You really think Elektron gear is completely made in Sweden? It’s mostly just marketing talk.
I’m willing to bet the components are from China - some are probably from same factories that Behringer uses.
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It does say assembled in the post
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Wouldn’t be great if we could get a ready to assembly synth kits for even less as an option?
There are a million other reasons not to buy Behringer too, unfortunately though for many people cheapness is the main selling point.
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Also it is true that many manufacturers use Behringer’s knock off chips, Cool Audio. So it can be hard to avoid.
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We had this discussion on another topic : Behringer D Synth
And @psyclone001 was right about this. Behringer should probably be boycotted. The decision is even simpler as those products aren’t necessary for your survival.
But then again you should probably boycott almost everything.
I would like to state again that “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism”: your jeans are probably the product of cheap labor, and so is your t-shirt and so is almost everything around you (desk, computer, screens, smarphone, pens, mugs, just to mention some of the objects surrounding me). Everyone feels like their purchasing power has rised since the 50s but this is mostly become nobody buys quality things anymore.
I tried for a while to only spend my money on ethical products: not only this is hard because there are not much left, most of what’s left is a scam. For example, I’ve learned that those Made in U.S.A. New Balance I bought (thrice the price of regular ones!) contain a significant number of parts sourced in other countries. Those (french brand) jeans I bought were made in (E.U.) Portugal, but, to my dismay I’ve heard that the working conditions there were quite poor and that the inflated price was mostly due to the inflated margin. Same thing goes for coffee, chocolate, etc.
People want to feel better by making consumption choices that do not harm people, but they’re lied to constantly.
This doesn’t mean we should be relativistic about those issues, but some Redditors on the aforementioned topic are right I.M.H.O:
- “Support legislation and systemic change. Vote. Hit the actual problem, which isn’t Behringer, but the ugly intersection of capitalism and globalism. Buying or not buying Behringer isn’t going to do anything to impact this problem, because people value price above morals. And it’s nonsensical to to wear clothes created under similar conditions and type on laptops made in similar conditions and fill your life with products made in similar conditions but draw the line at … synths?” - PolyBen
- “don’t waste too much of your energy worrying about whether or not it’s morally justifiable to buy a deepmind or whatever. Despite their gross callousness, the takes in this thread to the effect of “yea but every company does it” are rooted in truth. Complicity in exploitation is inescapable as a consumer. You have to square up with that fact. But the ‘politics of consumption’ are a diversion of your actual power. You’ve been socialized to consume. To express yourself via consumption, to identify and individualize yourself by your consumption, and even to do politics via consumption. It all accomplishes nothing but to keep you sealed in your own personal bubble, and to keep the value produced by workers like you flowing into the pockets of men like Uli B. In a case like this, there’s really nothing much you can do to directly help those workers. But there’s plenty you can do in your own sphere of influence. If shit like this gets you fucked up, then fight against the same dynamics as they appear in your own life. Unionize your workplace. Join a mutual aid network. Do whatever you can to build institutions that will fill the gaps the state and private charity never will. Workers have never achieved concessions to their own labor interest through any other way than mass coordination. If you want to help chinese workers, start by helping yourself.” - freelance_shill
As for myself, well, I haven’t done much work this morning, this is how I fight the system. From the inside.
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Erm…nope…my family and i need Ibuprofen and antibiotics. And food ist necessary too. But one could try and buy more food that are produced regional. For a German in Germany there is no need to buy those Lidl Bio potatoes that are from Israel…
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Boycott the air! Those fat cats at big oxygen are laughing all the way to the bank
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Yawn
Possibly partially true, but for the most part under capitalism the vast majority of poor people in civilised countries do not starve to death. Of course this is just another generalisation and there are many and complex factors to consider, which short statements have no hope of describing, no matter how convenient.
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I remember like it was yesterday, when the Foxconn suicides became public. So many deaths. So many voices, telling they will boycott every product from Foxconn and Apple.
Most of them didn’t boycott.
A few weeks later and the consumer will forget or oppress the knowledge about this.
It’s like people who buy only the cheapest meet and then wonder why those animals had a horrible live.
I‘m pretty sure it’s not even possible to be on this page without using anything that wasn’t build in a Chinese factory.
Right. This becomes a deep rabbit hole very quickly. Everyone reading this right now is dependent on daily use of rare earth elements, many of which are mined and produced in a single country. That said, I fully support efforts at local sourcing as long as one is aware that there are numerous problems just as with “green” and “fair trade” products.
