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Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

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Re: Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it has, indeed, been tried

Where? In former communist countries the workers didn't have any power after the seizing of the means of production, as now they were ruled by brutal dictatorships with powerful militaries who'd send you to the gulag for $REASON. Hardly the envisioned "seizing the means of production" and more like "being seized for production".

With a couple of notable exceptions (Cambodia, and mid-90s North Korea) that still sounds like an improvement in their material conditions.

Re: Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

#142
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing too much about Ghana specifically, I have been to third world countries and seen some of the conditions that prevent an economy from flourishing. It is usually a lack of property rights altogether (autocratic governments that take from individuals at will, which you can only avoid by being too small to cut down), deep corruption in the government that basically runs on bribes (whereby the highest bidd…

There clearly are property rights, since the landowners seem to be reaping the lion's share of the bounty, year after year. Perhaps they are not property rights that serve the people doing the work, but that's a separate problem .

>since the landowners seem to be reaping the lion's share of the bounty, year after year.

Where does it say that? It's not mentioned in the CBS article nor the youtube video.

Re: Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

#143
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oompa-Loompas were literal slaves form Africa I can find a lot of stuff written online about this, but none of it quotes the original text. The original oompa-loompas were pygmies from Africa, written in a pretty racist way, and with wonka being a type of white-messiah-savior for them. I can definitely see an argument that wonka was a shitty employer, violating all sorts of legal and moral rules. But we're they act…

We might both be right. It appears the original version was a fantasy where the Oompa-Loompa's were happy to be taken from their homeland to an underground factory to work for free. This is from "Jeremy Treglown’s Roald Dahl: A Biography" "In the version first published, [the Oompa-Loompas were] a tribe of 3,000 amiable black pygmies who have been imported by Mr. Willy Wonka from ‘the very deepest and darkest part of…

It's all good. I'm a bit of a pendant for word definitions people are using. I think loose definitions lead to all sorts of subtle miscommunications. Most of the time it's not a big deal, but I do have a soft spot for Ronald Dahl, so would like to verify when claims.

For all of the articles I can find written about Dahl's oompa-loompa slaves, not one of them puts together an argument as to why they are slaves. They just make the claim, and surround it with statements of the opmpa-loompas being originally black native inhabitants of Africa, and they worked for a white-man Wonka. I can see how people's minds go to slavery when describing a unbalanced power dynamic between an exclusively black workforce and a white boss man, but innuendo does not make for a compelling argument IMHO.

If the book doesn't mention them being imprisoned, doesn't mention being forced to work, talks about them being paid a wage, and given the choice on how to be paid, then they are not slaves. We can make lots of assumptions about what is happening behind the scenes of the factory, but we could do that just as easily to suggest the Oompa-loompas are actually the masterminds behind everything, and secretly control the governments of the world.

Personally, I think Dahl's original depiction was racist, but not describing slavery. The fact all these articles don't provide anything from the original text* showing that they are slaves makes me think this is a case of people wanting to inflate someones misdeads in order to generate clicks. It's easy enough to find real things to criticize the man for, but they should stick to the facts, or make an actual argument.

*The biographer was doing the same thing as the articles.

Re: Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

#144
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying rich countries should force poor countries to adopt to their ethical and moral codes? Should they adopt all of them, like our stringent building codes? What about minimum wages? Vehicle safety standards? I'm being supercilious, but hopefully you can see the problem.

I'm saying that rich countries shouldn't enable or accept poor countries exploiting child slaves and polluting the planet we all share because "it's their turn now". That's flawed logic. We certainly shouldn't force other countries to follow our morals, but we shouldn't give them our money and support or make excuses for them while they act like monsters either. We should encourage them to do better, help them when w…

Ok, but the article this discussion is about didn't show examples of child slavery, but of child labour, with a coverup being performed by locals, and suggestions of a large corp not doing enough to verify things independently.

Rich countries should help poorer countries lift themselves out of poverty, but let's not pretend everything is clear cut and simple. How do you deal with corruption? What is an acceptable level of violations is acceptable? How do you measure the good you do vs the harm you're causing?

Re: Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

#145
post #102

Wait, you mean kids in developing countries work in order to help their families survive poverty. Oh my word, we should stop buying chocolate. Or wait, then nobody is making any money. Seriously, haven't we learned from the "Chinese sweatshop" hysteria throughout the 2000s that if people want to work they are often digging themselves out of a whole rather than being forced into one?

The response here isn't to give money to child enslavers because the alternative is more poverty. The response here is to demand legislation from your own country that makes it unprofitable to companies that employ child labor to continue to do so. Then they will fold up shop or (way more likely) pay adults more. It's not like Nestle barely makes a profit. It's funny you cite China as evidence supporting your positio…

> The response here is to demand legislation from your own country that makes it unprofitable to companies that employ child labor to continue to do so.

You can start with a democracy: US. Just a couple of days ago, child labor in US made headlines.

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