethical duties toward the latter, by the way!

    > This is a misreading; I assume the exact opposite. The relevant question is fuel/kg of food, and by that metric a gas-guzzling semi with high capacity is *better* than a Prius with a crate of turnips in the back seat. <

    Sorry, I did misread you. But I still don’t buy the obviously forced contrast. More likely, you’ll have that products produced abroad will be transported *first* by plane or ship, *then* by gas-guzzling trucks, and *also* by small local cars, Prius or not. Again, I concede that the calculations are not straightforward, but I don’t buy that one can make a general environmental case against local food production, if properly conducted and distributed.

    Chris,

    > Question to Massimo: imaging MNC were forbidden. The theory of comparative advantages would still apply, but would your Reason #2 disappear? <

    I assume by MNC you mean Multi National Corporations? Yes, #2 would no longer apply. Corporations should certainly be allowed to form alliances and partnerships, but they should be based within a country so that they can regulated by the laws of that country (especially labor and environmental ones), and would of course pay the taxes in that country. Yes, yes, this isn’t gonna happen any time soon. But MNC are a recent phenomenon, not a logical necessity, so they can be reversed...

    OneDay,

    I’m not sure what your point is, please clarify. I am making an effort, which as you say, does cost. But that effort isn’t perfect (I buy Apple products). Are you saying that opens me up to charges of hypocrisy? I would have thought that making *some* effort is better than none.

    Tom,

    > Instead of someone spending 6 hours of their time trying to find a U.S.-made widget, they'd be much better off spending the 6 hours trying to persuade the powers that be to change monetary policy. <

    To begin with, it takes much less than 6 hours. I know, I’ve done it. Second, I don’t see those two tasks as mutually exclusive. I do spend time advocating for what I think are more fair social policies *and* I make an effort — as imperfect as it is — to engage in more ethical shopping.

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    1. >Besides, remember that it actually *costs* me a significant amount of time and money to avoid MiC, so my behavior is certainly not self-serving.

      I wouldn't accuse you of being self-serving, certainly. I very much sympathize & approve of attempting to consume ethically; I know it is hard (did you know that *everything* has dead animals in it?). The accusation is, at worst, excessive parochialism.

      >Nor is it “what my culture tells me,” just check the advertisements from multinational companies we are bombarded with, or the sort of things that you find in most stores here in New York — that’s my “culture,” I’m afraid.

      Well, I think of you as belonging to an anti-consumerist subculture within a broader consumerist culture. Also, it's debatable how much advertisements are a reflection of popular culture. Everybody hates ads, including the teeming masses - it's hardly a radical position.

      Ubiquitous ads seem to be a consequence of a prisoner's dilemma between corporations - if you advertise, then I have to advertise too or I'll lose my market share to you. Even though we would both spend less money if we both advertised just a little, and society would be better off too. But it's hard to remove those game-theoretic dynamics without removing competition, which is the whole reason markets are any good in the first place.

      Your old podcast guest Joseph Heath has some good stuff on this (The Efficient Society, for example). As usual, thanks go to you and Julia for introducing me to his writing.

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  17. > But MNC are a recent phenomenon, not a logical necessity, so they can be reversed...

    You are being optimistic here. ;-)
    Arguably the problem starts not with the MN, but rather the C. If I remember my economic history correctly, many of the classics (e.g. Mill) were opposed to limited liability charters exactly because of moral hazard.

    Sorry for off-topic.

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  18. @Massimo
    "just check the advertisements from multinational companies we are bombarded with, or the sort of things that you find in most stores here in New York — that’s my “culture,” I’m afraid."

    Not really, because you've made yourself a member of a philosophical subculture.

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  19. This is an interesting discussion. I think one point of contention may be arising from a misreading of what I think Massimo intended through his version of the expanding circle and ethical obligations. This comment may be an example of such a misreading.


    > it's completely implausible to me that I have more ethical obligations toward a randomly chosen Calgarian than a randomly chosen resident of Chicago or Chongqing. <

    By ethical obligation I don't think Massimo is intending unconditional support. Rather I think the obligation is both to support what we see as positive, and to protest what we see as destructive. It is often a greater sacrifice to protest what we see as destructive when it occurs close to our inner circle than when we protest at a greater distance.

    I think those types ethical obligations should correlate to a degree with the nearness of the relationship. For one I feel we are better at judging the unintended consequences of our actions locally then we are globally. Some of the arguments in this thread show how it is more difficult to anticipate the more long range consequences. This doesn't relieve us of the obligation to try our best to think things all the way through. I do think we need to remember that the farther away from our circle the more complex the consequences become, and none of us can be expert to enough to predict them all.

