| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Saturday 28 August 2004: |
| A train of thought inspired by someone being smug and self-righteous in someone else's Livejournal comments - the subject is so-called 'sweatshops'. Why don't they sell sweat? What's with that? No, don't worry, I haven't turned into Seinfeld, that's not the point of the post. The suggestion of smug self-righteous people is that we should all boycott companies which use 'sweatshop' labour. The generally suggested reason for this suggestion is that the suggester cares about the poor little children being made to perform unpleasant labour in abominable conditions for a pittance of a payment. My question is this: what would happen to those poor little children if everyone suddenly did boycott all companies that pay for their work? It's a rhetorical question. The most likely answer, as far as I can see, is that the sweatshop factories close down, the sweatshop workers are made unemployed, and they go home and starve to death along with their families. All very humanitarian. The only other possibility is that the companies somehow take the boycotting to not mean "stop using sweatshop labour" but rather "pay more for the sweatshop labour". Because, y'know, the companies are only evil because they're underpaying so atrociously. There are three things wrong with that: 1. almost none of the boycotting protesters suggests this as an ideal outcome, 2. the companies certainly won't get that idea from boycotts, and 3. even if they did pay more, the factory owners in the third-world country would take that money and the labourers wouldn't even know anything had changed. Also, if the wage were raised to anything approaching first-world wages, the company no longer has any incentive to outsource the labour (since doing so adds shipping costs and so forth), so they'll move the jobs back home and again the factory will close down and the poor little children will starve. Indeed, the only argument I can see for boycotting such companies is not a humanitarian "poor little children" argument, but rather a patriotic "bring the low-paying jobs back to our country" argument. So, as I see it, we have the following points in favour of buying sweatshop-laboured items:
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| Ian |
| Many of those children are tied into jobs due to debts of bondage whereby they see practically none of the money they earn but are threatened with physical violence against themselves or their families should they choose to leave. I disagree with such methods of labour, they breed a resentful and ineffectual workforce. Far better would be to hook the children on heroine so that they can pay for their 'jonesing' with work. You'd be amazed (or not) at how motivated an addict threatened with not getting their next fix can be. |
| Ian |
| And even better would be to hook the kids on heroin, the addictive drug rather than pansy assed actresses in skimpy outfits. |
| RavenBlack |
| Yes, that's nasty, but... 1. that's the rarer case, most sweatshops do pay the country's minimum wage (Nike is allegedly an exception, and even they do pay the minimum wage after a few months.), and 2. that doesn't answer what happens to them if paying jobs aren't available. I'm not suggesting sweatshops are nice, just that they may be better than the alternative. |
| Maggie |
| Hey, just a note letting you know that I've linked you off of my journal as a 'read'. If you have a problem with this then I'll be glad to remove it, just drop me a note. I hope you're having a nice day. |
| Anet |
| It has always been this way, the 'haves' living off the backs of the 'have nots'. Eventually all decide to fight and the jobs move elsewhere... As you said, most prefer to eat when given the choice. |
| RavenBlack |
| Maggie - no problem, I like links. General thread-related comment - the comments in the livejournal copy of my blog contain more researched information as to why sweatshop labour is not nearly as bad a thing as it's made out to be. http://www.livejournal.com/~ravenblack/181703.html |
| Aaron |
| Sure, sweatshops aren't the worst possible thing that could happen - but you didn't say they were. Still, there is a flaw in one of your arguments. If you boycott companies that use sweatshop labor, then who do you buy from? Companies that don't use sweatshop labor. If enough people do this, then the companies that do use sweatshop labor are bound to notice, because quite frankly, nobody is that clueless. So then they institute better laws and/or stop using sweatshops. Preferably they do what you suggested in increasing the quality of life for all their employees, which seems to be the trend for most companies outside of Wal-Mart. |
| RavenBlack |
| That's not what they do. What they do is employ people who *aren't abroad*, and the third world people you're hoping to help end up unemployed and starving. If they're having to pay a 'fair wage' anyway, they can save on shipping by paying their 'fair wage' to locals. |
| Zoe |
| Actually, many countries American factories go into and set up sweatshops in were living rural lifestyles before and not "unemployed and starving," but after the companies move in, a rural lifestyle is impossible and a factory job is their only choice. I sure a company is capable of coming up with the idea of FAIR pay and ethical treatment all on their own and don't need boycotters to spell it out for them. If companies like Nike did start paying fair wages it is reasonable to assume they wouldn't just let factory owners steal all the money because guess what, they employee those owners and have ways of monitoring their employees actions and pay. Having these companies stay in America wouldn't necessarily mean low wages, many companies that do have sweatshops started here and paid reasonable wages and when they decided to outsource left many people jobless. I know you are not suggesting that sweatshops are "nice" and I agree, but have you really thought about the alternatives? If you think getting clothes five dollars cheaper is worth enslaving children that's fine, just accept it instead of trying to justify it with shoddy reasoning. P.S No Sweat products are 100% union, The Body Shop is committed to Fair Trade and Café Press sells many products made in the U.S and 100% union as well. |
| RavenBlack |
| I don't know about No Sweat or The Body Shop, but Cafe Press products are extortionately priced and dreadful quality. I don't understand the part of your reasoning between a factory arriving and a rural lifestyle becoming impossible. How does the presence of a shoe factory (for example) prevent rural living where it was previously possible? |
| Trent |
| The argument that if companies paid more to sweatshop workers, then they might as well move back to the U.S., is bullshit. They would still be saving a hell of a lot of money if they simply consistently raised wages to livable standards in those countries, where people need much less money. For instance, a livable wage in China would be 87 cents an hour, but most companies pay much, much less. That certainly beats paying minimum wage in Canada or the U.S. |