And, according to John Oliver, even the chocolate companies that try to only source their product from child labor-free sources, they say they can't guarantee it. That's how much and how often children are used on these farms.
After seeing that John Oliver report, I'm never eating chocolate again. All I would be able to do would be to think of those kids.
And yes, I realize that other products I have are made from child labor, but chocolate is a pretty easy one to give up.
If you think chocolate is bad, sugar is worse.
What I've learned in the last few years is that every part of modern life has exploitation in it.
There are very few parts that aren't.
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism."
It's not an air-headed anarchist/socialist slogan. It's just the truth at scale.
how people fail to grasp the meaning of this expression, beautiful in its simplicity, still amuses me to this day.
Because capitalists have had an effective propaganda campaign to make them think "made in the USA" is good. It don't mean shit. We need the union label back.
True enough, but there is still more and less ethical consumption. For example buying a refurbished smartphone instead of a brand new iPhone may still indirectly support unethical mining and working conditions, but it is the less evil option.
I just don't want people thinking they have zero power, so they may as well wallow in iniquity.
Blows my mind the laborers producing chocolate have never tasted it
Yeah, that was incredible too. I wonder how many other agricultural products are made by people who never had an opportunity to consume them? Are there coffee growers who have never had a cup of coffee?
Vanilla bean is one. A lot of the people who produce it don't really understand why we want it.
It really shouldn't. Most people working jobs don't get paid enough to benefit from the services or products they provide.
The organizations fighting child labor in Ghana pretty much focus on getting the kids into school at all. It's a success story to enable a kid to go to school 5 days and only work on the cocoa farms 1 day a week. Completely eradicating it is impossible as long as families depend on that to make a living.
Chocolate gives me the runs so I avoid it. I figure the diarrhea is from my allergy to child labor. Same thing happened when I ate an iPhone
Are you by any chance a dog?
If they were a dog, I suspect they'd have mentioned periodically vomiting the chocolate up so they could eat it again.
Meanwhile Americans eat beef from slaughter houses in the Midwest that use children as a cleaning service.
And both of those things are terrible.
Both of these problems are capitalism
Child exploitation is not unique to capitalism.
Neither is rent-seeking, but both are much more widespread and severe under capitalism than more egalitarian systems.
Most "good" systems try not to flagrantly enable downsides, either. The point is capitalism isn't solving those problems. At all.
Agreed. Point being, any company can exploit children in any country, 1st or 3rd world.
This is news? We've literally seen footage of it. This is common knowledge and something most candy companies take part in and always have
I would never buy products that are the result of child labor. Children have no sense of quality. The products would be sub-standard.
/s
That's why I'm going to start a competing company that only uses adult slave labour. Were all about attention to detail.
Our products are built by only the most discerning 6 year olds we could source. They know quality they will never have the luxury of experiencing for themselves when they see it (from miles away).
The truth is, this is true for almost all chocolate.
I thought paying adults a hundred bucks a month was enough to live on so they didn't have to send their kids off to work because "cost of living is lower" ?
This is the cost of wage slavery in poverty stricken nations. The wealthy elite take the wealth of these workers and steal it by paying them nothing and importing their finished goods into the US and other wealthier nations.
You can find out all kinds of information about this on youtube by looking at "Why so expensive?" videos from business insider. We pretend like we outlawed slavery but it's still effectively alive and well.
I absolutely detest these incompetent trash journalists pretending like this is JUST a mars problem.
If you've ever eaten chocolate or seen chocolate on a shelf a child slave was used to acquire it.
There is not a single large-scale chocolate operation that does not utilize child slavery in the supply chain and pretending like this is 'only a mars issue' is fucking disgusting
And nobody actually cares. You'd expect protests whenever something like this comes out? You'd expect people to at least kick up a stink. But, no move on to the next thing. Kinda sad how little outrage there actually is to this shit. Heck, even the general attitude towards this facf from the comments here is "shrugs Well what did you expect".
It has been an open secret for years. John Oliver did a show on it not long ago.
People become resigned to things they don't think they can change, especially (but not always) when it doesn't affect them personally.
Most people here are from the west and have been conditioned their entire life by western media to not think about it.
People understanding how fucked up their country is would mean protests and riots after all, and threaten those in power.
Why is it so fucking hard for company executives to just be a decent human being? Damn.
Because Capitalism rewards greed and exploitative behaviour. Only natural for those kinds of people to rise to the top under this system.
If you want change, join/organize protests, unions, and Socialist movements.
Why is it so fucking hard for company executives to just be a decent human being?
The 'piss you off' hard truth?
Because we enable it. We protect it. We allow it.
We enshrine their rights in corporation laws to do the things they want to do, put profits above people.
They are not policed, instead they are rewarded by paying those people who would police them not to do so.
As a society, we allow this to happen.
So then, what kind of people would gravitate to running a corporation, under those conditions? Potential unlimited power, with potential no oversight?
Fuck, I'm pissed just writing this.
I always suspected this stuff was actually made on earth.
With their price increases over the years - all the while shrinking and worsening the product - I'm reaaaallly wondering where that money's ending up. Because they sure as shit aren't paying their workers enough either.
I have this list bookmarked on my phone, it only relates to vegan chocolate though. Cannot vouch for it's accuracy / methodology.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/40-child-labor-farms
Youths 12 and 13 years of age may work outside of school hours in non-hazardous jobs on farms that also employ >their parent(s) or with written parental consent.
Youths under 12 years of age may work outside of school hours in non-hazardous jobs with parental consent, but >only on farms where none of the employees are subject to the minimum wage requirements of the FLSA.
Local youths 10 and 11 may hand harvest short-season crops outside school hours for no more than 8 weeks >between June 1 and October 15 if their employers have obtained special waivers from the Secretary of Labor.
That is USA federal labor laws for agriculture and children. What the fuck is the USA on about now ? Something something child labor ?
They are still operating in Russia as well.
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