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The dark side of Dubai

independent.co.uk

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Re: The dark side of Dubai

#21

Post by jhancock »

brown9-2 wrote: post #4

The more I read about Dubai's "debt is illegal" policy, the more counter-productive it seems. If you lose your job, the employer has to notify the bank. The bank freezes your accounts and you are prevented from leaving the country. Thus, you are left with absolutely zero way to ever pay off your debt. What's the proper economics term for this? Something along the lines of a self-fulfilling negative spiral.

It certainly seems short sited. I think a good part of the secret sauce for the U.S. is that we allow people/businesses to fail (bankruptcy).

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#22

Post by crux »

lionhearted wrote: post #18
brown9-2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opinion piece was written before doing any research or interviews, the research and interviews were set to tell the story. I'm not sure how you can make this claim. Do you have knowledge of the chronology of the author's events as to when she wrote the article and when she performed the numerous interviews - with both sides - in the article? The author doesn't care about the good. I think that the author's point…

> I think that the author's point is that there is no good if the country/economy/system is built on the back of what amounts to slavery and fraud. I don't mean the big buildings - I mean the author doesn't mention all the good that happened for a lot of workers that came to Dubai with no other options, were treated relatively did well, did hard work but were paid extremely well for it, and went from being poor to be…

I think you're missing the point. The general argument here is: we're all aware of the accounts of those who have done well. Dubai was up until recently quite obviously prosperous. I have no doubt that the stewardesses of Emirates Airlines were doing marvelously. But if the lowest stratum of Dubai suffers these conditions, then the prosperity of the Emirates Airlines stewardess is blood money.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#23

Post by pyre »

gms wrote: post #17
brown9-2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess that comes down to a moral choice. Would you be okay with "making out great" and becoming rich if it meant that other people had to work in 130 degree heat for 18 hours a day in order to build the buildings you live and work in, and had their wages withheld and passport confiscated by their employer? Would you think that you had made a bad choice?

That is exactly the question I am asking. If someone gave you (and I don't mean you in particular) the chance to make all this money with minimal effort on your part, are you so sure you'd turn it down? To answer this question regarding myself, I don't know. For example, I wear clothes and shoes that are obviously made using horrible labour in third-world countries. Also, what are the people who already live there su…

No offense, but the conditions that these workers are in seem a lot worse than anything you could have inside a factory in China.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#24

Post by DannoHung »

lionhearted wrote: post #13

I've spent a bit of time in Dubai. It's not quite what the author makes it out to be. I've heard about the abuses - there are some and it's horrible - but it's not indicative of the way most people are running their businesses in Dubai. A mentor of mine from England headed up a project management firm there. The workers under him made 20-40 times what they could make back home in South Asia, in places where the malno…

The measurement of "some" is always important. The degree to which it's passed off as "just the way things are" is also important.

The exact nature of "good" is also worth considering. People getting boned over in the name of curing cancer is different than people getting boned over in the name of acquiring real estate or building luxury homes on artificial islands that will collapse into the sea in two decades.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#25

Post by pyre »

brown9-2 wrote: post #4

The more I read about Dubai's "debt is illegal" policy, the more counter-productive it seems. If you lose your job, the employer has to notify the bank. The bank freezes your accounts and you are prevented from leaving the country. Thus, you are left with absolutely zero way to ever pay off your debt. What's the proper economics term for this? Something along the lines of a self-fulfilling negative spiral.

Europe did it back in the day. If you were a debtor you were thrown in debtors' prison until you paid off your debt... but you can't earn any money while you are in debtors' prison... Catch-22. I'm assuming that it's meant as a deterrent to try and prevent people from getting into debt in the first place. Not that it's a very good (or humane) idea though.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#26

Post by gnosis »

jhancock wrote: post #20
gnosis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just that they were participating in a bubble. As this article makes clear, they were participating in a system built on slavery and oppression.

While I certainly would not want to live/work in Dubai, its very difficult to _not_ participate in a system built on slavery/oppression. Have you ever been to the factory cities in Asia where a good bit of your things are made? Have you bought a tank of gas and thought about what percent of your money is going to oppressive regimes? If you're a U.S. citizen, do you pay taxes which support a global military hegemony (…

The question is, where are you going to draw the line? In my eyes, the more direct and deliberate your involvement, the more culpable you are.

