4 ms·

In many of the places I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops themselves are rejoicing in the change because the alternatives are subsistenc

In many of the places I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops themselves are rejoicing in the change because the alternatives are subsistence farming or sex work, and staying around with their "tribe".

coldtea 5y ago
OTOH, I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops, that they fought the destruction of their traditional lands and sources of income and ways of life with tooth and nail. That has been historically true from the forced industrialization of British peasants all the way to today, where many of such forced migrations plays are still on (from China and India to Chile and all around Africa) and there are plenty of books on those lamenting their forced entry into sweatshop labor, slums, etc.
BurningFrog 5y ago
The people who work at sweatshops do so because it's a better option than any other in their society.
- coldtea 5y ago
  If a burn down your house and farm, and you end up working on a McDonalds or a sweatshop to make ends up, you'd do it too because it's "a better option than any other" for you. Same if your parents took you there, because the state is rigged in favor of the rich guys, which have fucked over their prospects, pocket money that would go for development and infrastructure, sold national resources for cheap to foreign companies that bribed them, and so on. What's the "better option" is not some neutral natural given state. But people who haven't experienced those things, think all is well in the best of all possible worlds, and these sweatshop guys should be thankful for the greay opportunity. (To add insult to injury, more often than not, those people live in the countries benefitting from both exploiting the sweatshop countries to underdevelopment, and from the resulting cheap sweatshop products).
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    These imagined scenarios have very little to do with real life in the poor world. Living in the modern rich world it's hard to imagine, but the natural state for humanity is being a dirt poor subsistence farmer. Only since the start of Industrialism 250 years ago have regular people been systematically getting wealthier. In the early industrialized world this path to wealth also started with sweatshops. They were awful, but less awful than the earlier life, life expectancy and wealth grew steadily decade by decade, science and industry prospered, and now we can talk about this on this technological miracle. No society has gotten industrialized without going through a sweatshop phase. It is now happening across Asia and Africa, and I think it's wonderful.

coldtea 5y ago

OTOH, I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops, that they fought the destruction of their traditional lands and sources of income and ways of life with tooth and nail. That has been historically true from the forced industrialization of British peasants all the way to today, where many of such forced migrations plays are still on (from China and India to Chile and all around Africa) and there are plenty of books on those lamenting their forced entry into sweatshop labor, slums, etc.

BurningFrog 5y ago

The people who work at sweatshops do so because it's a better option than any other in their society.

coldtea 5y ago
If a burn down your house and farm, and you end up working on a McDonalds or a sweatshop to make ends up, you'd do it too because it's "a better option than any other" for you. Same if your parents took you there, because the state is rigged in favor of the rich guys, which have fucked over their prospects, pocket money that would go for development and infrastructure, sold national resources for cheap to foreign companies that bribed them, and so on. What's the "better option" is not some neutral natural given state. But people who haven't experienced those things, think all is well in the best of all possible worlds, and these sweatshop guys should be thankful for the greay opportunity. (To add insult to injury, more often than not, those people live in the countries benefitting from both exploiting the sweatshop countries to underdevelopment, and from the resulting cheap sweatshop products).
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  These imagined scenarios have very little to do with real life in the poor world. Living in the modern rich world it's hard to imagine, but the natural state for humanity is being a dirt poor subsistence farmer. Only since the start of Industrialism 250 years ago have regular people been systematically getting wealthier. In the early industrialized world this path to wealth also started with sweatshops. They were awful, but less awful than the earlier life, life expectancy and wealth grew steadily decade by decade, science and industry prospered, and now we can talk about this on this technological miracle. No society has gotten industrialized without going through a sweatshop phase. It is now happening across Asia and Africa, and I think it's wonderful.