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As someone who's spent his life roughly equally split across Bangladesh and America, I thought I'd provide some perspective. The questions I ask myself about t

As someone who's spent his life roughly equally split across Bangladesh and America, I thought I'd provide some perspective. The questions I ask myself about this situation are: 1. Are the lives of the people who work in these factories better or worse as a result of these jobs existing? The answer I end up arriving at repeatedly is that it is a resounding improvement in the lives of almost everyone. RMG factories empower women to provide for themselves in a way that nothing else in the country can. There simply aren't any other jobs for women in low-income brackets in Bangladesh and I personally know individuals who found the courage to break themselves out of abusive marriages and the ability to say no to marriages they didn't want because of the income they have from these jobs. 2. Could the factories be better? Yes, absolutely. Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is what they do. 3. What is the government's role? This is pretty simple. They should raise the minimum wage for factory workers, create more stringent regulation and make great effort to ensure those regulations are followed. This is where invalidOrTaken's point about corruption comes in. Many of the factory owners are themselves members of parliament, or have spent a great deal of money getting one of their lackeys elected. On top of that, virtually everyone in a regulatory agency will take massive bribes to look the other way. When the article talks about that girl's dream being a sewing operator, and you cringe because that sounds so depressing, realize that 10 years ago this girls only option would have been to get married to a rickshaw puller or shopkeeper and hope he wasn't abusive. Today, she can dream of a job, of moving up a ladder and maybe even becoming a manager some day. That's progress even if it comes with a whole host of issues.

