It has been common knowledge that one of the business trends nowadays is outsourcing. It has become a trend because it costs less - why pay an American worker with $3,000 when you can pay an equally-competitive guy from India $500? Nothing wrong with outsourced jobs, they provide employment to other countries, it becomes wrong when wages are low and when the work itself becomes really tedious and at times hazardous.

Is Apple masking imperlialist business ways with its innovative ways of thinking? If we are to believe a news article from Mail on Sunday (no online copy is available), then the answer is yes. Imperialism here is defined as the economic exploitation of one region by another, or of a group by another, in accordance with Marxist theories. According to the report about iPod Factories, a factory in Longhua, China, Apple's iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 or roughly $50 per month.

The report claims Longhua's workers live in dormitories that house 100 people. Visitors are not allowed at any time and the pre-dominantly female workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player. In another China factory in Suzhou, Shanghai that makes iPod Shuffles, the workers are housed outside the plant, and earn £54 per month - but they must pay for their accommodation and food, "which takes up half their salaries", according to the report.

The report also tackled that the nano contains 400 parts, and that its flash memory is the most expensive component. The report describes the product as a perfect mirror of  the post-modern ways of global business because the iPod nano contains parts developed by technology companies from across the planet.

Personally, I don't think that this will shake up iPod's popularity because, heck, when one buys an iPod they don't think of those workers slaving in Chinese iPod factories...