{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","uuid":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","normalized_title":"digitalcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","isbns":["2021022153","9781032119182","9781032119205","9781003222149","2405518376"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":343,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Digital%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/search"},"page":{"printed_page":52,"pdf_page":66,"physical_index":66,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4220e86b7d4b00d25c4edaf962f5e0e4f17a674eacb7bf77d969eb31a465b816"},"chapter":"DIGITAL CAPITALISM","content":"Western transnational digital corporations such as Apple, Dell, HP, and AsusTek make use of Chinese large and comparatively cheap labour force in order to export capital so that digital hardware is assembled in China by workers contracted by suppliers such as Foxconn, Pegatron, Compal Electronics, or Wistron. The goal is to increase profits by minimising labour costs.\n\nStudents & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) (2011) reported that workers at the Chinese factories at Foxconn, where iPhones and other hardware is assembled, faced conditions such as military drill, forced and unpaid overtime, fines such as the non-payment of wages, crowded accommodations, low wages, compulsory internships, toxic workplaces, etc. In 2010/2011, 19 young Foxconn workers aged between 17 and 28 attempted to commit suicide by jumping from Foxconn buildings. Most of them died. They could no longer stand the terrible working conditions.\n\nChina Labor Watch (2017, 1 & 3) conducted research in order to find out how the working conditions look like in the factories of the Apple suppliers Compal, Foxconn, Green Point, and Pegatron:\n\nIn all of the four factories, weekly working hours surpassed 60 hours and monthly overtime hours surpassed 90 hours, with most overtime amounting to of 136 hours over a month. […] Workers were required to sign an agreement to voluntarily do overtime, opt out of paying for social insurance and opt out of housing funds. These acts are blatant attempts to evade responsibilities and are clear violations against China’s Labor Law. […] Workers at Pegatron and Green Point were continuously working overtime without compensation. […] Both excessive working hours and tremendous pressure are severe problems at Foxconn. Since 2010, there have been more than 10 suicides, indicative of the terrible working conditions and rigid management. In September 2016, [a] CLW [China Labour Watch] investigator launched another undercover investigation at Foxconn. […] Most workers there had accumulated 122 hours of overtime each month […], far exceeding the legal limit of 36 hours per month as per China’s labor laws.\n\nJust like the dress-makers whose labour Engels analysed in the 1840s, 21st-century digital hardware assemblage workers at Foxconn, Pegatron and other suppliers are a largely young and female workforce that is highly exploited. Capitalist hardware corporations try to make workers conduct a high number of weekly working hours for low pay and with unpaid overtime in order to minimise production costs so that these transnational corporations profits can be maximised. The Chinese manufacturing industry is part of a global capitalist system, in which transnational corporations outsource labour to Asia in order to accumulate capital by making use of the method of absolute surplus-value production. China’s large working class, whose members often leave rural areas in order to find work in urban manufacturing centres, is transnational corporations’ source of cheap and highly exploited labour.\n\n52\n\nTheorists","previous_page":51,"next_page":53}