RodericDay 13y ago
The way I answer people that say this is: It's not good enough. Yes, you can come up with all the explanation whatsoever you want to how this is a ~local maxima~ of happiness, but the fact is that we live on a much higher one with tons of disposable income and benefit from their work... so it s not a ~global maxima~ (not even close) so we should do better. What can I say? I'm definitely more to the left than most people in this website but any quietly upvoted defense of child labor sounds like "the slaves had it better than in _x_" or "women were spared _y_" jobs to me when it comes to defending poor social policy. Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC. edit: in fact, every single reply amongst the first 20 in some ways works to justify the completely bubbled-in mentality of the startup crowd. just running down the topic I see (caricaturized for effect) "social justice types don't understand how rough it is out there, this is good for her!", "ugh, this journalist is endangering the girl!", and "this really puts in perspective all those pesky cultural issues that women, gay people, and minorities keep complaining about". what the hell is wrong with you all, seriously.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC. Fine, you pay for their food, clothes and schooling and we'll close the shops. What do you think of 80 year olds forced to work as Walmart greeters to make ends meet, right in the good ol' USA? The world has problems, sometimes you gotta pick the lesser evil since problems can't be solved by a HN comment or with a finger snap.
- beering 13y ago
  No, this is just your angry knee-jerk reaction so you can feel good about taking the moral high-ground, and you're scrambling to find the negative in every comment. The comment you're replying is a detailed comment that also states that there should be more done to improve working conditions and wages. Your comment is a rant about how we're a bunch of "grown-ass white men" (thanks for assuming things about me) who bask in our privilege and wealth. Meta: Is there a label for this kind of derailing, angry comment? I feel like it could be a variant of concern trolling, where the writer pretends to care about the issue at hand but actually tries to redirect the conversation towards ad hominem attacks.
  - rubberband 13y ago
    Is there a label for this kind of derailing, angry comment? Moral superiority, I suppose.
    - eevilspock 13y ago
      wow. just wow.
  - cglee 13y ago
    slacktivism ... maybe angry slacktivism
    - lemmsjid 13y ago
      I really detest that term. The implication is that if you aren't out there doing something then you should just shut up and not be upset. To me that flies in the face of democracy and public discourse--words and opinions do matter. If someone who is outraged but doesn't do anything is a 'slacktivist', then what is someone who is both not outraged and not doing anything about it? The implication of 'slacktivist' is that the second person is somehow better--that in order to avoid being a 'slacktivist' you should school yourself into being an always-detached philosopher of suffering, always reasonable, always balanced.
fahad19 13y ago
Being a Bangladeshi myself and having spent the first two decades of my life there, I can't agree more with the three points you made.
hacknat 13y ago
As to your first point I think it is very, very important to keep in mind that this is the best thing available because of Western influence. Long ago, and up until today, Western power and money priced local populations out of being able to afford to buy a piece of their own country. Out of the dumb luck of currency exchange and local corruption that happened a couple centuries ago the most ancient investment vehicle is no longer available to poor 3rd world populations anymore. Blithely pointing out that this is the best situation available to them without acknowledging that we are the ones who made it the best available situation is excusable, but needs to be corrected.
foobarbazqux 13y ago
> The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. This is only true if you take the "corporations are psychopaths" view. Getting away with everything you can under the law and adhering to a fairly obvious social morality are not nearly the same thing. Famously, Oscar Schindler ended up running labor intensive businesses so that he could save the lives of his employees. There are many fair trade businesses that operate in developing economies under similar principles - profit matters, but so do the employees. That was my only real objection, the rest of what you wrote is great, thanks for the perspective.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
crag 13y ago
("... Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is what they do.") That's a fancy way of saying that they are greedy. Which is what "business practice" really is. Pay your workers crap and reap the rewards. Meanwhile the society as a whole hasn't benefited at all (except more low-wage work struggling to live life). But the owners have. Bully for them.
- ericd 13y ago
  It's not that simple. If you pay more than the next factory over for the same work, you become uncompetitive with that factory, and you start losing contracts. If that becomes bad enough, that will drive you under. This is why minimum wages are important - to make it so your neighbor also has to pay the better rate as well. This breaks down somewhat when your factory is competing with another factory in another country, unless your factory is much more efficient. Short of world government with universally strong rule of law, there's not an easy solution that I can see.
  - kansface 13y ago
    Moreover, if they did implement a minimum wage, business would just move to the next country that doesn't
    - ericd 13y ago
      Yeah, I didn't explain very well, but that's what I meant by needing a world government with a strong rule of law - the minimum wage would need to be implemented across the board, or it just ends up screwing people in the country that implemented it.
    - crag 13y ago
      Unless all countries implemented a minimum wage.
lemmsjid 13y ago
I don't automatically feel outrage when I hear about someone aspiring to work a sewing machine. But when I hear about the conditions, and how many hours are worked, then the outrage comes. After all, with that many hours bent over, sitting on the floor, the body is put under a lot of stress it wasn't evolved to handle. That young girl may become crippled by her work and be unable to continue. At that point, will her job support her disability? I think not. And when that happens, will her outcome be better than the outcome of women who didn't have the benefit of her job? Probably not. The fact is that if and when this girl slows down at her work, she will be replaced by someone faster, and tossed to the curb, at which point she may or may not be sufficiently viable to marry a rickshaw operator. So I would add: 4. What are the 'first world' governments' roles? To encourage international trade for goods that are generated from countries with healthy labor laws. The first round of countries that went through the Industrial Revolution didn't have the (potential) benefit of other, post-industrial countries that could at least provide outside pressure to prevent corporations from exploiting people. Unfortunately that potential benefit is a drawback more often than not, because there isn't strong international pressure to enact good labor laws. When such an environment doesn't exist, it is difficult for a country to bootstrap its own laws, because such laws may raise the price of goods relative to other countries. There should be an environment where a country without labor protections finds that it can't trade with other countries. Of course such an international environment alone won't guarantee improvements. But it's a start. In this age of multinational corporations, its an enormous form of leverage for a company to say, "Oh, you're forcing me to pay $10 an hour? I'll just take my factory and go over here..." Such leverage can be reversed: "Oh, your labor laws don't meet U.N. standards? We'll move our money over here..."
anotheraccount7 13y ago
Woudn't raising the minimum wage mean less factories being built in Bangladesh and there fore more women that need to work the fields and live the old/worse lifestyle? I know that for instance in China wages have gone up, and now companies are more reluctant to build new factories there.
runawaybottle 13y ago
Good documentary about Bangladesh and the garment industry: http://vimeo.com/6393377 http://vimeo.com/6393377
harichinnan 13y ago
I wish there where campaigns against exploitative child labor in US and western world. So if a given country's minimum wages are low and they seem to be exporting a lot, the campaign could call for Boycott of products from the country until they raise minimum wages. May be there should be a kickstarter of sorts for launching such campaigns (Money to cover for marketing and other expenses).
- kansface 13y ago
  Such a system would surely just put these factories out of business (not good for their employees).
chrischen 13y ago
1. Are the lives of the people who work in these factories better or worse as a result of these jobs existing? Are the benefits short-term or long-term? Foreign demand for the products and short-term uplifting in quality of life is artificial, and could in fact serve to hurt the development of the country in the long-term. For example, high availability of low-paying jobs could distract the country from focusing on education. People might start optimizing for the current situation, by preparing kids to work in the factory as young as possible, instead of realizing that education and investment in human capital is the only way to long-term lift oneself out of poverty.
richcollins 13y ago
There there are significant profits to be made as a factory owner, why don't more people start factories? Wouldn't this increase competition for labor, increasing wages?

