There was a professor at the large Midwestern State college I attended who greeted his Econ 101 class with the aphorism “Economics is the science of who eats… and who gets eaten.” Dave Weigel at Slate wrote a post he called “The Daisey Age“:
Yesterday I saw the final D.C. performance of Mike Daisey’s newest one man show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” Why mention it on this politics blog? I’ll tell you why — it’s a smart, vibrant piece of political journalism masquerading as a funny monologue.
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It’s tough to explain this without spoiling things, so be warned. The show is bisected, like most Daisey shows, into two stories. He switches back and forth between them, letting them build together like vines. One story is a history of Apple computers and Daisey’s own appreciation of the company and its products…
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The other story is an increasingly dark, increasingly painful retelling of Daisey’s reporting in Shenzhen, China. He traveled there on a tourist visa, and conducted interviews pretending to be an American businessman. A journalist would have been denied access to the city’s monstrous factories (the Foxconn factory employs 450,000 people) — Daisey mentions a New York Times article about working conditions in the city which was written from Shanghai and based entirely on press releases. Working undercover, Daisey saw the nets that had been erected to catch suicidal workers who jumped off the building. He met workers whose spines had started to fuse together from 12-hour or 16-hour shifts. He met 12-year-olds who assembled iPhones and iPads. As he talks, the realization grabs you — your beloved little phone was put together by a serf, and you didn’t even care to find this out.
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This is an unusually honest, un-cynical monologue. It is not propaganda; you don’t leave it pumping your fist and calling for the end of capitalism. You leave it with a better and more honest understanding of capitalism, one that has no comfortable place in politics. If this comes to your city, see it.
Looks like Mr. Daisey is bringing his show to Seattle next, which is a little out of commuting range for me, but I will be perusing his blog and surfing the youtubes with great interest…
BerkeleyMom
My Econ 101 prof came into the room the first day, slammed the textbook on the desk and said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch!” So true in this time of magical budget thinking where cutting taxes always raises revenue.
BerkeleyMom
I also saw this show but at Berkeley Rep. It was great. also in the audience that night was Steve Wozniak who said a couple days later in the Times that he was profoundly moved by the theater piece and actually cried. He seemed genuinely upset after the show when I saw him heading to his car in the parking garage.
Mr Stagger Lee
An antidote to any “liberal” who says that Steve Jobs is one of us, and I seen people like this at DU and DKos.
Linnaeus
Seattle Rep Theatre is quite within commuting distance from me, so this looks like something to check out.
Chad N Freude
He has a few things available in the iTunes store. Ironic? Maybe.
Comrade Mary
Mike Daisey is AWESOME. You should see how he handled some asshat here. He shows a hell of a lot more grace than I would under those circumstances.
Villago Delenda Est
Honest understandings of Capitalism are not in the financial interest of the Capitalists.
Therefore they must be suppressed.
Keith G
Apple: an American corporation striving to maximize shareholder value – just like the American corporations that the GOP wants to take care of our elderly’s medical needs.
Can some Democratic leader somewhere please make this case?
Probably not since that means hurting somebody’s feelings.
Dan
I know there are some (too many) that think the economics should be “Darwinian” or “law of the jungle”. But they don’t understand those things fundamentally. A lion doesn’t have anything to gain (and actually has a lot to lose) by killing all the zebras at once.
Our current crop of sociopaths want to kill all the zebras.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
/yawn@AL
we all know unregulated freemarket capitalism leads to human flesh for sale in the marketplace and other horrors. big whup.
What americans don’t seem to understand about EE (evolutionary economics) is that marketbased policies cannot be restricted to the local aristotelian frog pond.
Freemarket policies instantly go global.
The market IS creating jobs–just not jobs for Americans.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dan:
They’re parasites, who don’t understand that they’re killing the host that they depend on for sustenance.
They used to be symbiotes, but they’ve evolved beyond that into something that is ultimately self destructive. It’s like the morons who follow Rand: they don’t understand that altruism is a function of selfishness for those who want to protect themselves over the long term. Pay it forward. Create conditions where when you stumble, someone helps you get back up, rather than walking over your back…because you helped them in the past…without any regard to an immediate reciprocation. You’re creating the conditions for mutual success.
It’s remarkably short-sighted and, ultimately, anti-intelligent.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dan:
that is correct. But marketbased policies are actually the darwinian agent here. Freemarket theory has led to the development/evolution of a superpredator class that is extincting its prey base in america.
We need a symbiotic relationship.
;)
Villago Delenda Est
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
The thing is, they’ve created a Spock-with-a-beard Adam Smith as their prophet, without bothering to actually read Smith.
dmbeaster
The type of capitalism practiced in China is the envy of the far right here. If only they could just scrub the commie label from them. Then whenever us liberals point to Western Europe as a model for a better society, they could embrace China as our future.
But think about it. Dictatorial control. True partnership between the government and business (to quote Godfather II). It’s the Galtian paradise in which the elites have everything and the serfs exist to slave for them.
