Reply #38: But who exactly is getting rich?

[jpgray]

As in America's industrial boom, it provides jobs for a poor, naive rural population that looks to the cities for wealth. This group is exploited heavily for the wealth of others. The thirteen year old girl that made the shirt you're wearing isn't attending hip parties in the trendy quarter of the city, or yakking aimlessly on a cell phone. She's working every hour of her life just to survive, with no amenities. And as for this:

Foreign countries had nothing to do with improving American working conditions.

You've conveniently forgotten the point you made earlier--that America would accept no foreign imposition on their economic society:

Any foreign country 'imposing' things on America wouldn't have worked either.

Only someone who is very ignorant of history or economics would make that argument--European wealth has heavily influenced America, especially in its industrial infancy. What sort of capital helped to maintain slavery in the South? Do you suppose only Northern money was funneled there to maintain the status quo? Britain had a huge investment in the slave labor of blacks, and thereby had a massive influence on the South's economic makeup. As for the more easily defensible position you've retreated to, foreign countries had much to do in terms of past examples and influence, but in terms of capital the influence was all the other way--to maintain low costs, no matter the suffering brought about by such behavior.

Again, could you explain why economic imposition that does direct harm is fine, but economic imposition to promote labor standards and human rights should be feared and despised? You haven't really answered that question.