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SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

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Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#141

Post by waps »

INTPenis wrote: post #85
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...

I never expected them to do anything either. I started watching this show and didn't make it past the second episode before both me and my spouse had enough of their attitudes.

Why should the people on this show be held to any higher standard than anybody else ? I don't feel any more ill will towards these people than I feel to myself, for the same reason : I wear clothes like these.

Do you ?

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#142

Post by danielweber »

mixedbit wrote: post #126
foobar2020 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The alternative is to fairly share profits with the people that make goods. This could be enforced by the legal system, as it was successfully done when slavery was banned.

Average wages in China have tripled over 8 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages Whatever they are doing, they should keep it up.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#143

Post by ptaipale »

collyw wrote: post #104
arethuza wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect your inclusion of "right wing" probably derailed your comment - particularly as self-proclaimed "left wing" people can be just as arrogant and out of touch as their "right wing" counterparts.

"But they just need to work harder." You don't often hear that from left wing people. You do hear it a lot from right wing UK politicians.

Well, you don't hear that too often from right wing people, either. (Except caricatures, perhaps built by left wing people).

(Yes, there are similar or mirror caricatures built by right wing people about left wing people. However, even as a right wing person, I might admit that not everyone in the left wing is Pol Pot).

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#144

Post by JoeAltmaier »

danielweber wrote: post #142
mixedbit wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is to fairly share profits with the people that make goods. This could be enforced by the legal system, as it was successfully done when slavery was banned.

Average wages in China have tripled over 8 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages Whatever they are doing, they should keep it up.

Wait - average wages a decade ago were like a dollar a day. So tripling that sounds like something I guess. I'd like to see something like parity for wages doing the same work anywhere on the planet. That would be progress.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#145

Post by Sakes »

This is emotionally confusing for me. It seems like the general consensus on HN is that this is a necessary evil. I can get on board with that, but it still feels wrong.

I guess the only way to think about it is progress is progress, so if sweatshops are an improvement for these people, then there is good in it for them... for now...

We have seen China over a few decades transition from textiles, to tech manufacturing, and now developing IP products and services. Is this the norm? Or the exception?

I just have questions at this point, but I guess for the time being... back to work.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#146

Post by rmxt »

tomp wrote: post #137
wahsd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And black people benefited from the privilege of being slaves to white, civilized people. amirite? WARNING: The following is going to cause cognitive dissonance in many people, even among the rather intelligent people here. Don't fool yourselves, the conditions in Asia under which people make "stuff" for you, which you don't even value, for $0.50 per hour is nothing more or less than slavery. It is the same kind of s…

Given that most black Africans (AFAIK) were sold into slavery by other Africans, it's not a given that their lives were better in Africa than they were later in America.

Even if that is true, that does not make the forced migration and continued subjugation of slaves in the American South through the 19th century any less deplorable. Slavery is slavery. Your implicit acceptance of the "lesser of two evils" for something as serious as slavery is disturbing. We aren't even talking about the "hidden" conditions of working poor in foreign countries, we are talking about institutions that have visible cultural, economic, and social ramifications in present day America.

EDIT: I hate to use Wikipedia [0] as a substitute for substantive discussion, but your point seems to toe the line of being a false dilemma. The power/money elite in both the 19th century and the 21st century clearly have more options then just: leaving slaves in Africa/having very bad working conditions in Asian fields and farms on one hand, and bringing slaves to America/having marginally better working conditions in Asian factories, on the other hand.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#147

Post by foobar2020 »

mixedbit wrote: post #126
foobar2020 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The alternative is to fairly share profits with the people that make goods. This could be enforced by the legal system, as it was successfully done when slavery was banned.

I believe that the free market decides what kind of profit sharing is fair.

You are always welcome to raise money for poor people, as well as help them in any other way. Even Bill Gates does that, with quite a success.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

guac wrote: post #123
john61 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We could and did do something. We opened up trade. That improved and continues to improve their situation immensely. You're advocating we now do the opposite.

> We could and did do something. We opened up trade. That improved and continues to improve their situation immensely.

One problem I see here is that people like to analyze things in terms of absolute conditions, but there is plenty of research that the subjective experience of suffering is more driven by relative conditions within an environment than absolute conditions. This is important in this context, because neoliberal trade definitely has improved aggregate economic measures in many LDCs, has in many cases improved the absolute condition of even the worst off, but has pretty much everywhere vastly increased the gulf between the rich and the poor, and in many cases done so in a way which reinforces pre-existing ethnic and class divides.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#149

Post by cynicalkane »

daktanis wrote: post #140
nkoren wrote: post #118

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 a…

Its a similar story to the industrial revolution in America, a countries people will go through hardship to reach prosperity. Hardships and a revolution or two...

They were already in hardship, just the hardship of the impoverished villager or laborer is romanticized or ignored.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#150

Post by vdaniuk »

I am depressed that significant part of collective intelligence of the most intelligent and influential tech communities on the internet is advocating for sweatshops because the alternative is worse. False dichotomy, if I ever seen one.
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