Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

aftenposten.no

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 232 posts

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#121

Post by ptaipale »

pizza234 wrote: post #72
vetler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be the shareholders responsibility to tell directors that, the directors can even just assume that - as they should. Big companies don't all set out to ruin the world just to make money, and I'm not saying that is your opinion, but I get the feeling that this is sometimes implied when discussing how to maximize profits. Companies even donate money to charity, without any concern for short term prof…

> Companies even donate money to charity, without any concern for short term profits. "Donating money" is not an indicator of "morality" at all, because it has tax and PR advantages. It's not about doing or not doing it, but they fact that business are complex, and this specific choice doesn't tell anything in general. Even a, let's say, a fictional company "Momsanto", which corrupts politicians and violently silence…

> "Donating money" is not an indicator of "morality" at all, because it has tax and PR advantages.

Do you imply that tax and PR advantages completely make it impossible that some companies still might want to give money away to good causes for moral reasons?

In other words, you think that moral choices are solely based on money?

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#122

Post by cllns »

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…

"If you're poor, stop being poor."

from http://bit.ly/1AnVNuh about 5:30

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#123

Post by guac »

john61 wrote: post #117
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.

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.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#124

Post by macarthy12 »

Honestly I would imagine those 3 Millennials having an issue with most hard work.

I live in Asia, I look though a different lens,

- Imagine being loaded on to a truck and brought to factory everyday -- You mean a free ride to work?

- Imagine your kids roaming the factory floor -- No child care costs?

- Imagine having to working 12 hours a day -- I can pay for my kids to go to school ?

- Imagine being stuck in a factory all day -- not under the sun planting rice/corn etc..

Obviously there are a lot of macro and micro-economic factors at work, I just saw a truck delivering a automated t-shirt embroidering machine, so that economic switch has tilted, but do you think the talk will be, "we are free!" or "where did the work go?"

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#125

Post by mlrtime »

tootie wrote: post #119
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.

"If the work came back to first-world factories, they'd have to pay at least 10X the wages"

And they might have 100x the living expenses.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#126

Post by mixedbit »

foobar2020 wrote: post #112
mixedbit wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#127

Post by wahsd »

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…

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 slavery that you all supposedly despise in American history, the legacy and ripple effects of which are still rather present today. Just because the "company" pays a nominal amount that serves more for accounting purposes than anything else, doesn't make it less than slavery. Just because slavery changed location and a couple of its business processes and clients and logistical systems, does not mean that it is not slavery.

Would it not have been slavery in the south if "workers" had been paid $0.000001 per hour, which is about what $0.50 per hour amounts to in 1855 value?

Realize this, you are supporting and benefiting from slavery, for the same reasons that the south looooooved slavery; because it meant they didn't have to earn their income, benefits, and advantages of a privileged life built on exploitation.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#128

Post by mrottenkolber »

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 a prince in the 17th century.

I have to strongly disagree with this Yaron guy, between breeding efficiency and survivability there is still a need for a species-appropriate life. Yup that's right, you don't keep a tiger in a cement floor cage and you're not supposed to keep humans in factories either.

Consider Greece's state motto: "Freedom or Death". E.g. the anti-thesis to this Yaron guy, implying that survival by itself is not freedom.

As a counterpoint, Brazil's state motto: "Order and Progress". That one could suit Yaron I guess.

So, without wanting to debate if history as it is was yielding benefits or heading in the wrong direction, I have to express that there is a humanitarian baseline that a modern human being might want to keep in mind. And it's not about GDP or child survival rate. There is no point in breeding children who will become shallow hulls, so depraved from their rightful habitat that they can not be recognized as actual humans.

A human sings songs, dances, paints, crafts, thinks, dreams and loves.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#129

Post by johnchristopher »

macarthy12 wrote: post #115
johnchristopher wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Interesting, indeed.

Re: SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

#130

Post by [deleted] »

duckingtest wrote: post #39
Kenji wrote: post #16

I wonder, how can we in the first world change our behaviour here to stop things like that? Does the very way we live cause this or are the causes local?

It's not that they're exploited. Cambodia's economy is just really, really inefficient. Food prices in Cambodia are really high (ep 4), higher even than in Berlin [0] by 21%, not to mention Eastern Europe (2+ times Warsaw's prices, 4x if you shop around). The sad thing is, the wages in sweatshops won't go up much. Sooner or later automation will advance to the point where even $3/day for sewing garments will be too h…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN