• @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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    1224 hours ago

    Slave labor is a system in which a person is bought sold and indentured to a master for a substantial duration, often life. Their labor is coerced as property of that master.

    That is not how China produces cars. They use highly automated systems and paid workers like everywhere else. While Chinese workers are paid less due to the forces of unequal exchange (a system imposed by the US) and an export economy (a system usually imposed by the US but more of a 4D chess move by China to develop productive forces, with the US gladly taking the deal for exploitation), that is not really why the cars are so much cheaper. It is because China has highly concentrated industry and a much less financialized system.

    Speaking about “fair” is amazing in this context. The US is simply trying to protect domestic monopsony industry and to damage Chinese industry. This is a jingoistic and corporate policy.

    • @disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      31 minutes ago

      Chattel slavery is different than indentured servitude. There is no ownership of the indentured servant, but they are forced to work against their will. This is the slavery found in Xinjiang, as well as the US penal system.

      • @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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        523 hours ago

        That’s true but the logic applies. The EU is part of the imperial core that eats from that trough and in turn supports its maintainer. It is simply following the US’ lead.

          • @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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            719 hours ago

            Depends on which part of the EU you are in. There is a reason the poor of Poland move to places like the UK.

            Though this is neither here nor there as the original allegation was slave labor, which is simply a lie.

              • @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                411 hours ago

                A US State Department “fact sheet” from 2021 that cites no sources. Amazing.

                Anyways, Chinese companies make electric cars in modern factories with normal workers paid for their labor. Y’all are peddling in orientalist assumptions that only work on people that know nothing at all about the country aside from, say, US State Department single page propaganda pieces.

                  • @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                    48 hours ago

                    Neither of those are exactly quality organizations whose claims should be taken at face value, though Amnesty International has made no claims about slave labor and HRW doesn’t itself have any statements about that so far as I can tell.

                    Though this is beside the point as, again, we are talking about EV manufacturing. Please do your best to not support the orientalist implications throughout this thread. If you would like to make a specific claim, go ahead and do so, but be ready to explain it with more than NGO or State Department name dropping.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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                612 hours ago

                Ah yes, the US would absolutely be the place you’d go for factual information about their biggest geopolitical rival. 😂