Do we know whether the contractors installed the air quality controls systems correctly and are they properly spec’d? Might facility management be at fault?
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This is the official statement from Uli himself
Hello everyone,
since the media has picked up on the factory labor strike last year and in the spirit of transparency, I believe it is important to address and correct some of the misconceptions.
First of all, the factory has passed all environmental tests executed by a government certified lab as part of the occupancy permit process. Over 3,000 air samples were taken from all areas of the factory, all results published and made available to our factory people.
When we moved into our new factory, the environmental tests had not yet been completed and a few weeks after our move, one of our engineering colleagues was unfortunately diagnosed with leukemia. While it is easier for us Westerners to understand that cancer won’t develop within a few weeks, panic spread among the people who believed that the person’s illness had to do with the new environment.
During the environmental testing period, our people were allowed to stay at home with full pay and after the results were published, operations resumed. Neither was there any formaldehyde or other hazardous chemicals found as suggested by the media. Luckily our colleague is recovering and will hopefully soon return.
If you ever have a chance, come visit us in Zhongshan and see for yourself that we do treat our people well, something I am very proud of. We are also implementing many environmentally-friendly projects such as electric buses, wastwater and dust collection and recycling systems, etc.
Many foreigners and also myself live and work in the factory - hence we all breathe the same air.
Uli
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At least he did respond.
very well said… and well copy/pasted 
why stop at one country? what about vietnam and combodia? you could even throw in australia and england for the way they treat the migrant workers working on farms, plus many other countries that take advantage of the poorest in their society.
I do live in china, i’m from the uk but have lived here for 5-6 years. i also live in one of the poorest regions in the country. things are changing, but the chinese culture will never fit into the ideals of western standards. for example, i used to live with a family that had 4 generations living in one house. the house was huge, i think maybe 15 rooms. but the family lived in maybe in 3-4 rooms. they rented on room to me, the others are empty. They liked living like this, it was their choice. Chinese people are sociable, like company, like to live closely with each other. there will often be 3 beds in a bedroom. the same will be for university students. 6 beds to a room. the same size room in europe will often have 2 beds.
however, i do feel there is an imbalance, not just in china but across the world. the western media will feed you negative stories about china, they will focus on the working conditions and tell you that this is the fault of the chinese government. but they will rarely call out tim cook or the shareholders and investors for this. it was the same for the 2007 financial crisis, the governments were blamed but the people running the financial organisations generally got away free of blame, and often with a hefty payoff.
in an ideal world, people would be paid fairly, have good working conditions and job security, products would be fairly priced and big business, banks, investors, shareholders and other organisations involved in the global financial markets wouldn’t be paid the huge sums of money that they currently are.
if you hate the chinese then do boycott the country but, as we have seen many times in the past, boycotts only hit the poorest people harder.
sorry for the rant but i do get frustrated about the views being spouted about china.
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A good point. And if one was to truly get on their high horse about this Behringer tale then that would be a natural progression. I didn’t particularly mean to single out China but that’s where Behringers problems currently lie and China are probably the biggest player in the “tech space”.
I suspect working practices in places like China receive the attention they do due to circumstances created out of our “global community”. So much of the upcoming economies (China/India/etc) are built on dreadful practices that it becomes incredibly easy for the West to point fingers and shake heads - though, crucially, to continue snapping up products. Broadly speaking, these countries are only following in the footsteps of more “mature” economies - the UK relied heavily on child labour in Victorian times, US and others on slave labour, etc, etc, etc.
Having said that, there has been plenty of negative press around Western companies reliance on Chinese factories. An imbalance? Perhaps, but it was there and has been quite prevalent. As others note, it’s difficult not to fall into a pit of hypocrisy writing negative articles about Apple when your average journo probably uses a Mac (for example). Sadly, I just don’t think your average Joe gives much of a shit how their iPhone or NFL jersey or whatever is made.
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Behringer’s the problem?? Puh-lease! 30 people a year kill themselves in Apple factories. Same thing with the other smartphone factories.
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Fairtrade coffee is possible - why not fairtrade electronics?
In general it would be highly favorable if we get products that are actually serviceable. Maybe a company which does this, will be the next big thing.
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thanks for understanding and apologies for jumping on your post.
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