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I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

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Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#11

Post by dbond »

alphakappa wrote: post #9
dbond wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the exploitation of poverty sustains it.

When companies outsource to countries like Bangladesh because of their cheap labor, it also provides jobs to millions of people there. They are not good jobs by our (western) standards, but they are better jobs than they could've had otherwise. Getting the kids out of the factories wouldn't do much unless their families had the means to sustain themselves. Bringing such stories in the public eye is a good thing thoug…

I understand the situation with providing jobs to people who may otherwise have to turn to much more terrible means of providing for themselves, but this is where there is exploitation of their situation by companies and as the end user of much of the products, us as westerners (although we may do little to change it).

Factory workers are paid the minimum that the company can get away with, even though we could afford to pay them much more, they could get an education for their children or move their family out of the slums. I'm OK with children working in factories if that is the reality of their situation but we can afford and should pay them more than the paltry amount that just keeps them ticking over.

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#12

Post by invalidOrTaken »

I was wondering why, to put it bluntly, Bangladesh sucks so much. This may shed some light:

"Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem with the country being ranked as the most corrupt country for the year 2005 in the list published by Transparency International." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#13

Post by thecodeore »

dbond wrote: post #11
alphakappa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When companies outsource to countries like Bangladesh because of their cheap labor, it also provides jobs to millions of people there. They are not good jobs by our (western) standards, but they are better jobs than they could've had otherwise. Getting the kids out of the factories wouldn't do much unless their families had the means to sustain themselves. Bringing such stories in the public eye is a good thing thoug…

I understand the situation with providing jobs to people who may otherwise have to turn to much more terrible means of providing for themselves, but this is where there is exploitation of their situation by companies and as the end user of much of the products, us as westerners (although we may do little to change it). Factory workers are paid the minimum that the company can get away with, even though we could affor…

All companies, in every nation, pay the minimum they can get away with. In nations with no social structure, very little wealth, and no jobs the choice is not government hand out vs minimum wage, but a very low paying job or starvation. It would appear you would rather these children starve then to allow them to work for enough money to feed themsleves, possibly working up and out of poverty over generations.

America did not just magically start out as a wealthy nation, for generations children labored on family farms, in business, and even in sweatshops. Generations ago a person had to work form dawn to dusk just to feed themselves, Today in America "poverty" is not having and iPhone or Broadband internet.

The idea that we can magically transform these 3rd world nation into 1st world nations is naive at best, The same path America took, is the same path these nations must take. Over time wages will increase, conditions will improve, etc, this is a natural order of things. The good news is, this will happen MUCH MUST faster than it did in America.

Check out these Videos

http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/top-3-ways-sweatshops-hel...

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/unbelievable-truth-about...

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/sweatshop-wages-and-thir...

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#14

Post by brador »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #12

I was wondering why, to put it bluntly, Bangladesh sucks so much. This may shed some light: "Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem with the country being ranked as the most corrupt country for the year 2005 in the list published by Transparency International." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh

Corruption causes a disproportionate wealth disparity, it's one of the methods used to detect it. Works especially well within a country to identify more or less corrupt states. One argument is corruptions leads to reduced actual investment in infrastructure, roads, schools, things which increase a regions wealth, making corrupt areas show up pretty clearly on a map.

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#15

Post by buro9 »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #10
sethammons wrote: post #6

Poverty is a such a large and difficult problem. Someone's knee jerk reaction may be to "ZOMG, shut down the factory!" But the factory is providing a _relatively_ better environment than what may other alternatives may provide, such as prostitution.

It's extra hard because the poor have less information available to them. When Clojure was released, I saw it as my opportunity to become a real-life Lisp ninja, on a platform in wide deployment. How did Meem see it? Oh, that's right, she didn't. Because she was sewing shirts instead of reading "Beating the Averages."

It's not just information that inhibits the poor.

The poor struggle. Daily.

In that struggle a truth emerges: Struggle is all you've known, it's what you knew yesterday and it is what you will know tomorrow.

For the poor struggle, hardship and despair dull the senses and the reality of the present stretches out before them. There is no future, there is just more of the present forever and ever.

What I feel those with privilege cannot comprehend is that words like aspiration, phrases like social mobility, are so alien that they are meaningless. If you're aware enough to have been angry, you're probably also aware enough to realise the stupidity of throwing yourself against the tide of the world. And so you accept and endure.

You can provide information but without hope and belief that change is possible to their lives, and that the struggle can be overcome, information is worthless. Food and shelter for a day are the only things you can offer of value.

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#16

Post by L_Rahman »

As someone who's spent his life roughly equally split across Bangladesh and America, I thought I'd provide some perspective.

The questions I ask myself about this situation are:

1. Are the lives of the people who work in these factories better or worse as a result of these jobs existing?

The answer I end up arriving at repeatedly is that it is a resounding improvement in the lives of almost everyone. RMG factories empower women to provide for themselves in a way that nothing else in the country can. There simply aren't any other jobs for women in low-income brackets in Bangladesh and I personally know individuals who found the courage to break themselves out of abusive marriages and the ability to say no to marriages they didn't want because of the income they have from these jobs.

2. Could the factories be better?

Yes, absolutely. Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is what they do.

3. What is the government's role?

This is pretty simple. They should raise the minimum wage for factory workers, create more stringent regulation and make great effort to ensure those regulations are followed. This is where invalidOrTaken's point about corruption comes in. Many of the factory owners are themselves members of parliament, or have spent a great deal of money getting one of their lackeys elected. On top of that, virtually everyone in a regulatory agency will take massive bribes to look the other way.

When the article talks about that girl's dream being a sewing operator, and you cringe because that sounds so depressing, realize that 10 years ago this girls only option would have been to get married to a rickshaw puller or shopkeeper and hope he wasn't abusive. Today, she can dream of a job, of moving up a ladder and maybe even becoming a manager some day. That's progress even if it comes with a whole host of issues.

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#17

Post by senthilnayagam »

thecodeore wrote: post #13
dbond wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the situation with providing jobs to people who may otherwise have to turn to much more terrible means of providing for themselves, but this is where there is exploitation of their situation by companies and as the end user of much of the products, us as westerners (although we may do little to change it). Factory workers are paid the minimum that the company can get away with, even though we could affor…

All companies, in every nation, pay the minimum they can get away with. In nations with no social structure, very little wealth, and no jobs the choice is not government hand out vs minimum wage, but a very low paying job or starvation. It would appear you would rather these children starve then to allow them to work for enough money to feed themsleves, possibly working up and out of poverty over generations. America…

thanks for the videos, they are very informative

Re: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

#20

Post by PeterisP »

feefie wrote: post #7

Will 3D printers be able to make nice clothes some day?

Not 3D printers, but there are advances in sewing robots; it's a nontrivial problem of mainly computer vision and manipulators, but it's progressing well.

As far as I know they already are able to make okay clothes, but currently they are more expensive than humans at sewing machines - the moment they become cheaper than workers like Meem, all those millions will be out of work.

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