Supply Chain Management's Hidden Exploitation of Workers

• •Miriam Posner's book explores the technology behind supply chain management.
• •The ambiguity in supply chains allows companies to avoid accountability for labor exploitation.
• •Major corporations often lack knowledge of their supply chain origins, impacting ethical practices.

Miriam Posner's upcoming book, 'Seeing Like a Supply Chain,' reveals how supply chain management technology obscures accountability for labor and environmental issues. The book details the evolution of supply chain technology from punch cards to neural nets, highlighting how its inherent ambiguity allows corporations to operate without full knowledge of their production sources. This lack of visibility, termed 'advantageous agnosis,' benefits companies by shielding them from responsibility for poor working conditions. Posner emphasizes that even major corporations like Apple struggle to trace the origins of their components, raising ethical concerns about labor exploitation. The book is set to be published on October 20, 2026, and aims to inspire readers to reconsider the implications of their consumer choices.