RodericDay 13y ago

The way I answer people that say this is: It's not good enough. Yes, you can come up with all the explanation whatsoever you want to how this is a ~local maxima~ of happiness, but the fact is that we live on a much higher one with tons of disposable income and benefit from their work... so it s not a ~global maxima~ (not even close) so we should do better. What can I say? I'm definitely more to the left than most people in this website but any quietly upvoted defense of child labor sounds like "the slaves had it better than in _x_" or "women were spared _y_" jobs to me when it comes to defending poor social policy. Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC. edit: in fact, every single reply amongst the first 20 in some ways works to justify the completely bubbled-in mentality of the startup crowd. just running down the topic I see (caricaturized for effect) "social justice types don't understand how rough it is out there, this is good for her!", "ugh, this journalist is endangering the girl!", and "this really puts in perspective all those pesky cultural issues that women, gay people, and minorities keep complaining about". what the hell is wrong with you all, seriously.

bsullivan01 13y ago
Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC. Fine, you pay for their food, clothes and schooling and we'll close the shops. What do you think of 80 year olds forced to work as Walmart greeters to make ends meet, right in the good ol' USA? The world has problems, sometimes you gotta pick the lesser evil since problems can't be solved by a HN comment or with a finger snap.
beering 13y ago
No, this is just your angry knee-jerk reaction so you can feel good about taking the moral high-ground, and you're scrambling to find the negative in every comment. The comment you're replying is a detailed comment that also states that there should be more done to improve working conditions and wages. Your comment is a rant about how we're a bunch of "grown-ass white men" (thanks for assuming things about me) who bask in our privilege and wealth. Meta: Is there a label for this kind of derailing, angry comment? I feel like it could be a variant of concern trolling, where the writer pretends to care about the issue at hand but actually tries to redirect the conversation towards ad hominem attacks.
- rubberband 13y ago
  Is there a label for this kind of derailing, angry comment? Moral superiority, I suppose.
  - eevilspock 13y ago
    wow. just wow.
- cglee 13y ago
  slacktivism ... maybe angry slacktivism
  - lemmsjid 13y ago
    I really detest that term. The implication is that if you aren't out there doing something then you should just shut up and not be upset. To me that flies in the face of democracy and public discourse--words and opinions do matter. If someone who is outraged but doesn't do anything is a 'slacktivist', then what is someone who is both not outraged and not doing anything about it? The implication of 'slacktivist' is that the second person is somehow better--that in order to avoid being a 'slacktivist' you should school yourself into being an always-detached philosopher of suffering, always reasonable, always balanced.

fahad19 13y ago

Being a Bangladeshi myself and having spent the first two decades of my life there, I can't agree more with the three points you made.

