Q: In your opinion, what would it take for Apple to become a socially responsible company? What could they be doing better in a small way that would have the greatest impact?

Mike Daisey is a monologist who takes a critical look at Apple and working conditions at Chinese factories that form part of Apple’s supply chain in his show, “The Agony and the Ectasy of Steve Jobs” which is currently running at New York’s Public Theater.

A: Apple is actually directly responsible for what is happening to their workers, as are Dell and the other electronics makers. This idea that they should take a small measure is part of what lead to this ridiculous situation. They should be bound by the same ethical laws that we are all supposed to live by. They have every responsibility to make things in the same way they would were these plants sitting in California, end stop.

At the moment they won’t even acknowledge that they are not behaving ethically and neither will anyone else who makes electronics in the zone. It’s their responsibility to work with other electronics makers to open themselves up to outside, independent verification. It is their responsibility.

What do you want people to do?

My job isn’t to want people to do anything. My job as a monologist is to shine a light onto a problem. Some of us see ourselves primarily as users of the devices and other people, depending on their jobs and positions, are creators of those devices. People have different levels of ethical responsibility depending on where they are in that chain. So I don’t dictate what people’s response is but I am not going to pussyfoot around what their responsibilities are.

How did you come to focus on this issue?

I am a monologist and I tell stories about the world around me. I have loved Apple my entire life. I feel like I have grown up alongside the designs that Apple has implemented and the changes it has made in the culture. And I became interested in the fact that I had never thought in a deep way about how these devices are actually made. I had never actually thought about them and their manufacturing in large part because we are divorced from the manufacturing intentionally. So I went to China and investigated the supply chain that exists in the special economic zone around the city of Shenzhen. In the process of that investigating, I discovered what has been widely reported already by human rights groups for almost a decade.

I focus on electronics because they matter a lot to me and because I think they matter a lot to the people who use them. We have a very intimate relationship with our phones now that we didn’t have even 4 or 5 years ago and so I believe that it makes it a wedge to humanize the issues. The show is constructed to leverage people’s intimate connection with their devices.

On a personal level, how did you find your vocation?

I’ve been a monologist for 15 years. I think a big part of the reason why I pursued this is I was a looking for a forum that could best suit my calling in this life. Being alive, awake, and alert in theatres and not working from a script of any kind and speaking to people nightly about the shape of our world and what happens to us seemed like the best use of the materials that I have been given and the person that I am.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs created and performed by Mike Daisey will return to the Public Theater in New York City for an additional five week run January 31 – March 4

Coverage of working conditions in the special economic zone around Shenzhen
The New York Times: After suicides, scrutiny of China’s grim factories