A "fungible market" does not make slavery ok, nor does it excuse child labor. Indeed, the availability of alternative sources would seem to make patronizing companies that support this type of bevaior more inexcusable.
What's this you say? You don't have a direct relationship with the cobalt mine? You buy your phone from some company, and you don't know their exact sources of components, or whether they switch suppliers from time to time? Gasp!
I am confident that my electronics do indeed contain some cobalt from the exact same sort of mines referenced in the article and I do feel culpable. I wish there was an organization that tracked the degree to which the electronic companies that I purchase products from make an effort to source ethical cobalt and other sources (hence my prior question elsewhere in this thread.) I wish that Fairphone sold their products in my country. I wish that I, as an individual consumer had the level of market power that a company like samsung or google has over their supply chain and could incentivize the cobalt mining companies to behave more ethically.
You sarcasm doesn't make any actual point and to me it indicates that the reason that you are so willing to argue against the culpability of the electronics, battery and cobalt mining companies that make so much money from this is because you are unwilling to acknowledge your own culpability in the deaths of these children and the suffering of their families.
The point is a limited one. Besides this point, reform efforts are a great idea.