Zifnab
@Keith G: In all fairness, Apple factories HAVE safety nets. GOoPers want to get rid of them and just watch the workers go splat.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Actually it is instinctual at this point. The oligarchs are a like a Jurassic superpredator that wholly fills its evolutionary niche and is now extincting its prey base. And the superpredators dont depend on the middle class anymore except for votes. So they are more than willing to transform the middle class into the poverty class as long as they retain their votes.
The problem is (for the GOP) that it becomes far more difficult for the oligarchs to spoof the middle class into voting for them as the middle class becomes the poverty class.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Adam Smith. Martin Luther King. Abraham Lincoln. Andrew Jackson. Davy Crockett. The Founding Fathers. Jesus. The list goes on and on and on.
kdaug
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s the real point – it’s ideology, a faith-based “belief” that cutting taxes raises revenue, trickle-down, the whole enchilada. They feel it in their gut.
Empirical evidence be damned, full speed ahead!
Punchy
Speaking of fuckeduppedness…
Nearly half believe what has been roundly, soundly, clearly and convincingly debunked? God damn is this country fucked.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Villago Delenda Est: well this is true. Applied freemarket theory is the usual conservative fake bill of goods. It worked once in the past, so we have to keep doing it until it works again, even if it empirically fails a thousandthousand times.
That is why the freemarketeers want a do over.
They are positive they can make it work this time.
Phoebe
Thank you!! I had never heard of this man, now he has made my day and I have bookmarked his website.
@Comrade Mary:
That link to the walk-out video, and even more so the follow-up links from those, those were GOLD.
Martin
Not to be overly defensive of Apple here, but these kinds of critiques are always a bit infuriating since they don’t put the labor standards in the broader context of the nation. No country goes from being largely agrarian/low-tech industrial to the US/European labor standard in one push. Ever. It just doesn’t happen and it didn’t happen in the US or Europe either. These things are always incremental as improving labor conditions in new markets raise labor conditions in old ones, and policies build in that way.
Arguing that Apple shouldn’t be doing business with these contractors (the same contractors that every other electronics company uses) somewhat misses the point – if these companies weren’t there, there’d be no outside influence on Chinese labor standards at all. Quite honestly, nobody in the US would give a fuck. What are labor standards like on Chinese farms? Coal mines? Power plants? Auto factories? Nobody here knows and frankly nobody cares – but you can find a LOT on their electronic factories because Apple and Nokia and Toshiba, etc. are all in there. And even there, nobody cares about one level up the production chain where by all accounts labor standards are no different – that’s simply the norm in China right now. Yes, pressure should continue to be placed on these companies to raise labor standards – that’s how this process works. But if US labor is inherently good for US interests than Chinese labor is inherently good for Chinese interests and the way to raise labor standards in China is simply to go through this process.
And of all the companies that use these contractors, Apple is the only one I’ve been able to find that has documented the use of child labor, excessive work weeks, and so on in these factories and outlined steps to eliminate these problems. The shareholders are putting pressure on the company to do it, and the company is responding. No it’s not enough, and no, conditions in the factories aren’t remotely close to US standards, but of all the companies that activists are putting pressure on, at least we’re getting somewhere with Apple and their contractors.
Keith G
@Zifnab: Oh snap!
Chris
@dmbeaster:
I used to think Japan was their model like Western Europe was ours (economy controlled by a few megacorporations in partnership with the center-right party and the government bureaucracy). At this point, I’d agree that it’s China, even if they can’t say it out loud.
Paul Krugman warned a while ago about the existence of authoritarian capitalism in places like China, and the idea that authoritarian vs liberal capitalism would be a major conflict in the next century. Unfortunately, an America that still believes dogmas like “the freer the market, the freer the people” and “Hitler was a socialist” aren’t well positioned to understand “authoritarian capitalism” as a concept. They’re more likely to bitch about China being communist and us losing to them because liberal politicians stabbed us in the back, or something.
Chris
In fucking moderation AGAIN…
@dmbeaster:
This.
Paul Krugman warned a while ago about the existence of authoritarian capitalism in places like China, and the idea that authoritarian vs liberal capitalism would be a major conflict in the next century. Unfortunately, an America that still believes dogmas like “the freer the market, the freer the people” and “Hitler was a socialist” aren’t well positioned to understand “authoritarian capitalism” as a concept. There’s more likely to be bitching about China being communist and us losing to them because liberal politicians stabbed us in the back, or something.
And the Kochs and Scaifes of the world, of course, will find a way to argue that it proves we should be more like China.
Chris
Trying to dodge moderation limbo AGAIN:
@dmbeaster:
This. Paul Krugman warned a while ago that authoritarian vs liberal capitalism could be a major conflict in the next century. What he neglected to mention is that the Kochs, Scaifes and Murdochs of our nation are doing everything they can to put us on the “authoritarian” side of that equation.
