Let me bring in some other perspectives here, as someone from India who’s been living in Finland for the last three years, I might have some first hand experience in talking about this.
First of all, yes Chinese factories are exploitive - but you also need to take into account the population density in a country like that. Everyone needs to survive and is thus willing to work an hour more/work for lesser pay just to get some work. And because of the population, everyone knows they’re replaceable, and usually replaceable by someone who’s willing to work for cheaper and work longer hours. And that’s exactly how this culture starts in the first place. In european countries/Americas the lack of people makes labour more valuable. It’s the same thing in India in various markets. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job, if you aren’t willing to work on the weekends, the clients are going to find someone cheaper and willing to put in more hours to replace you - irrespective of work quality (I’m talking from personal experience here).
Prices of gear? Well, while we do live in a global economy, the cost of living in each country is different and the salaries are scaled to that and that countries economy. Some of my freelance projects in Finland have paid me more per hour than an entire project of similar scale back home. And that again boils down to cost of labour and competition but is compounded by cost of living.
Now you might feel 1000€ a month is not enough - but in a lot of countries it is enough to live comfortably. But then, back to the question about global economies - if you’re earning 1000€ a month and you want to buy the latest MacBook Pro or an Octatrack, that’s more than your months salary. So what do you do then? And that’s where companies like Xiaomi, OnePlus etc come in - Behringer is no exception.
The eurorack that I’ve built up over the last few years, and the digitakt that I’m considering now, I would never be able to even think about that if I was living and working in India. I have talented musician friends who’ve been saving for months to buy a drum machine and the Arturia Drumbrute Impact is what most people are eyeing because it’s probably the cheapest. Heck, a Behringer 808 at that price? No one is going to think of ethical reasons when considering that coming from that sort of a background. Exploitive? Well, they themselves are being exploited day in day out, they’re not gonna think of Chinese factory workers because they can finally afford their first drum machine.
These are troubled times. Even if we live in a global economy, we don’t live in a global economy which implies equality in cost of living and local economies. So it’s a very complicated conversation.
On another note, I wonder if anyone read the article on how the lack of screws in USA was the reason why Apple couldn’t manufacture Mac Pros there?