It's one thing to be forced to pay taxes, some of which may go towards a war you're against, and quite another to go and get rich off the slaves of Dubai (especially if you do it knowingly), or go to Dubai specifically to exploit the slaves (as some of the people interviewed in this article admitted to doing).

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#27

Post by potatolicious »

jhancock wrote: post #20
gnosis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just that they were participating in a bubble. As this article makes clear, they were participating in a system built on slavery and oppression.

While I certainly would not want to live/work in Dubai, its very difficult to _not_ participate in a system built on slavery/oppression. Have you ever been to the factory cities in Asia where a good bit of your things are made? Have you bought a tank of gas and thought about what percent of your money is going to oppressive regimes? If you're a U.S. citizen, do you pay taxes which support a global military hegemony (…

As someone who grew up in one of these manufacturing-centric Asian countries full of child labor and such, I disagree.

Dubai had (and maybe still has) widespread problems with slavery and indentured servitude - both are problems not widespread in any of the major manufacturing centers in East Asia. Where the worker in Dubai is hit with a litany of hidden fees upon arrival, the worker in China is not. Where the worker in Dubai has his passport held until false debts are repaid, the Chinese worker does not. Working in a Chinese factory is almost utopian compared to the conditions that have apparently been exposed in Dubai.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#28

Post by pyre »

crux wrote: post #22
lionhearted wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the author's point is that there is no good if the country/economy/system is built on the back of what amounts to slavery and fraud. I don't mean the big buildings - I mean the author doesn't mention all the good that happened for a lot of workers that came to Dubai with no other options, were treated relatively did well, did hard work but were paid extremely well for it, and went from being poor to be…

I think you're missing the point. The general argument here is: we're all aware of the accounts of those who have done well. Dubai was up until recently quite obviously prosperous. I have no doubt that the stewardesses of Emirates Airlines were doing marvelously. But if the lowest stratum of Dubai suffers these conditions, then the prosperity of the Emirates Airlines stewardess is blood money.

I have to agree. If the backbone of Dubai is built on slave labor than all of the people higher up (whether they came from poverty in Southeast Asia or an affluent background in the West) are building their wealth on the backs of those slaves. Good for some stewardess from China taking her family from rags to riches. But all of that money that she made was only possible because people were suffering horribly at the bottom of society.

From the description of the conditions that those workers are in, I would rather be homeless and dumpster diving for food in a Western country.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#29

Post by jhancock »

potatolicious wrote: post #27
jhancock wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I certainly would not want to live/work in Dubai, its very difficult to _not_ participate in a system built on slavery/oppression. Have you ever been to the factory cities in Asia where a good bit of your things are made? Have you bought a tank of gas and thought about what percent of your money is going to oppressive regimes? If you're a U.S. citizen, do you pay taxes which support a global military hegemony (…

As someone who grew up in one of these manufacturing-centric Asian countries full of child labor and such, I disagree. Dubai had (and maybe still has) widespread problems with slavery and indentured servitude - both are problems not widespread in any of the major manufacturing centers in East Asia. Where the worker in Dubai is hit with a litany of hidden fees upon arrival, the worker in China is not. Where the worker…

I didn't mean to imply that China factory towns were _worse_ than Dubia. I've lived and worked around them a good bit and I agree its not slavery in the Dubia sense and Chinese certainly have rights and government protections better that most Americans understand they do. Though I do know Chinese that have been put in jail for debts. I also know some Chinese construction workers in Shanghai have been treated very unfairly simply because they are undocumented workers and have no recourse. You can't go to the Shanghai government for help because your not supposed to be working there.

My original post was simply finding examples of how people use their spending power to participate in various forms of oppression. Widespread marginal participation is possibly the worst as its hardest to solve. One billion people marginally participating racks up more power than a few hundred thousand oil-rich do.

Re: The dark side of Dubai

#30

Post by pbhjpbhj »

brown9-2 wrote: post #14
gms wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a bad thing (on a per-person level)? Again, many people made out great.

Well I guess that comes down to a moral choice. Would you be okay with "making out great" and becoming rich if it meant that other people had to work in 130 degree heat for 18 hours a day in order to build the buildings you live and work in, and had their wages withheld and passport confiscated by their employer? Would you think that you had made a bad choice?

As I read in a previous expose the workers are often tricked into acquiring the position they are shipped from poorer areas, they effectively buy the job which turns out to be effectively slavery - they don't even have the decency to give them good water to drink, it's poorly desalinated. Basically the people directly in charge have no respect for the lives of these workers.
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