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    1. >the farther away from our circle the more complex the consequences become, and none of us can be expert to enough to predict them all.

      This is a good point, and one that anybody contemplating altruistic action should think a lot about. Even altruism within one's "circle" often backfires due to unintended consequences.

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    2. I think you raise a good point, but doesn't this point stem from utilitarianism rather than virtue ethics? I'm unclear how your point about where we can do the most good can be reconciled with the original post, which doesn't take such a calculus into account.

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    3. Steve,

      My comment was not intended to endorse Massimos position in full. In a modern globally connected world where our actions have complex consequences beyond the local, I don't think we can ascribe purely to a virtue ethics. On the other hand I think we need a strong dose of humility when forming global ideologies and applying them to specific stances.

      I think Massimo does attempt to calculate the local and global consequences of MiC, there are just some disagreements with his calculas. I often find myself conflicted on topics like this due to my uncertainty with how the long range consequences will play out. We have to act in the world however, and whatever we do will have consequences both locally and to a lesser degree globablly (for most of us).

      So I do try to be informed in an broad objective way while applying my virtue as best I can where I have the most solid footing.

      Delete
  20. The theory closest to what I think in terms of is pragmatic ethics (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_ethics). I don't know if there is meaningful value in my personally avoiding made-in-China products. (Perhaps there is.) It could be there is real value though in my advocating and voting for politicians who fight for equality and labor rights and improve society.

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  21. Reason #1: The Chinese government makes money off my purchases and uses it for unethical aims.

    I agree with your other reasons, but Reason #1 above IMO ignores the disastrous role that US foreign policy has played that is far more significant than anything China has done on the world stage. For instance, you cite China's interference with the independence of Taiwan but surely the US's unconditional support for Israel has done far worse damage to the Palestinian struggle for statehood. Furthermore, the US has started two wars in the past decade.

    Obviously China's domestic human rights record is far worse than the US of course.

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    1. Simon,

      Believe me, I'm not underestimating the negative effects of US foreign policy. But it is actually a complexly mixed bag, with some shit stuff and some good things, while it seems to me that China's behavior has been pretty much negative across the board. And then there is the issue of the treatment of a country's own citizens. Not to mention, of course, that I can vote in the US, I can't in China.

      Delete
    2. Economic growth in China is certainly not a negative, and it's the main effect of your purchase of Chinese goods. Even the money that goes to the Chinese government is more likely to help someone in the country than to go towards harming Tibet or Taiwan.

      Delete
  22. Steve,

    > doesn't this point stem from utilitarianism rather than virtue ethics? <

    It is a common misconception that virtue ethics has nothing to do with the consequences of one’s action. That is simply not the case. The difference is that virtue ethics focuses on what constitute good character and a moral life, while consequentialism attempts universal moral calculus. But any morally reflective individual is concerned with consequences, even (some) deontologists.

    > Imagine I said that I would only buy stuff at white owned businesses, and would avoid black owned businesses. ... I really don't see why your expanding circle is any better <

    It’s an entirely different proposition. My point is that we have a sliding scale of moral duties, not that we are justified in engaging in increasing degrees of discrimination. Take the example of your moral duty to your children. Is that — in your mind — equivalent to discriminating against all other children? If so, you are using the term “discrimination” in a way that I don’t recognize.

    > Even the money that goes to the Chinese government is more likely to help someone in the country than to go towards harming Tibet or Taiwan. <

    Indeed, which makes this whole discussion far from being a simple matter of black and white. But I do think the Chinese government has been one of the worst — if not *the* worst — in recent times, and I’d really not support them with my money.

    Seth,

    > In a modern globally connected world where our actions have complex consequences beyond the local, I don't think we can ascribe purely to a virtue ethics. <

    True, but don’t forget that I think virtue ethics is a good framework at the individual level, not the societal one. Where societal justice is concerned I’m a Rawls-like contractarian.

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  23. Yes, I was saying that taking any non-simplistic or non self-serving moral stance carries with it the inevitable charge of hypocrisy. That's your reward. The charges arise from both petty quibbling, but more importantly, I think there is something intrinsic about the relationship between ethics and reality that will always result in discrepancies and gaps. If a scientific world-view is perspectival, how could a moral one be any more consistent? So yes, at least you are trying. Good for you.

    Stanovich's poignant point is that simplistic and self-serving ethics ARE more coherent and less fraught with internal contradictions. Witness Ayn Rand's popularity.

