A video in defense of Sweatshops

If every country banned them then, there would be nowhere to go.
That is what he isn't saying.

Say all of Africa, East Asia, Middle East, South/Central America all banned them, say that it was part of free trade agreements.
Then what? The corporations would do what? Run them only in non-US free trade counties and pay the extra?

BP Solar in Frederick MD would routinely threaten their employees against unionizing. That if they did form a union the US factory would shutdown and move everything to the Spain factory. The Spain factory was union. They were half the size. It never happened.

It's all gone Chinese solar factories wiped them out, working sweatshop labor really helped....

I got nothin'.

So does the South African chick also have to have sex with her supervisor to keep her job? And if so, how is it factored into their assessment of her standard of living?

I was in South Korea when they doubled the minimum wage. I don't know any Koreans missing the good old days.

What blows me away about such chutzpah is that the people who made this abomination can actually look at themselves in the mirror every morning.

From the women I talked to there, they are not happy campers. It almost resembles a prison. And BTW, they are probably not any older than 15-16.

This lack of imaginations is evidenced by the lack of alternatives to the status quo in which, no matter what, working people are screwed.

Let's try to imagine ways that workers can get justice, not just close down the factories.

First, let's try discouraging entrepreneurs who can't imagine how they can ever pay a worker a living wage and still make a profit from opening a sweatshop in the first place. Paying sub-minimum wages should be made a criminal offense with stiff fines and penalties, as should repeated violations of health and safety codes.

Now let's get some restitution for the workers, who are theoretically owed back wages that constitute the difference between what they were paid and the established minimum wage. Hopefully, the local government isn't so corrupt that the minimum wage is below subsistence, but, of course, that could be the case. The factory itself should be held in escrow pending the outcome of the trial of the accused slave masters, and if they are found guilty then title to the factory should pass to the workers themselves. Hey, I'll bet they can figure out how to pay themselves a living wage and make a profit. If the workers don't think they can make a go of it, then the factory can be sold to an honest businessman, something that no sweat shop owner can claim to be.

hands of outlaws and robbers in the woods.

Indentured servants in the US were better off than slaves.

But neither serfs nor indentured servants had enough income to support a capitalist economy. Because for capitalism to exist, you need consumers with money.

The video presents an obvious economic truth -- that people will pick the highest paying job they can get. Then, with a slick, logical high jump and turn-about it contorts the argument that the employer who pays poverty wages to people who work very hard is perfectly in his rights to sell the products produced at those poverty wages for high prices in other countries and pocket the difference and smart to do so.

The problem with this video is that it forgets the fact that if manufacturing jobs that pay enough for the workers to purchase the products they make are moved to factories in which workers do not earn enough to purchase the products they make, eventually, there will not be enough people with sufficient money to purchase the products -- and then the factories, sweatshops or not, will be closed and the jobs permanently lost.

In fact, that is what is gradually happening all over the world. The Irish, Greek, Spanish and Italian people bought products from Germany and elsewhere. But since the workers in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Italy did not earn enough money in their countries to pay for the products and the money borrowed to permit them to buy the products, the Irish, Greek, Spanish and Italian people are facing austerity measures. They are accused of spending and borrowing more than they were earning. Now they will stop buying the German products, and eventually the hard times that have hit elsewhere will hit Germany and other supposedly prosperous countries.

In time, if this trend continues unabated, the demand for manufactured goods will decline to the point that the world is in an even more serious depression than it is today and even the mining and production of raw materials will be unprofitable.

The makers of this video think in simplistic terms that are beyond belief. Do they think that we are as stupid as they are and cannot see the ultimate result of their economic, hogwash theories?

Yes, workers will seek the highest paying jobs. But unless those jobs pay enough to create a market for the goods they produce, the jobs will not last.

A few sweat shops in a world in which sweat shops are rare will be profitable. But when, as we now see happening around the world, sweat shops become the norm and the employees of those sweat shops are so poorly paid that there is no market for the goods they produce, the economies of the world will gradually shut down. When all manufacturing and most work is paid at sweat-shop rates, we will have a worldwide depression and who knows what that will mean for the political and social future of the world.

Typical right-wing propaganda. I'd like to know how well these people do on tests of reasoning. Not very well, I suspect.

They don't mention forced labor or serious health and safety problems. Many sweatshops force their "employees" to work excessive hours. They have been known to chain doors closed and tie workers to the equipment. Sweatshops are known to prevent workers from going to the bathroom, eating, or drinking. Some sweatshops make the woman have sex with strangers on their off time. Sweatshop owners have been known to force women to have abortions. They also hire young children and force them into 20 hour days.

Most workers do not know how bad the sweatshops are going to be. Yes, they know their wages are probably going to be very low but many workers don't know about the chaining of doors shut and the forced labor involved. They don't realize that many sweatshop owners force their workers into dorms/prisons so that they may have the workers at their beck and call.

This video ignores the real abuses and life threatening situations in sweatshops and assumes that only the worker's wages will be lower. Sweatshops involve abuse of workers and dangerous working conditions not just low pay.

So do you really think the worker picks the sweatshop knowing that they are putting their life and sanity at risk by working there?

Corporate Charters have one rule: to maximize profit. Their charters do not require them to take care of the environment, to have unionized workers, to have a living wage, or to have safe working conditions. Maximizing profit is the only requirement. But it doesn't have to be this way. We could as a society decide what would be required of corporations in their charters, as they must get their charters from the state.

The other solution is world-wide solidarity. If everyone belonged to a union in all occupations world wide, we would all have bargaining power against these private tyrannies. But will unions step up to the plate to do this?

Let's say I take a big smelly dump in your chili, stir it up, and serve it to you?
You still get all the nutrients of the chili, and if you eat it voluntarily, then that's better than dying of starvation.

professor gets a nutritional bowl of chili that would be better than starving.

"the agreement between sweatshop owner and the worker is mutually beneficial", maybe in a very lopsided manner. The owner is rich and the worker is in a hovel trying to subsist. The rest of this reasonably sounding discussion is just as heavily weighted towards the sweatshop. Who would willingly work in a sweatshop? So much for mutually beneficial.

Stupid neo cons can't do anything original.

is specious. If the minimum wage is x dollars and the sub-minimum wage is y, then y is illegal. If y is tolerated then it becomes the de facto, legal minimum wage, until z comes along to lower it further (which it will) until wages no longer raise the standard of living put remain at bare subsistence levels and the choice becomes working for a meal or going hungry.

People who defend sweatshops are dicks.

a defense of slavery and indentured servitude.

Try telling a poor person they're not really as poor as they feel they are.

Unconscionable and insulting of these people. Really.

Not to mention that income mobility is terribly rigid in the USA.

"You know where white guy with bad hair and worse politcs is? Hiding. In a classroom, just like the rest of the white guy libertarians. He wouldn't set foot in the homes I have to go to on a daily basis. GUARANTEED."

I think not. Let's compel Mr. Happy Presenter to work in a sweatshop, and see how much HE likes it.

Ninety-two point four per cent of juvenile delinquents have eaten tomatoes.
Eighty-seven point one per cent of the adult criminals in penitentiaries throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes.
Informers reliably inform that of all known American Communists ninety-two point three per cent have eaten tomatoes.

Mark Clifton's THE DREAD TOMATO ADDICTION

http://vintage.failed-dam.org/tomato.htm