SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more • Hacker News Board

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#111

Post by benmmurphy » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #77

bruna597 wrote: post #44

Something that bothers me is the fact that even though they have cried on the show and said that they were going to do something to help, if you search for them on the internet, its clear that they aren't doing anything about it! Even the girl who has a fashion blog, she is still writing about the trademarks that use this kind of abusive job to make their clothes...

Honestly, I don't think we should leave it to the occasional individual to do something about it. If we want to stop this, we should ban the import of products that do not meet our own labour standards. We have reasonable work weeks and healthy working conditions because we fought against that exploitation. But instead of stopping it, we ended up merely exporting it; we don't make our stuff here anymore, but it's mad…

well it is not either way everybody wins. if people in these countries don't get better working conditions and end up losing their job because of the protectionism then they are clearly worse off. workers might be better off in developed countries but if you worry about inequality then this has made inequality worse.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#112

Post by foobar2020 » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

mixedbit wrote: post #105

foobar2020 wrote: post #98

I really don't understand this problem. Why does everybody think people in Asia are forced to do this kind of work? These people would be incredibly poor if not for western companies. Actually most of them would die being children as a result of their poverty: malnutrition, accidents, preventable diseases such as polio or measles. Go now and check what was China's annual GDP per capita in Mao Zedong times. Just see i…

These people are exploited by being paid a minimal wage, because they have no other way to survive, but to take sweatshop jobs. The Grapes of Wrath illustrates this mechanism well.

That is right, and what is the alternative? Suppose China had never opened their borders to foreign investments. What would these people do? I think I know the answer, just look at the following life expectancy graph:

http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2008_L0_M.htm

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#113

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #101

TeMPOraL wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because people are still cheaper than robots. This won't last forever if current trends continue.

But it will, as long as you can lock up children and force them to work off some debt. Free labour is one of the things which led to the fall of the Roman empire. Nobody needs technology when you have slaves. And there are a lot of slaves in the world, just read the latest UN report on it.

But poor children still need to eat, sleep and it takes a while to replace them when they wear out. Machines on the other hand can run 24/7, on just electricity, and there are both practical and economical systems already in place that will let you replace broken ones with new ones quickly. I think machines will be cheaper long before sweatshops run out of children.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#114

Post by cpursley » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

Idk, still beats wallowing around in the mud waiting for UN handouts. Europe and developed Asia have all been through this stage of development. It's what it takes to modernize.

* I'm not arguing for abuse or child labor of course. There are limits.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#115

Post by macarthy12 » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #22

CmonDev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no guaranteed minimum income even in developed nations (not even with those huge debts). Most likely thing to happen is that those sweatshops will become automated and the population will have to drop to pre-industrialisation levels.

There seems to exist a tendency to move sweatshops to countries with less effective work(er) protection laws rather than automating jobs (eg: from China to Vietnam and so on).

The "tendency" was due to american protectionism and quotas introduced during the nixon era google the "Multi-Fiber Arrangement"

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#116

Post by ptaipale » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

dandare wrote: post #103

And the solution to the problem of poverty in undeveloped nations is.... ? (hint: it's not aid or communism)

Agreed. Trade.

First they sew your T-shirts. Then they assemble your smartphones. Then they design your smartphones. Eventually, they will also design your T-shirts, other fashion and music.

This is what the U.S. did a hundred years ago, what Japan did 50 years ago, what China has done in recent years, and it's also what other formerly poor nations are going to do, if they are ever going to be formerly poor nations.

That also doesn't happen without some hickups in the nations that were formerly quite rich. Think of Argentina, for instance.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#117

Post by john61 » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

foobar2020 wrote: post #98

I really don't understand this problem. Why does everybody think people in Asia are forced to do this kind of work? These people would be incredibly poor if not for western companies. Actually most of them would die being children as a result of their poverty: malnutrition, accidents, preventable diseases such as polio or measles. Go now and check what was China's annual GDP per capita in Mao Zedong times. Just see i…

With boycotting these goods and reporting this issues we can actively improve the situation for those people now. In Mao Zedong times we could do nothing.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#118

Post by nkoren » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

I'm an American with a left-wing upbringing and still broadly left-wing politics. When I graduated from architecture school in 2001, I wanted some international experience, so I moved to India. What I saw there utterly transformed my preconceptions of sweatshops -- because I saw it before the sweatshops began opening.

One of the projects I was helping to design was a "science city" tech campus. The workers lived in an encampment next to the construction site. They worked from dawn until dusk for 6.5 days per week -- half a day off on Sunday -- every day of the month except for the new moon. Children as young as 6 were working -- moving and sorting materials, but quite dangerous inasmuch as it was on a live construction site. The standard wage was roughly $3 per MONTH (although food and very nominal shelter -- really more like "camping space" -- were provided for free). These were not outrageously abusive labour practices -- they were absolutely bog-standard practice of local industry, preferable to many of the alternatives for these people.

Seeing this situation with my own eyes, I realised that if these people had the option to work in one of those $1/day sweatshops I'd heard anti-globalisation activists go on about -- in line with my own sympathies -- it would be an absolute DREAM. Since then, I've been rabidly pro-globalisation. These days, I get incensed when I see people going on about the horrors of globalisation, with absolutely ZERO understanding of the counter-factual. Utter ignorance of how bad it would be otherwise.

The one case where I'll allow that sweatshops are problematic is when their owners become so powerful that they corrupt the local politics and take steps to ensure that that the population cannot develop its economy any further. This has happened in some places, creating locked-in populations for whom the sweatshop is not the bottom rung of the ladder, but the top. That's an actual problem, where it has happened -- but in most of the world (eg. India, China, most of the rest of East Asia), that's NOT the story that's played out, and sweatshops have been a vital (but temporary) step in economic development.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#119

Post by tootie » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

foobar2020 wrote: post #98

I really don't understand this problem. Why does everybody think people in Asia are forced to do this kind of work? These people would be incredibly poor if not for western companies. Actually most of them would die being children as a result of their poverty: malnutrition, accidents, preventable diseases such as polio or measles. Go now and check what was China's annual GDP per capita in Mao Zedong times. Just see i…

That's not wrong, but it does kinda miss the point. The argument isn't we should stop buying and let them go back to living off the land. The argument is they should be paid a living wage to do work that has value. If the work came back to first-world factories, they'd have to pay at least 10X the wages, so just agreeing to 1.5X or 2X is still a bargain.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#120

Post by simondelacourt » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #114

Idk, still beats wallowing around in the mud waiting for UN handouts. Europe and developed Asia have all been through this stage of development. It's what it takes to modernize . * I'm not arguing for abuse or child labor of course. There are limits.

I don't think this is a stage of development. It is a business concept. To keep some rich we need a poor majority. It is not that complicated. We like 6 new fashion collections a year, we like the primark for selling it for virtually no money, we like big brands advertising. We just dig cheap crappy fashion, and more over we dig not paying the full price.

I always find it interesting if people attribute poverty to a stage of development. That just does not work. It is not something you go through, and in the end we all come out richer. It is far more part of the system, it is not a country being going through infancy or puberty waiting to mature. We benefit so much from their poverty.