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  24. Massimo,

    Regarding your view (as I understand it) that virtue ethics is right for the individual level and Rawlsian ethics is right for the societal level, I have a few concerns. First, as virtue ethics interprets ethics as about how we should live while Rawlsian ethics interprets it as about what is right and wrong, they are essentially different subjects, so it would be misleading to say that they are different approaches that address the same concern at different levels of society, something I think at least your way of speaking suggests. Second, the division of society into the individual and the societal level with regard to ethics seems obscure to me. When you confront an ethical dilemma (a question of right and wrong) in your personal life, how do you answer it? If you say Rawls, then that's Rawls on the individual level. If you say virtue ethics, then virtue ethics is a view on right and wrong after all. Can you explain?

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    1. Paul,

      on your first point, I completely agree, virtue ethics and contractariamism address two different questions, and in fact that is why I just don't see the contradiction that troubles you. If I ask myself what kind of person I want to be or life I want to live, I find that virtue ethics provides me with a useful framework. If I ask myself what kind of society is fair and just, I read Rawls. It's like switching from a first to a third person perspective (and back). I really don't see the contradiction.

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    2. That's clarifying. I agree that there's no inconsistency in your position as stated. I still wonder though what position you favor on first-person questions of right and wrong, and such questions generally. It appears you have a position on the good life and a position on the just state, but no postion on the question of right and wrong, which arguably is the central question of ethics. It's less an inconsistency that I'm concerned about than a puzzling gap.

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    3. Paul,

      the question of right and wrong is the central question in ethics only if you adopt certain ethical frameworks. As you know, for the ancient Greeks that was certainly not the central question, but rather something the answer to which you figure out if your character is right. And of course having a position on justice does imply certain things about right and wrong, no?

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    4. Thanks, Massimo. I think I have a better understanding of your position now. I'm now intrigued to go back and (re)read the ethics essays you've posted on RS to see how you came to to this position and generally to get a better understanding of it.

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  25. Thanks for your explanations Massimo.

    I am still a bit curious how you go about consolidating your choices from the two frameworks. Do you ask yourself both questions 'what kind of person do I want to be', 'what kind of society do I want to encourage', and then look for the choice that best seems to satisfy both. If there is conflict do you have a resolution process. Or do you apply different frameworks to different choices based on which framework seems a better fit.

    It seems the latter is the simpler process, but I think there is overlap in the two frameworks and that neither should be ignored when reflecting on a choice. I think what I tend towards is a third option that forms a combined framework whereby 'who I want be' is informed by the 'society I would like to live' in and vice/versa.

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    1. Seth,

      interesting question. I don't usually encounter contradictions between the two frameworks because they refer to different questions (it would be different if, say, I were a utilitarian in private life but wished for a deontological system to regulate society). At any rate, if and when conflict arises in my position on anything I engage in reflective equilibrium and try to modify, accommodate or discard components of my beliefs, depending on what seems to be the most sensible thing to do.

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  26. Does ethics have nationality? Seeing from this part of the world the US is the biggest bully and most Americans have very little access to other countries' information (look, for example, as we have a discussion here in your blog in English and not in mine in Russian) thus believe in their own propaganda. And even when they have, they seem to be rather unable to see themselves as the biggest bullies (and I am not even talking of their confirmation bias - which is common for all of us). "WMD" in Iraq and all that democracy-export looks much worse than Tibet and Taiwan even if I am personally not a pro-China person. The part about Apple especially amazes me. I see Apple as one of the most un-ethical corporation (my PhD dissertation was on competition policy) and I have never bought and never will buy any of Apple products - for the very reason of trying to be an ethical buyer even though not a saint. :)

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    1. >look, for example, as we have a discussion here in your blog in English and not in mine in Russian

      С первого взгляда это может казаться последствием высокомерия англоговорящих, но если подумать немножко, станет ясно что дело связано с так называемыми "сетовыми эффектами". В смысле: принимая в рассчёт, что знание русского позволяет вам говорить c 265 м. людей, а знание английского с 785 м., неудивительно, что английский становится лингва франка, и что русскоговорящие изучают английский чаще, чем наоборот. Я хочу сказать, не надо постулировать особые невежество или недостаток характера у англоговорящих, чтобы выяснить это поведение (ведь можно сказать то же самое о русском языке в пределах СНГ).

      Что до других ваших мнений, сейчас я с ними не спорю.

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  27. Thanks for the blog. I've noticed that it is often brands versus generics that are made in US vs other countries - though not necessarily China. things like Reynolds Foil, Qtips, Tampax are made in US but their generic equivalents are not. Also, if you look at more than one item of a certain type, a lot of the time one of them is made in US. for example, yesterday i found a great Rive glass h2o bottle made in US versus Ellos MiC. it does take effort and sometimes is pricier, but i feel right about doing it.

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