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The Road From Serfdom, Ct’d…
Wednesday, January 14th, 2004A law school friend of mine once told me he feels guilty about buying Nike products, because of the whole sweatshop thing. He asked me to explain why he shouldn’t feel bad. I suspect lots of other people feel the same way. You needn’t feel bad. Intentional or not, you’re on the side of the angels. Next time you feel the pinge of guilt, keep this Nick Kristof column handy. Excerpts:
Nhep Chanda is a 17-year-old girl who is one of hundreds of Cambodians who toil all day, every day, picking through the dump for plastic bags, metal cans and bits of food. The stench clogs the nostrils, and parts of the dump are burning, producing acrid smoke that blinds the eyes.The scavengers are chased by swarms of flies and biting insects, their hands are caked with filth, and those who are barefoot cut their feet on glass. Some are small children.
Nhep Chanda averages 75 cents a day for her efforts. For her, the idea of being exploited in a garment factory â working only six days a week, inside instead of in the broiling sun, for up to $2 a day â is a dream.
“I’d like to work in a factory, but I don’t have any ID card, and you need one to show that you’re old enough,” she said wistfully. (Since the candidates are unlikely to find the time to travel to the third world anytime soon, I put an audio slide show of the Cambodian realities on the Web for them at www.nytimes.com/kristof)…
…”I want to work in a factory, but I’m in poor health and always feel dizzy,” said Lay Eng, a 23-year-old woman. And no wonder: she has been picking through the filth, seven days a week, for six years. She has never been to a doctor.
Here in Cambodia factory jobs are in such demand that workers usually have to bribe a factory insider with a month’s salary just to get hired.
Along the Bassac River, construction workers told me they wanted factory jobs because the work would be so much safer than clambering up scaffolding without safety harnesses. Some also said sweatshop jobs would be preferable because they would mean a lot less sweat. (Westerners call them “sweatshops,” but they offer one of the few third world jobs that doesn’t involve constant sweat.)
In Asia, moreover, the factories tend to hire mostly girls and young women with few other job opportunities. The result has been to begin to give girls and women some status and power, some hint of social equality, some alternative to the sex industry.
Kristof, incidentally had long opposed “sweatshop” labor. Then he began visiting countries with sweatshops. And saw scenes like the above.
“Fair trade” isn’t the answer, either. The countries that most need western investment are the very countries that can’t afford the kinds of labor standards “fair” trade calls for. Cheap, low-maintenance labor is all they have to offer. It’s their only commodity.
Western “sweatshops” are proven to pay more than any other available option — usually several times the prevailing wage. “Sweatshop” workers are typically the envy of their communities. Which is why the most recent Pew poll showed the people of developing countries to have overwhelmingly positive views of western multinationals (and decidedly less positive opinions of anti-globalization protesters).
Anti-globos and “fair traders” are right about one thing: This is a moral issue. Each time anti-globos send a third-world worker back to the garbage dumps, or the sex trade, or to begging, with their boycotts and demands that, for example, universities not buy sweatshop-made textiles, these principled activists make the morality of the free trade issue quite clear.
Your favorite blogger wrote about sweatshops here.
BALKO ON SWEATSHOPS
For an interesting perspective on why foreign “sweatshops” are a good thing, read this. Does this mean that we should celebrate the fact that there are people worse off than we are? Certainly not. Does it mean that people who…
As long as the people choose to be there you must assume they perceive it as being in their best interest.
Right (both Radley and taktile). When you’re debating someone on this topic, that’s the best line to take: “Well, why should *you* choose whether it’s better for a Cambodian to work in a “sweatshop” or not? Why shouldn’t *they* choose?”
Taktile, that was beautifully succinct.
Balko may be offering a false dichotomy in this post (as might Kristof in his op-ed piece), but one point should be mentioned. He cites an article he wrote for TechCentralStation. It should be noted that TCS has been reported as basically being a lobbying vehicle for various clients of the publisher. One might seriously wonder what client this article was intended to lobby on behalf of.
Raj –
When you’re down to questioning motives, it’s pretty clear you have nothing substantive to say about the arguments.
So what if that article was bought and paid for? Let’s say Nike commissioned that piece. Does that make what I wrote any more or less true?
For the record, I submitted that piece to TCS of my own accord, and was paid a whopping $50 for it. It was part of a series of longer pieces I did on globalization for A World Connected, which also spawned smaller pieces for TCS.
So if you’re accusing me of being a whore, you’re also accusing me of being an awfully cheap one too, as far as whores go.
Fifty Bucks???
TCS sounds like a sweatshop. Right in our OWN BACK YARD!
raj is the mole
I’m not defending their argument, but in my opinion most mainstream people who support protectionism do so for just that reason, to protect American jobs. I think that only a naive few really give a whit about workers in other countries.
Excellent post - and Talktile’s comment should be moved into the body of it. Having spent considerable time in developing countries around the globe and seen the poverty that comes from not having “sweatshop” jobs it is clear to me that these types of investment is a “first rung” on the ladder of development. Just look at the tremendous progress in SE Asia over the past 30 years - this is what started much of it.
