4 ms·

If paying people that need the money just to survive is exploitation, is it better or worse to pay people more money for slightly less trivial stuff that don't

by toolz 3y ago

If paying people that need the money just to survive is exploitation, is it better or worse to pay people more money for slightly less trivial stuff that don't need that money to survive? I struggle to see how providing opportunity to the poorest people in the world is bad and I'd go so far as to say a worldview that finds this behavior bad is harmful to the people who need help the most. If you want to enable the most vulnerable people in the world to live better lives you do so by providing better opportunity, not by taking away the only opportunity they have. e.g. if a child is working at a sweatshop so the family doesn't starve, you help the child by providing the family with food so there's no need for the child to voluntarily work at the sweatshop. You most certainly don't take away the sweatshop and watch the family starve.

SkyBelow 3y ago
>You most certainly don't take away the sweatshop and watch the family starve. Doesn't history show this is precisely the solution people choose? It makes themselves feel like they have done good, and as for the increased harm (kids working even worse 'jobs' than a sweatshop), well that isn't their fault so they don't need to feel bad, assuming they even find out about the negative effects of their decision?
- cranberryturkey 3y ago
  the guy is nuts
- toolz 3y ago
  > It makes themselves feel like they have done good because "they" (assuming you mean the opportunity provider) have done good. It's not an optimal good or even a baseline for what is considered a good lifestyle, but it gives a family a better option. Sweatshop work isn't a great option, but I would say it's objectively a better option than starving to death. Just because something doesn't meet the baseline definition for a good lifestyle doesn't mean it's not an improvement upon the reality they live in (and thus good). > and as for the increased harm I think I'm misunderstanding you, but are you suggesting a kid working in the worst sweatshop is being harmed more than if they were to starve to death? Even if you find this to be true, it's self-evident the families sending their children to work in that sweatshop believe the sweatshop is an improvement on their life.
  - thecrash 3y ago
    You're reasoning about an economics thought experiment, not real situations. An exploitative industry in an underdeveloped region is not an idealized free market where individuals voluntarily choose based on enlightened self-interest between working or starving. As a starting point for understanding the nuance, consider what the owner might do with its profits.
    - scotty79 3y ago
      > As a starting point for understanding the nuance, consider what the owner might do with its profits. I'd hire thugs to keep the workers working for even lower pay to further increase my profits.
    - toolz 3y ago
      The owner very well may use the profits to attempt to keep the workers in a situation where they need to work in sweatshops (thus benefiting the party owning the sweatshop) That is still objectively better than starving to death and as such is still a net good for the poor family. Again, the answer to helping these people is to give them better opportunities. It should never even be a consideration for a good person to think about removing the voluntary sweatshop. A good person should think only about providing better opportunities such that the family can choose to not work at the sweatshop. If you think only about whether the sweatshop should be a decision for the family, then you're effectively saying you know better than the family about how to take care of them by limiting their choices. I trust self-interest of survival to make more meaningful decisions than benevolent parties completely disconnected from the outcomes using only their good intentions to make changes.
      - JohnMakin 3y ago
        > That is still objectively better than starving to death and as such is still a net good for the poor family. This is a false dichotomy, of course, as is much of the rest of your frankly ridiculous argument. Even your definition of a third world sweatshop as "voluntary" leaves them only the alternative choice of starving to death - that does not seem very voluntary, per your own definition.
scotty79 3y ago
When poor people do idiotic job for you they don't develop their society, economy and environment. You are stealing their time, paying them scraps insufficient for them to purchase anything developmentally significant abroad. This is of no benefit to them. It's roughly equivalent of telling them to do nothing and paying them just enough that it's not worth doing anything else. It's a way of keeping them poor by not letting them explore opportunities for development. It's like paying the employee so low that they have to keep working for you because they can't afford the risk associated with attempting to switch jobs and long hours rob them of opportunities and motivation.
- toolz 3y ago
  > When poor people do idiotic job for you they don't develop their society, economy and environment. Yes, they do. South Korea is a prime examples of this, e.g. Seoul peace market where the people got enough income to start focusing on unionizing. That market went from sweatshops to an internationally recognized quality market in just a few decades. Did the sweatshops suck? Of course they did, but the income took a people from trying to survive to realizing their worth and demanding better conditions while catapulting their economy into one of the most modern countries in the world in a matter of a few decades.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    South Korea is the worst example of free market spontaneously leading to great outcomes through sweatshops. The amount of government cental planning and protectionism is I think unparalleled there for a success story.
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
The sweatshop is typically there in the first place due to international economic policies that blatantly benefit the more powerful nations, and provide a source of cheap labor for said nations. The exploitation is baked into policy. Paying people near slave-wages is merely using the exploitative policy as it was designed. https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/ https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/
- toolz 3y ago
  you call it "near slave wages" whereas they might call it "enough wages to survive" - whose description is more relevant here? If they wished to not work at the sweatshop - they would stop working at the sweatshop. Whose opinion is more relevant here? If you think their lives would be better not working at the sweatshop, you should educate and empower the sweatshop workers. Removing the choice of the already disadvantaged is evil.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
    Both descriptions are accurate actually; you need to pay a slave enough to survive or you’ll quickly run out of slaves. It’s not a choice if the alternative is literally starving to death. “Hi, give me your wallet or I’ll shoot you with this gun” isn’t considered a choice because we understand that the amount of pressure being applied removes agency. Since when do people complaining about sweatshop labor not want to empower sweatshop workers? Why else would they complain in your estimation?
jstarfish 3y ago
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hackable_sand 3y ago
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by toolz 3y ago

