4 ms·

You're reasoning about an economics thought experiment, not real situations. An exploitative industry in an underdeveloped region is not an idealized free marke

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

> 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.