In last week’s column I criticized people for complaining about everything that is “wrong” with the iPhone 5. The column faulted the affected American populace for failing to recognize what is actually worth complaining about and essentially blamed their consumer habits for allowing businesses like Apple to financially exploit their loyal customers.
Now, I’m here to criticize the corporations and do my part to “demand” more ethical business practices from the companies we have become loyal to and dependent on.
The previous column explained that “Apple has been selling phones for high prices and accessories that fail after a given time period for quite some time now. It’s an intentional form of manufacturing and every Apple consumer perpetuates the problem. We did it to ourselves, people.”
This is still true. But this week I have sympathy for all of us who have become pawns in the greedy scheme of multi-national corporations who knowingly exercise faulty business practices.
Sure – we are guilty to some extent. We anxiously wait for the next best thing, asserting that we just can’t have a phone without the newest camera, newest navigation and newest slick design. But haven’t we been trained to think that way since the day we were born? My generation certainly has.
We have been erroneously trained to believe that it’s “normal” for a piece of technology to start malfunctioning after two years of use. That’s not normal.
Along with the annoyance and consumer frustration that comes from this sort of manufacturing comes questions about various ethical ideas, such as how said manufacturing techniques adds to the landfills, or what child workers are being exploited and maltreated to keep up with the “unavoidable” demand that comes from American consumers?
These issues are continuously reported on by various news outlets yet consumption has seen little to no decline (and this goes back to my previous question of who is really to blame here).
It’s disturbing to think about to say the least. To think we have to demand ethical business practices from companies that essentially control American minds shows a serious disruption of the moral ideals this country was supposedly built upon.
Consumer and corporate greed together paint one clear but alarming picture: Greed works. But greed is not good, no matter what Gordon Gekko tells you.
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