SkyBelow 3y ago

>You most certainly don't take away the sweatshop and watch the family starve. Doesn't history show this is precisely the solution people choose? It makes themselves feel like they have done good, and as for the increased harm (kids working even worse 'jobs' than a sweatshop), well that isn't their fault so they don't need to feel bad, assuming they even find out about the negative effects of their decision?

cranberryturkey 3y ago
the guy is nuts
toolz 3y ago
> It makes themselves feel like they have done good because "they" (assuming you mean the opportunity provider) have done good. It's not an optimal good or even a baseline for what is considered a good lifestyle, but it gives a family a better option. Sweatshop work isn't a great option, but I would say it's objectively a better option than starving to death. Just because something doesn't meet the baseline definition for a good lifestyle doesn't mean it's not an improvement upon the reality they live in (and thus good). > and as for the increased harm I think I'm misunderstanding you, but are you suggesting a kid working in the worst sweatshop is being harmed more than if they were to starve to death? Even if you find this to be true, it's self-evident the families sending their children to work in that sweatshop believe the sweatshop is an improvement on their life.
- thecrash 3y ago
  You're reasoning about an economics thought experiment, not real situations. An exploitative industry in an underdeveloped region is not an idealized free market where individuals voluntarily choose based on enlightened self-interest between working or starving. As a starting point for understanding the nuance, consider what the owner might do with its profits.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    > As a starting point for understanding the nuance, consider what the owner might do with its profits. I'd hire thugs to keep the workers working for even lower pay to further increase my profits.
  - toolz 3y ago
    The owner very well may use the profits to attempt to keep the workers in a situation where they need to work in sweatshops (thus benefiting the party owning the sweatshop) That is still objectively better than starving to death and as such is still a net good for the poor family. Again, the answer to helping these people is to give them better opportunities. It should never even be a consideration for a good person to think about removing the voluntary sweatshop. A good person should think only about providing better opportunities such that the family can choose to not work at the sweatshop. If you think only about whether the sweatshop should be a decision for the family, then you're effectively saying you know better than the family about how to take care of them by limiting their choices. I trust self-interest of survival to make more meaningful decisions than benevolent parties completely disconnected from the outcomes using only their good intentions to make changes.
    - JohnMakin 3y ago
      > That is still objectively better than starving to death and as such is still a net good for the poor family. This is a false dichotomy, of course, as is much of the rest of your frankly ridiculous argument. Even your definition of a third world sweatshop as "voluntary" leaves them only the alternative choice of starving to death - that does not seem very voluntary, per your own definition.

scotty79 3y ago

When poor people do idiotic job for you they don't develop their society, economy and environment. You are stealing their time, paying them scraps insufficient for them to purchase anything developmentally significant abroad. This is of no benefit to them. It's roughly equivalent of telling them to do nothing and paying them just enough that it's not worth doing anything else. It's a way of keeping them poor by not letting them explore opportunities for development. It's like paying the employee so low that they have to keep working for you because they can't afford the risk associated with attempting to switch jobs and long hours rob them of opportunities and motivation.

toolz 3y ago
> When poor people do idiotic job for you they don't develop their society, economy and environment. Yes, they do. South Korea is a prime examples of this, e.g. Seoul peace market where the people got enough income to start focusing on unionizing. That market went from sweatshops to an internationally recognized quality market in just a few decades. Did the sweatshops suck? Of course they did, but the income took a people from trying to survive to realizing their worth and demanding better conditions while catapulting their economy into one of the most modern countries in the world in a matter of a few decades.
- scotty79 3y ago
  South Korea is the worst example of free market spontaneously leading to great outcomes through sweatshops. The amount of government cental planning and protectionism is I think unparalleled there for a success story.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

The sweatshop is typically there in the first place due to international economic policies that blatantly benefit the more powerful nations, and provide a source of cheap labor for said nations. The exploitation is baked into policy. Paying people near slave-wages is merely using the exploitative policy as it was designed. https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/ https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/

toolz 3y ago
you call it "near slave wages" whereas they might call it "enough wages to survive" - whose description is more relevant here? If they wished to not work at the sweatshop - they would stop working at the sweatshop. Whose opinion is more relevant here? If you think their lives would be better not working at the sweatshop, you should educate and empower the sweatshop workers. Removing the choice of the already disadvantaged is evil.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
  Both descriptions are accurate actually; you need to pay a slave enough to survive or you’ll quickly run out of slaves. It’s not a choice if the alternative is literally starving to death. “Hi, give me your wallet or I’ll shoot you with this gun” isn’t considered a choice because we understand that the amount of pressure being applied removes agency. Since when do people complaining about sweatshop labor not want to empower sweatshop workers? Why else would they complain in your estimation?

jstarfish 3y ago

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hackable_sand 3y ago

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