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SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

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Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#161

Post by the_af »

dandare wrote: post #103

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

1- Why not communism? Does the average worker in a communist country live worse than a sweatshop worker?

2- Why not aid? Bill Gates, someone who I'm not particularly fond of, claims it works: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023041494045793245...

Note I'm not necessarily advocating either of the above options. I'm just surprised at how persistent this belief in the properties of Free Trade is.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#162

Post by uniclaude »

mcv wrote: post #82
lukasm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it is true. If you increase min wage in one country, the business will move to another. You would need to increase it everywhere. Assuming that's possible you would still need to deal with corruption. What makes things worse (at least short term) it's automation. In 10 years robots will do this kind of job. Historically, all nations developed with this brutal process. Many without minimum wage.

> What makes things worse (at least short term) it's automation. In 10 years robots will do this kind of job. The problem isn't automation, it's that our economy is designed to make automation a bad thing. In a better system, automation would give us higher productivity and more free time. But we designed our system so that free time is a bad thing unless you're rich. People need jobs to eat, so there has to be enoug…

Has there ever been a working system where this wasn't the case? I think I agree with you on this, but I lack of data points to back the argument.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#163

Post by nhangen »

It's funny to me that the same HN continually bashing Google for being evil, Uber for being sexist, and startups in general for treating workers like slaves, is the same HN that generalizes and rationalizes this type of behavior.

We complain that minimum wage workers here aren't paid enough in the US, and yet we're OK with people making $3/day, pushed to their limit by a boss that might as well be a warden.

This may not be slavery, but it is indentured servitude.

And I say this as someone lacking a single liberal bone in my body.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#164

Post by mixedbit »

foobar2020 wrote: post #147
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.

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.

The free market wouldn't outlaw slavery.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#165

Post by rayiner »

6stringmerc wrote: post #152
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…

I'm an American with a Bill Buckley-type of conservative upbringing which made an interesting combination considering both my parents were born and raised Californians. I mention this because one of the phrases I heard long ago was, I guess, a selfish perspective about globalisation: "It's not about bringing the rest of the world up, it's about bringing down our wages and standard of living here in the USA." Frankly,…

To me, the big problem with globalization is not the conditions of the sweatshops in India. $1 a day and the chance of burning alive in a garment factory (happened just the other day in Bangladesh) is better than subsistence farming, probably.[1] My problem with it is that of the $50 a day that comes out of an American pocket by exporting that work overseas, $1 goes to the Bengali garment worker, and $49 goes into the pocket of some shareholder. And when conditions become "too good" in India and Bangladesh, as is already happening, they'll just move over to Vietnam or Laos.

[1] There's also the issue that the negative externalities of industry make the other alternatives worse. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh. Before run-off from industrial farming killed them all, the rivers were teaming with hundreds of different kinds of fish. The existence of industry makes the lives of farmers harder.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#166

Post by ashark »

foobar2020 wrote: post #147
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.

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.

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

Oh, this is too bold a statement to be tossed out so casually! What sort of fairness does this concern?

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#167

Post by cpursley »

simondelacourt wrote: post #120
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…

What's the alternative for us and them?

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#169

Post by xxxyy »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #128
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…

Ouch... this is, uhm, Cambodia not China. Industrial revolution is a term coined by developments in Europe , based on the ability to industrialize domestic production. Living in a third world country in today's globalized world is not the same thing as living during European-style industrialization. The wealth difference between first and third world citizens is kind of like the wealth difference between a farmer and…

China is just an example of a somehow comparable country that has risen pretty high.

And regarding being a human: it is kind of hard when you have not eaten for three days, and your parents worry more about your baby brother that has just contracted measles. Maybe he will live. Maybe not. Maybe the rest of the family catches the disease.

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