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Compare this to India, where you could be a daily wager working 14-16 hours days, no weekends, no benefits, on something that might be back-breaking, hazardous,
by shubhamjain 8y ago
Compare this to India, where you could be a daily wager working 14-16 hours days, no weekends, no benefits, on something that might be back-breaking, hazardous, and pays just enough to get by. Your employer could abuse you, dock your pay, and would barely spend anything to make your job safe. Work might include cleaning swears without any safety gear, labouring under a sweltering 45C weather, or working in hazardous factories.
I am not espousing the inhuman treatment of these workers. However, for many people in India and around the world, this would be an order of magnitude improvement of their lives. I think China is on the right track. The working conditions would get better as the economy grows. The injustice might seem appalling, but have you wondered what the alternative is?
- knuththetruth 8y ago>The injustice might seem appalling, but have you wondered what the alternative is? Yeah, wealthy people not living like space-age Caligulas on the backs of disenfranchised poor people. Seems like a pretty good alternative to me.
- mixedCase 8y ago>Seems like a pretty good alternative to me. Even when you include the part you conveniently left out about the poor living in even worse conditions that make their current situation a far better option? Do you really think they were pulled from a cozy office doing 9 to 5 to this?
- wycs 8y agoWhere do you think wealth comes from? It is the product of knowledge and institutions and economic growth. It is not always off the backs of others. In fact most of it is not. We are about a hundred times wealthier than we were before the industrial revolution. We can’t have stolen this wealth as not the smallest fraction of it existed in all the world before the industrial revolution. If we deny these people the prospect of working in factories we are doing them no favours. How is removing demand for their labor going to make them wealthier? It is not the sweatshops fault these people are poor. It is their poverty that makes a job you find unappealing appealing for them. By all means lobby to increase foreign aid. By all means donate cash via Give Directly. But don’t think for a moment you are enriching these people’s lives by reducing the demand for their labor. Such thoughts are economic insanity.
- adamsea 8y ago> It is not the sweatshops fault these people are poor. Rather it is the sweatshops fault that it is an inhumane sweatshop which treates the people who work there inhumanely.
- xfer 8y ago> It is their poverty that makes a job you find unappealing appealing for them What? these inhumane working conditions aren't appealing to any human. Nobody is asking to reduce the demand for their labor, maybe the product should be priced accordingly to facilitate good working conditions and pay instead.
- wycs 8y ago>What? these inhumane working conditions aren't appealing to any human. This is your privilege talking. Billions of people find them far more appealing than a precarious life of backbreaking farm labor.
- xfer 8y agoseems like your privilege talking; nobody is comparing to field farming here.
- anonuser123456 8y agoIn India people sell thier children into slavery because they are so destitute. Sweat shops are an alternative that allow them to not have to do so. In several generations, they may industrialize to the point where they achieve a western standard of living. Is it ethical to deny them this chance because it makes you feel bad about thier current condition compared to your own?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mwcampbell 8y agoWhat if we could improve their conditions by being willing to pay more for luxury products like tablets, smart speakers, and higher-end smartphones?
- adamsea 8y agoWouldn’t advocating for human rights then also be part of this progression you describe? Sell child -> Work in sweatshop -> Gain basic labor right of 8-hour -> etc ...
- mwcampbell 8y agoWhen you say "wealthy people", do you mean super-rich people like Jeff Bezos, or all of us who buy luxury products? Truly curious.
- knuththetruth 8y agoI mean Capital owners, which includes Bezos and a few strata below him. Everyone else is labor, whether they’re an Indian sweatshop worker or a startup employee.
- adamsea 8y ago> I am not espousing the inhuman treatment of these workers ... The injustice might seem appalling, but have you wondered what the alternative is? I’m not certain, but I think it does sound like your statement actually is indeed espousing the inhumane of those workers at that factory.
- shubhamjain 8y agoThe way I see it, this is transitory stage and future might be better for these workers. Capitalism is exploitive, and until better opportunities emerge, they will be squeezed for maximum work. However, I can't think of anything better way for 1.3B people to progress.
- adamsea 8y agoI hear you. But then wouldn’t advocating for more humane working conditions simply be a part of that progression via capitalism which you allude to?
- knownunown 8y agoThis sounds like whataboutism.
- elkali 8y agoYou cannot compare work environment at Amazon to that of unorganized sector in India where small organizations or agriculture land-owners in villages and small towns exploit employees. Being a modern technology company, Amazon should be held to better standards. If there is not enough awareness and pushback against Amazon or Apple, you can't expect anything to change in unorganized sector and small-town practices.
- hawkice 8y agoWait a second... Why? I guess I don't get the double standard. You say the double standard is necessary for conditions to improve but can we discuss that a bit, because it isn't obviously the case. If it is an important human rights issue, I'm not sure anyone should get a pass. And if it is just, you think Amazon should be the best bad job in town, I don't see why they need to.
- elkali 8y agoNo one is getting a pass. But the methods to tackle workers exploitation at Amazon or a big corporation is very different than tackling the abuse of daily wage workers in India that the OP of the comment talks about. In the former case, corporations and users of their products are solely responsible for the employment conditions and can be tackled by raising your voice. But in the latter case, the source of exploitation is decentralized. The sector is unorganized and it is very difficult to implement the law strictly, even if there is are strong laws to prevent such. So justifying the conditions of the employees in the former case by comparing it to that of latter doesn't make sense.