• ComradeSalad
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    I never mentioned that China produced cheap plastic junk. I said that Alibaba sells cheap plastic junk. Which it absolutely does.

    Also I never said that the sweatshops were in China. Most sweatshops are in exploited countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, the Philippines and so on; from where cheap good are procured for pennies.

    You misunderstood what my message was saying. I said that capitalists procuring cheap junk goods from exploited workers is not made better by the capitalists being Chinese.

    • davel
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      Oh, I didn’t know they did or still do outsource to even cheaper labor markets. Yes, you meant Alibaba specifically, which I conflated with China as a whole. I also doubt Alibaba only produces garbage, but now I’ve ventured into talking out-my-ass territory.

      • ComradeSalad
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        They do, China is a large consumer market, and it’s still extremely economical to ship off your sweatshop manufacturing to a poorer nation in order to fuel your consumer economy for a significantly cheaper price tag.

        Also alibaba is one of the Wish, Aliexpress, Temu, and Shien type of websites. The entire point of those websites is to sell you massive amounts of utterly dirt cheap junk, and get the buyer addicted to the feeling of “being rich by buying so many things cheaply”, which is literally the tagline of Temu, “Shop like a billionaire”. Maybe once in a blue moon you’ll find a good product, but 99% of them are mass produced plastic garbage designed to be thrown away after 1-5 uses.

        How do you push the product price so low? Make the quality match the price, and commit gut wrenching levels of exploitation on workers to drive the price lower.

        • davel
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 days ago

          Amazing. And a bit of a blind spot for me, because I’ve never given those those stores the time of day, and I don’t know anyone who admits to shopping at them. When I think of Alibaba, their cloud platform comes to mind more than anything else.