Radley, you know you’re a cheap whore.
taktile, bravo.
raj, are you always so whiney? C’mon, argue the post, not conspiracy junk. God I dislike whiners.
I wonder how many people toil on the dumpsites, as opposed to the amount of women who are often forced against their will to remain in the virtual prison camps (that are often enclosed by barbed wire and armed guards). Reports show that a high percentage of these textile workers are paid a nominal sum and then forced to work long hard days, nonstop, made to pay for food and their lodging and then not given medical attention, thereby ending up with very little money if any at all.
Companies like Nike and Reebok and the lothing manufacturers should be utterly ashamed of themselves for not promoting or even beginning to promote some fairness for the people who make their products.
And if you read current articles about the sex trade, many enjoy this work, thoigh it comes with it’s own inherent set of dangers and risks, pitfalls. Recently a number of prostitutes were arrested in Thailand. the first thing a lot of them did was try to escape to get back to their bordellos, as they missed their work.
The sad aspect of this is that when companies move their manufacturing overseas they promote the continued suffering of hundreds of thousands of workers who have NO protection or benefits, and who are literally worked to an early grave.
So - go ahead, lace up your Nikes, you smug bastards, and don’t even think about how former garment workers in this country feel when they lose their job so that the CEO’s of Adidas and the like are getting richer and richer.
Tobyman
Ummm… okay…
HOW MUCH CORPORATE MONEY DID BALKO GET FOR THIS? DOES HE OWN NIKE SHOES AND STOCK?
I heard if you order your Nike’s directly from the factory in Indonesia, you can get a them for 20 cents on the dollar. Cutting out the multiple middleman is key to really cheap Nike’s. WooHoo~
Anyone need any soccerballs? I have a trip to Pakistan coming up.
If I have the option of working 12 hours digging through garbage or 12 hours in a garmet shop, I’ll take the garment shop.
If I have the option of working 12 hours digging through garbage and make $0.75 or work 12 hours in a garment shop where I’ll make $2, I’ll take the garment shop.
If I have the option of working 12 hours digging through garbage making $0.75 and have no medical care or work 12 hours in a garment shop making $2 and still receive no medical care, I’ll take the garment shop.
Take off your American colored glasses and see how the garment worker’s life compares to the garbage digger’s. You may not want the job, but you don’t live in Cambodia either. Granted, neither the garment worker nor the garbage digger have an entertainment column in their budget spreadsheet but I think it’s safe to assume the garment worker is the only one not digging for dinner.
Globalization and the third world
There have been a lot of good posts around the blogosphere about globalization and its effects on the third world. Art Carden writes at the Mises Blog about a slide show from the NY Times: One caption makes a salient…
Sweatshops are good
Patterico links, via Radley Balko, to this NY Times op-ed defending third-world sweatshops against the mindless feel-good opposition of most Democrat candidates. Sone additional quotes from the piece:I’d like to invite Richard Gephardt and the other De…
Globalization and the third world
There have been a lot of good posts around the blogosphere about globalization and its effects on the third world. Art Carden writes at the Mises Blog about a slide show from the NY Times: One caption makes a salient…
I have a question.
Is indentured servitude moral?
Suppose I live in some third world country, and I offer good housing, clean water, good food, and medical care to anyone who voluntarily agrees to be my slave (and employee) for a term of seven years. In addition, at the end of your service contract I will give you a free single family home, a small plot of land, and a $500 bonus (equal to 2x the average annual income). Plus if you were a good thrall I will offer you an even better (salaried) job as a freeman overseer in my factory.
The drawback is that while you are my slave I can treat you like a slave. I canât kill you, or permanently maim you, but I can beat you or whip you at will. You have to obey my commands, call me âmasterâ, etc. etc. The punishment for violating your contract is to spend the remainder of your term in a horrible squalid prison (50% mortality rate).
So would this form of voluntary indentured servitude (slavery) be moral? If not — why not? Where exactly is the line drawn between slavery and sweatshops?
Are people forced to work in these “third world sweatshops”?
were individuals forced to become indentured servants? I thought you had to volunteer to be an indentured servant?
You do. Indentured servitude that you don’t enter into by free will is slavery.
tobyman, the same complaints you made about the overseas factories were true at some point for most industries in the U.S.
Take West Virginia’s coal mines, for example. We didn’t demand the mines shut down; the workers continued to work and feed their families and changed the industry from within.
Perhaps we should be happy that a few people are able to feed their children and attend school rather than facing a lifetime of 20 or 30 strangers a day humping away at them.
Let’s face it, Americans want it cheaper, faster and better than it was before. Our natural consumerism is what perpetuates the sweatshop “problem”. The most response you get is only the agreement that “sweatshops are bad” from anyone on the street while half of the people you ask have absolutely no idea what the standard of living is for in these countries. There is the automatic assumption that everyone should live like we do and be like we are. But no one wants to face the fact that we need the digger in the ditch, the 8 shirts-an-hour girl, or the blood blistered hands of an 8 year old in some far off country stitching soccer balls to feed our demand.
