A few years back when I was working at a fabless chip design firm, I was assigned to manage and liaison with our overseas (Taipei-based) ODM partner when they came over here for CES. And I got to know the lead engineers and designers on their products that work out of China at the factories. After the shows we went out to party and just talked about random things and have been corresponding with them ever since. One thing that I've always wondered about was exactly this situation: the living and working conditions of factory (not just electronics) workers in China.

The response they gave was that while to outsiders, meaning non-Chinese, it may be deplorable, but they don't understand the circumstances. To a Chinese person that was raised in poverty, the slight bump in opportunity offered by the factory work is much more preferable than nothing at all. In a country where it's still mostly destitute and farming-based, the manufacturing jobs are sought after. The money they receive gets sent back to support the family or gives their next generation of children a shot at middle-class life. It is what it is.

The other thing they said to consider is this: there are a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people in China. And they are all looking for jobs, any kind of job, to feed themselves and support their families. People are paid to sweep floors for 10 hours a day even if there's nothing there. People are paid to watch parked cars on the street to prevent break-ins even in safe neighborhoods. The access to this massive and cheap labor pool has benefits and allows for abuse. Laws and regulations are not able to save them all, for every illegal factory that gets shut down another one pops up down the road and before morning a line of people gathered based on whispering rumors will be lined up wanting to work.

People may suffer, people may be abused, people may even die but this process went on and on each time a country underwent an industrial revolution and decided that the invisible hand of capitalism was worth the price for admission to the big boys club. Be it children working on textiles in England to children working in coal mines in the United States. And for every human rights activist in the USA feeling guilty about paying $199.99 for a WalMart PC or $2.99 for a dozen socks at Target, there are a handful in China, trying to fight for not just human rights but also democracy, journalistic integrity, communist principles, or even Confucious teachings. Meaning, there are people equally, if not more so, concerned about this over there in China and Taiwan.

The point being that it's somewhat condescending to assume that Americans or Europeans know best how to solve every problem in China or any other country.

This suicide? Should be investigated. If people were at fault, bring them to court and prosecute them. Justice should be upheld and unhampered with, that's the best thing that can happen and should be the priority in this incident. Everything else is just a distraction, the name Apple is just thrown around for the extra attention. Would this have mattered if it involved another company like FastMaxChips Designs or Wireless Widget Corporation? It should and the investigations should all be treated equally whether or not a big name corporation is involved.

How to assuage your guilt about this overall trend? Considering the decades of cheap money, tech innovations, and better manufacturing/shipping logistics has warped our perception of value and pricing, I don't know how else to deal with it in a free market sense. Consumerism is just a double-edged sword.