“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”
Apple Computer, currently the highest-valued company in the country, at its peak employs 1/10 the number of Americans as General Motors did in the 1950s. Apple is an easy target because it’s big, but the problem isn’t unique to Apple. Technology companies as a whole employ fewer people than the heavyweights of ages past like General Motors and General Electric. It’s the nature of the work.
This is all from an article in tomorrow’s New York Times. Apple moved production to China because the United States couldn’t deliver workers who would or could work the grueling schedules required by the way Apple designs its products today. The Chinese government subsidizes the factories that build consumer goods for export. Making telephones in the United States would add $65 to the price of every phone Apple sells, but Apple says they couldn’t do it if they wanted to. Other companies move overseas because their shareholders demand Apple-like profit margins.
The article has no answers, only a faint hope that something unexpected might happen, like what happened in the 1980s.
In his immortal Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the secret to the United States’ success was its altruism. I’ve spent my adult life watching our altruism erode away, and now this is what we have left.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Not the only, but one of the bigger reasons I will never, ever, ever, buy an Apple product. I was burned as an early user when they changed display connectors, and swore then I would never allow Jobs to profit one cent from me again.
I understand your point, and I wouldn’t buy Apple stuff because it is overpriced (though generally well-designed and engineered). I do think, though, that you’re safe in buying Apple again. Steve Jobs stopped collecting a paycheck last year.