Imagine the sticker shock if everyone in the world were paid what we “believe” they should be paid. Of course everything looks better on paper than in practice.
SWEATSHOPS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Yesterday I linked to a post by Radley Balko regarding a Nick Kristof column on foreign “sweatshops.” I think that post has lessons for Americans regarding illegal immigration. The point of the post (and of Kristof’s column) was that so-called…
Serpent,
How is the scenario you lay out any different from joining the army?
If I only pay you $2 but I have increased your quality of life beyond your wildest expectations, am I exploiting you?
Brooke Oberwetter: How is the scenario you lay out any different from joining the army?
Thatâs a good point Ms. Oberwetter.
But it doesnât really answer the question I posed unless you tell me whether you consider the enlistment system of the Military immoral or not?
Essentially what I am getting at is Slavery immoral even if the Slavery is consented to voluntarily? If an individual considers it better (more beneficial) to be a slave then to be a freeman is slavery still wrong in any sense?
Kids picking over garbage dumps happens in the UK and across europe too, and i suspect it happens in the US. It’s not nice, but it happens. So it’s not a straight choice between either sweatshop or garbage heap like kristoff suggests.
If Nike were a Cambodian firm, and every penny profit they made from these sweatshops stayed in Cambodia and was spent in Cambodia, then maybe the analogy with early industrial europe and the US would hold.
And if conditions in our (western)factories were wrong enough to change 100 plus years ago, what makes them right in Cambodia now?
Wade –
I don’t think anyone is advocating that Cambodia remain a worker’s hell hole. What I think the debate centers on is whether or not that change should be more organic (I hate that word but can’t think of another at the moment) as opposed to more artificial. Should the change in working conditions be gradual thereby setting a foundation within the society or should they be uprooted and replaced with those found in developed nations?
Serpent –
I would say that the scenario you’ve outlined is not slavery. By definition, slavery is an act of force. You’ve outlined a situation of choice. In essence, your scenario invovles deferred compensation while acting as a servant/companion. If the nature of the relationship is clear upon commencement and does not divert from those agreed upon limits, then I do not see the harm though it’s not a situation I would ever choose.
If a man can’t change the world these days
I still believe a man can change his own destiny
But the price is high that has got to be paid
For everyone who survives there are many who fail
I’ve seen my friends caught out in that crossfire
All their dreams and hopes smashed on the funeral pyre
I will never give in until the day i die
Get myself some independence
Carve out a future with my two bare hands
Oh my friend, oh my friend, oh my friend
Somewhere tonight out on the street
Somewhere beneath this city’s heat
In the eyes of strangers who pass me by
Life is cruel and so unkind
Oh, oh the spirit of ‘76
-The Alarm
A few thoughts on these sweatshops.
With all the noise on Fair Trade and Fair Standards, Nike, and their subcontractors are actually willing to impose them. One of the reasons is to destroy the local competition or manufacturers that they deal with, where the workers are paid even less than in the Nike factories.
It suits these sub-contractors to Nike and Nike itself to drive up these theorised costs of their lower cost competitors driving them out of business and their workers out of jobs. Workers who generally work in worse conditions and lower pay in locally owned companies.
First Worlders take it for granted that they have safety nets like social welfare and unemployment insurance. We third worlders don’t necessarily have that and we view your aid packages with suspicion - one more way to coerce us, for example, to endure your farming subsidies that 80% of which go to funding 10% of your richest farmers to flood our markets.
As for how sweatshops fit in - Philippe Legrain in Open World describes further the process of industrialisation that occurred in South Korea on these very sweatshops. Starting with bras and shoes, the workers too were paid lower wages in comparison to First Worlders, but more than those of their bretheren on farms and for comparatively shorter working hours and better conditions. Further still, their workers and other local industries gained new skill knowledge brought by these foreign industries. All at the same time being more able to send their children to school instead of being more likely to drag them to work in the field.
Over time this advanced to more value adding and higher skilled jobs with better pay and more diversification, so much so that eventually South Korea is now on the High-Tech frontier, with an accompanying fall in the output of cheap shoes and bras, while the sweatshops disappeared because of economics - not legislation.
The brutal truth is that industrialisation can only take place through hardship and sweat, as industrial history reflects unpleasant working conditions that existed throughout Europe, the US and Japan as these First Worlder nations industrialised.
This process can be voluntary, or it can be the brutal forced processes as seen under Communist Russia. $1 trillion of aid and five decades later hasn’t exactly seen much industrialisation in the intended recipients. This is instead more likely leverage money.
It is also wrong to apply the same environmental and social standards to an unskilled workforce that a highly skilled one like, say, Norway’s is. Our poor nations productivity and production bases simply cannot support the costs that a First World nation populace can incur. And price increases unsupported by productivity increases is a recipe for inflation and national disaster.
Over time, as the situation improves and we can afford it, so we will likely implement some of your much desired legislation you want to force on us, but not by the force of your misguided good will. And don’t tell me that you want to preserve our way of life either - millions of people packed into tiny shacks without proper work is not a lifestyle one wants to stay in.
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