Mary Jane
@Comrade Mary: Egads. Hard to imagine why administrators of Norco High School would allow it’s students to even go to Boston — liberal, elitist city that it is. Norco is the Oklahoma of California, only known of regionally because of it’s disproportionate number of horse and gun owners.
Apologies to sane Oklahomans.
Scott
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Shush, matoko.
Joel
The take-home from this is that we’re all complicit in this kind of stuff… How to make it less so?
Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama
Used to attend a weekly poetry reading with Mr. Daisy here in Seattle back in the ’90s. Wonderful to see him go on to make what seems like the best and highest use of his talents. And it’s great we’ll get to see his show, here.
Citizen_X
Free-marketeers completely mangle Darwinian evolution. They speak, constantly, of “the law of the jungle,” as if every species comprised solitary predators. But social organization is subject to natural selection, and is a key part of the survival of many species. So nature includes everything from solitary hunters, like mountain lions, to eusocial species, like ants, honeybees, or naked mole rats. The latter are downright “communist:” except for the queen, the individual is nothing, and counts only to ensure the survival of the colony.
Humans are social creatures. We have these great features like tool-using hands, and big brains, but much of that brainspsace is taken up by mastering language. That’s a social tool, and the organization it enables has been key to our survival.
Chris
@Citizen_X:
Social = social ism = evil, so I’m sure that language-mastering brain is just scientific evidence of the fallen nature of mankind and totes proves that Genesis was true. Or something.
Citizen_X
@dmbeaster: @Chris: Good points. Gives me a retort when someone sneers, “You want to turn us into socia1ist Europe!” “Yes,” I’ll say, “and you guys want to turn us into China. Which one do you think most Americans would choose if they had to?”
gwangung
Another distant acquaintance of Mike Daisey here, from his sketch comedy days with Up In You Grill (his good vs. evil throwdown between Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve was especially memorable). Good to see he’s been able to sustain his success.
Kerry Reid
I saw part of this show at a salon in Chicago a few months ago, and I’ve seen several of his pieces. I’d recommend “The Last Cargo Cult” as the best of Daisey, but he’s almost always worth checking out — whether you agree with him or not.
Joel
@Kerry Reid: Question;
Did the term “Cargo Cult” originate from Richard Feynman, or somewhere else? Because if it’s Feynman, I have to admit that I’m impressed that it’s become so widely used.
The Moar You Know
@Martin:
I have been to most of these places, on a business visa. Foxconn is a much better alternative than, lets say, wading up to your hips in human feces fertilizing a field to grow just enough food so that you won’t starve to death next year. And yeah, at least half of China is still living on the sustenance farming level.
I, like most spoon-fed, coddled, liberally-educated Westerners, was appalled by China and their labor practices until I actually went there and saw what the alternatives were.
Yutsano
@Scott: Muhammad was a capitalist. Food for thought.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: nah, that was his wife Khadijah. The Prophet was a social justice advocate. See zahkat.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Scott: why? what I said was true.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: Exactly. I’m not saying that Foxconn’s factories are the goal, but they’re some of the better places in China to work and given time and more public pressure they’ll get better yet.
Progress is hard and takes time. These people that think you can just snap your fingers and go from point A to point B have simply never tried it.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Martin:
Dont you personally own Apple stock? I’d say you have a personal interest in making things seem better.
Bleh, I’m just bitter at the cult of companies/individuals that make up Silicon Valley. Just cause you trip on acid and wear jeans doesn’t make you a fucking hippie hero.
Raenelle
“Economics is the science of who eats… and who gets eaten.”
I have two variations on this:
First, Eugene Genovese, a Marxist historian, said history is the story of who rides whom and how.
Second, my M-L tutor said of capitalism: You’re either on the guest list or the menu.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Raenelle:
yes, and Theory of Evolutionary Economics is how to fit the bridle on the horse of the market.
Rihilism
@Martin: “Yes, pressure should continue to be placed on these companies to raise labor standards – that’s how this process works.”
Yes, precisely. The companies continue to exploit the lack of labor standards until internal/external pressures finally force improvements in the working environments. Then the companies seek out the next unprotected population to exploit and leave those now newly empowered workers to fight over the scraps. The beauty of the “system” almost brings tears to the eye…
N W Barcus
HP and Dell also use Foxconn. But Seattle is Microsoft (who use US prison labor for packaging and have incorporated in Nevada to avoid paying billions in corporate taxes to Washington state) and Amazon (Daisey’s former employer) country, so it plays well to the local audience.
cynickal
Thanks for the heads-up.
The Rep is just downtown so I can pop on the Metro for a mantinee
Kerry Reid
@Joel: Joel, AFAIK, it was a common term in anthropology before Feynman popularized it — but I’m not an anthropologist OR a physicist, so if I’m wrong, I would love to be corrected. Daisey’s show is a travelogue/meditation about a trip he made to the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific, where the John Frum religion provides the “cult” of the show’s title. Incorporates hilarious fish-out-of-water narrative with biting commentary on the pyramid schemes and consumerism of Western economics.