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It is important to understand that sweatshops exist because they offer BETTER working conditions than those locally available. They look atrocious to us in the

It is important to understand that sweatshops exist because they offer BETTER working conditions than those locally available. They look atrocious to us in the rich western world, because they are far worse than our worst jobs, and with that context mismatch, we react strongly. It's important to remember that we had sweatshops too. Working conditions during the industrial revolution were horrible compared to conditions now, but that period was a necessary step on the path from the agricultural society to todays society. The way forward is to incrementally make sweatshops better, until the local conditions approve so much that they're the worst alternative, and then they will disappear. But that change can't happen overnight, and it won't happen if you ban sweatshops. It tooks us hundreds of years in the west, it's going to take decades in the third world.

clavalle 15y ago
Ok. We had horrible conditions during the industrial revolution. Why does that mean that everyone going through similar economic transformation has to go through the same living and working conditions? China knows what is possible. I don't think it will take decades for a society that can build a fully functioning, very modern, highly automated factory in 6 weeks /decades/ to get their working conditions in order.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  There's also the sad fact that there are other countries than China. If China would improve worker conditions in a short timeframe, the cost of employing chinese workers would increase a lot, and that in turn would cause a lot of foregin companies to go elsewhere for their cheap labour. The whole reason for globalization is that we in the western world improved our own working conditions so much that the cost of labour in our own countries increased to such levels that it became profitable for corporations to outsource. But we're still competitive because we moved up the value chain. So you need to move everyone up the value chain, and that means you need a way to still perform that labour that needs to be performed, and to do that you need to automate more, add more industrial robots, but there's a limit to what robots can do, and there's a limit to how many robots you can produce in a year. But we'll get there. Cheap labour will be eliminated, the living standard and working conditions of the entire world will rise, and I think it's better to cheer the fact that it's happening at all, and faster than it did in the western world, than to lament the fact that it's not going as fast as you would like.

clavalle 15y ago

Ok. We had horrible conditions during the industrial revolution. Why does that mean that everyone going through similar economic transformation has to go through the same living and working conditions? China knows what is possible. I don't think it will take decades for a society that can build a fully functioning, very modern, highly automated factory in 6 weeks /decades/ to get their working conditions in order.

henrikschroder 15y ago
There's also the sad fact that there are other countries than China. If China would improve worker conditions in a short timeframe, the cost of employing chinese workers would increase a lot, and that in turn would cause a lot of foregin companies to go elsewhere for their cheap labour. The whole reason for globalization is that we in the western world improved our own working conditions so much that the cost of labour in our own countries increased to such levels that it became profitable for corporations to outsource. But we're still competitive because we moved up the value chain. So you need to move everyone up the value chain, and that means you need a way to still perform that labour that needs to be performed, and to do that you need to automate more, add more industrial robots, but there's a limit to what robots can do, and there's a limit to how many robots you can produce in a year. But we'll get there. Cheap labour will be eliminated, the living standard and working conditions of the entire world will rise, and I think it's better to cheer the fact that it's happening at all, and faster than it did in the western world, than to lament the fact that it's not going as fast as you would like.