In praise of sweatshops

[sdowney717]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html?em

It is easy for a rich person from a rich country (rich is all relative) to say a lot of bad things about them. But if you have been overseas in many places the poor have nothing at all.

[cardinals_fan]

A well-written article in the New York Times?! Unheard of!

[SunnyRabbiera]

there should not be any reason for poverty like that period, sweatshops are just added insult to injury along with the junkyard...
He shouldn't praise either institution, no one should and this is an issue everyone should look at as wrong.

[happysmileman]

Well, I'm not going to defend sweatshops, but in a way what he's saying is that for every person working in a sweat shop, there's one less person looking through garbage for metal.

Obviously it's terrible that anyone lives in those conditions, but shutting down a sweatshop would make the standard of living for the workers WORSE than it is now, as does boycotting them.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well, I'm not going to defend sweatshops, but in a way what he's saying is that for every person working in a sweat shop, there's one less person looking through garbage for metal.

Obviously it's terrible that anyone lives in those conditions, but shutting down a sweatshop would make the standard of living for the workers WORSE than it is now, as does boycotting them.

Yeh but they should not have to look for metal either.
But this is what our society does, no matter where you go.
I hope for the day that people that live in poverty wont be in poverty period...
Eliminating greed is one way to stop it, unfortunately mankind is a greedy animal.

[Murrquan]

Henry Ford once said that the employer doesn't pay the wages; he only handles the money. It's the customer that pays the wages. And frankly, we don't pay people in third-world countries very well.

Worse, a lot of the time our governments pressure theirs to allow our corporations to move in and carve up their economic landscapes, so that native-made goods are subject to huge tariffs but things made by our companies' peons aren't. So the choice between a sweatshop and rooting through garbage is an artificial one, and one that we imposed on them.

The only way to address the inequality is for us, the customers, to voluntarily pay better wages. Fair Trade certification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade) is one way we can do this, at least for certain products.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Henry Ford once said that the employer doesn't pay the wages; he only handles the money. It's the customer that pays the wages. And frankly, we don't pay people in third-world countries very well.

Worse, a lot of the time our governments pressure theirs to allow our corporations to move in and carve up their economic landscapes, so that native-made goods are subject to huge tariffs but things made by our companies' peons aren't. So the choice between a sweatshop and rooting through garbage is an artificial one, and one that we imposed on them.

The only way to address the inequality is for us, the customers, to voluntarily pay better wages. Fair Trade certification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade) is one way we can do this, at least for certain products.

But it seems no one likes the word "fair trade" these days.

[init1]

Yeh but they should not have to look for metal either.
But this is what our society does, no matter where you go.
I hope for the day that people that live in poverty wont be in poverty period...
Eliminating greed is one way to stop it, unfortunately mankind is a greedy animal.
I seriously doubt that could ever happen. As long as there are wealthy people, there will also be poor people. In theory, communism would solve this, but in reality it only exacerbates it.

[jken146]

But it seems no one likes the word "fair trade" these days.

Why not?

[KiwiNZ]

This is so sad

[Maheriano]

I seriously doubt that could ever happen. As long as there are wealthy people, there will also be poor people. In theory, communism would solve this, but in reality it only exacerbates it.

Actually as long as there is a financial system there will be poor people. The only way to eliminate poverty is to eliminate the monetary scale that rates you on finance. Look at these 2 scenarios:

1. Linux: It's completely free, defies all financial rules and is contributed to and maintained by members of the community who are best at doing so.
2. Most other products: They cost money, upgrades/replacements can only be done by buying very specific parts only available from the manufacturer and they're operated with the highest financial return in mind. They're a headache to use and cost more to operate than they should.

When you do away with money, you have a better community of people who contribute to make everything better for everyone.

[MisterFlibble84]

Yay for corporate whitewashing?

How much did the companies doing this pay to get the article in the New York Times?

A Sweatshop isn't a way out of poverty, it's a endless cycle of slave labor, it will never increase their wages or standard of living, cause if they do, then Capitalists find other cheaper people to hurt, and go hurt them.

My respect for the NYT has gone way down after reading this article.

Maybe if sweatshops are a godsend, that idiot that wrote this would like to go join them?

[glotz]

I dunno, I mean the article was kinda the sameold, sameold NYT... (screenshot included)

[uberdonkey5]

Its a question of 'free trade' (ok I know its just a theory and there is no real free trade).

However, if people are allowed to produce goods with minimum health standards what we end up with is a few rich people, living in rich countries, employing very poor people with no health regulation over seas, because its cheaper. If we want free trade we need some level playing field. I think there should be taxes on any goods that are not made with the same health and safety regulations as the country that is buying it, to prevent distortion of the free market.

Social and environmental policy is an intrinsic part of any economic system that wants to provide for its people and not just the wealthy few. I'm a complete capatilist by the way, just believe that environmental and social costs should be internalised in the market (e.g. tax from petrol should go to environmental rehabilitation of the environmental damage petrol does, not to the government general expenditure!).


P.S. doing away with money is extreme! I love the idea, but I think people exploit resources until they end up fighting over them. Personally I'd prefer to live in a hunter-gatherer society, but if the world gave up money we would be killing each other for enough land to feed our family. Agriculture is the doom of humans... it allows us to reproduce to a level beyond that which is sustainable through hunter gathering, but resukts in trade (and eventually) money.

(We should be preserving hunter-gather societies cos these are the only people who will survive given a global economic collapse. Infact they probably won't even notice).

Interestingly when you grow rapid and slow growing bacteria in the same test tube, the rapid growing bacteria dominate and use all the resources. Eventually all the resources are gone, and the rapid growing bacteria cannot survive without high levels of nutrients and die. The final winner is the small number of slow growing bacteria who can survive on few resources.