Whether you should feel bad about working conditions in China

This comes up at the end of "This American Life's" hour-long retraction of a program concerning factory conditions at an Apple supplier in China - the show that was largely fabricated by stage performer Mike Daisey. The retraction episode is at times painful and fascinating - as well as a bit ponderous. But the most important takeaway has nothing to do with whether Daisey was telling the truth, but rather the attitudes of manufacturers, retailers, and American consumers concerning how products are produced overseas. Producer Ira Glass talks to NYT reporter Charles Duhigg, who co-reported an extensive piece on how these Apple factories do business.

Ira Glass: The thing that we all want to know when we hear this is like, "Wait, should I feel bad about this?" As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad? And I don't know that I feel so bad when, when I hear this.

Charles Duhigg: So it's not my job to tell you whether you should feel bad or not, right? I'm a reporter for the New York Times, my job is to find facts and essentially let you make a decision on your own. Let me, let me pose the argument that people have posed to me about why you should feel bad, and you can make of it what you will. And that argument is there were times in this nation when we had harsh working conditions as part of our economic development. We decided as a nation that that was unacceptable. We passed laws in order to prevent those harsh working conditions from ever being inflicted on American workers again. And what has happened today is that rather than exporting that standard of life, which is within our capacity to do, we have exported harsh working conditions to another nation. So should you feel bad that someone is working 12 to 24 hours a day in order to produce the iPhone that you're carrying in your pocket--

Ira Glass: Well, now like, when you say it like that, suddenly I feel bad again, but okay, yeah. [laughter]

Charles Duhigg: I don't know whether you should feel bad, right? I mean--

Ira Glass: But, but finish your thought.

Charles Duhigg: Should you feel bad about that? I don't know, that's for you to judge, but I think the the way to pose that question is... do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and, and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions and perpetuate because of an economy that you are--

Ira Glass: Right.

Charles Duhigg: --supporting with your dollars.

Ira Glass: Right. I am the direct beneficiary of those harsh conditions.

Charles Duhigg: You're not only the direct beneficiary; you are actually one of the reasons why it exists. If you made different choices, if you demanded different conditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then, then those conditions would be different overseas.