'Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe Meets the Koch Brothers

Exploitation is what you choose to call it. The reality is, in your own words, that the ex-convicts are "applying, and accepting lower salaries, lack of benefits, worse working conditions, no union, etc."

Instead of blaming everyone else for collectively causing these people to face worse conditions, you blame the company that offers them employment which they choose over those conditions.

It's illogical. Your blame should properly be on everyone else.

I'm not refusing to acknowledge your alternative scenario. Perhaps one day your alternative scenario will take place, but it will come about as more employers agree to hire ex-convicts, and compete to offer higher wages. But today, it sounds just as much of a solution as complaining that Utah's housing for the homeless isn't a five star hotel. Perhaps one day it will be -- it already is better than any housing was in the 19th century, with refrigerators and air conditioners. But as it is right now, your solution is pure demagoguery with no substance. How do you propose to get from here to there? And in the meantime, do you just deny the ex-convicts the option to take a job working for someone who you claim is exploiting them?

Similarly, would you deny everyone of Palestinian descent the option to get citizenship in the country they were born, eg Lebanon, because it doesn't fit a favored solution (eg waiting for Israel to offer them all a right of return)?

Similarly, would you tell individual African Americans they are powerless victims who need to wait until all institutional racism is solved before they each can do something about eg the 65% single parent household rate? Would you enable them to make a choice of what school to send their kids by allowing vouchers to be spent on private schools or would you deny them the choice and force them to send their kids to failing public schools that face no market discipline? Remember, even if the private schools are no better, you aren't any worse off by offering the parents that choice.

It is very possible to be a liberal and support dignity and increasing individual choice for consumers, employees, stateless refugees and populations facing systemic challenges on a large scale.

This applies to HN because it's relevant to raising money and ethics of charity. Would you accept a funding round from a person or company who has done things you strongly disagree with?

Does the "good" you can do with that money outweigh the "bad" that person or company has done?

There are a lot of people out there who would be fantastic investors for you, provide great mentorship and guidance to your company along with the money but who are generally considered to be bad people. Do you take their money?

If the topic interests you I recommend learning about effective altruism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism

It's not a bad question. For me, imprisoning somebody should be a last resort and something we strive to avoid at all costs. In that light, does then taking advantage of someone in a (literal) captive situation, with no recourse for being taken advantage of, fit in the same worldview?

While "voluntary", promising time reductions or other sentencing modifications for either participation directly or "good behavior" indirectly changes the meaning of "voluntary." Add the threat of solitary confinement or other unconscionable punishments for bad behavior (and capable of being used in a punitive or retaliatory fashion by guards and administrators) and "voluntary" becomes even less voluntary.

It's easy to dehumanize prisoners as "lawbreakers" or cast them as people who gave up freedom flippantly. For me, taking advantage of prisoners to bolster private corporate profits - no matter their crime - is not a justifiable thing.

I guess that's one way to handle cognitive dissonance. Sorry Mike, you could have just ignored the hate mail and kept on truck'n. Or you could have said "Yeah, he is Satan, but I will take his money because I'm fine with ripping off the devil".

This is a fluff piece and you made it very clear you know who butters your bread.

Why shouldn't prisoners get full compensation for their labor?