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>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 di
by 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.
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y agoMost of those people wouldn’t have gone to the city if they could have stayed on their farm. It’s capitalism forcing those people from their land, not some innate desire to be exploited in a factory.
- knuththetruth 8y ago>Where do you think wealth comes from? From paying labor less than it’s worth and keeping the difference for yourself. People use sweatshop labor because they can steal even more of the value created by these worker’s labor, knowing there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. And they’ve done so for so long, amassed so much wealth, that they now can pay for boatloads of “intellectuals” to justify their exploitation as good and necessary, leading to us having this conversation now.
- 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.