In a society where the abuse of human labour was factored into the cost of the product, the 8-inch fab line would have been shut down, since the cost of the 8-inch wafers would now be prohibitive and not be competitive with the wafers from the 12-inch line. This in-turn would mean that customers would have to switch over to the 12-inch wafers.
We are not supposed to compete on who can abuse their workers the most to improve efficiency and to cut costs. Thankfully, knowledge work does not seem to scale the same way as manual labour, meaning that more abuse of the workers does not mean more output over the long-term.
We are not supposed to compete on who can abuse their workers the most to improve efficiency and to cut costs. Thankfully, knowledge work does not seem to scale the same way as manual labour, meaning that more abuse of the workers does not mean more output over the long-term.