hacknat 13y ago

As to your first point I think it is very, very important to keep in mind that this is the best thing available because of Western influence. Long ago, and up until today, Western power and money priced local populations out of being able to afford to buy a piece of their own country. Out of the dumb luck of currency exchange and local corruption that happened a couple centuries ago the most ancient investment vehicle is no longer available to poor 3rd world populations anymore. Blithely pointing out that this is the best situation available to them without acknowledging that we are the ones who made it the best available situation is excusable, but needs to be corrected.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

> The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. This is only true if you take the "corporations are psychopaths" view. Getting away with everything you can under the law and adhering to a fairly obvious social morality are not nearly the same thing. Famously, Oscar Schindler ended up running labor intensive businesses so that he could save the lives of his employees. There are many fair trade businesses that operate in developing economies under similar principles - profit matters, but so do the employees. That was my only real objection, the rest of what you wrote is great, thanks for the perspective.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

crag 13y ago

("... Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is what they do.") That's a fancy way of saying that they are greedy. Which is what "business practice" really is. Pay your workers crap and reap the rewards. Meanwhile the society as a whole hasn't benefited at all (except more low-wage work struggling to live life). But the owners have. Bully for them.

ericd 13y ago
It's not that simple. If you pay more than the next factory over for the same work, you become uncompetitive with that factory, and you start losing contracts. If that becomes bad enough, that will drive you under. This is why minimum wages are important - to make it so your neighbor also has to pay the better rate as well. This breaks down somewhat when your factory is competing with another factory in another country, unless your factory is much more efficient. Short of world government with universally strong rule of law, there's not an easy solution that I can see.
- kansface 13y ago
  Moreover, if they did implement a minimum wage, business would just move to the next country that doesn't
  - ericd 13y ago
    Yeah, I didn't explain very well, but that's what I meant by needing a world government with a strong rule of law - the minimum wage would need to be implemented across the board, or it just ends up screwing people in the country that implemented it.
  - crag 13y ago
    Unless all countries implemented a minimum wage.

lemmsjid 13y ago

I don't automatically feel outrage when I hear about someone aspiring to work a sewing machine. But when I hear about the conditions, and how many hours are worked, then the outrage comes. After all, with that many hours bent over, sitting on the floor, the body is put under a lot of stress it wasn't evolved to handle. That young girl may become crippled by her work and be unable to continue. At that point, will her job support her disability? I think not. And when that happens, will her outcome be better than the outcome of women who didn't have the benefit of her job? Probably not. The fact is that if and when this girl slows down at her work, she will be replaced by someone faster, and tossed to the curb, at which point she may or may not be sufficiently viable to marry a rickshaw operator. So I would add: 4. What are the 'first world' governments' roles? To encourage international trade for goods that are generated from countries with healthy labor laws. The first round of countries that went through the Industrial Revolution didn't have the (potential) benefit of other, post-industrial countries that could at least provide outside pressure to prevent corporations from exploiting people. Unfortunately that potential benefit is a drawback more often than not, because there isn't strong international pressure to enact good labor laws. When such an environment doesn't exist, it is difficult for a country to bootstrap its own laws, because such laws may raise the price of goods relative to other countries. There should be an environment where a country without labor protections finds that it can't trade with other countries. Of course such an international environment alone won't guarantee improvements. But it's a start. In this age of multinational corporations, its an enormous form of leverage for a company to say, "Oh, you're forcing me to pay $10 an hour? I'll just take my factory and go over here..." Such leverage can be reversed: "Oh, your labor laws don't meet U.N. standards? We'll move our money over here..."

anotheraccount7 13y ago

Woudn't raising the minimum wage mean less factories being built in Bangladesh and there fore more women that need to work the fields and live the old/worse lifestyle? I know that for instance in China wages have gone up, and now companies are more reluctant to build new factories there.

runawaybottle 13y ago

Good documentary about Bangladesh and the garment industry: http://vimeo.com/6393377 http://vimeo.com/6393377

harichinnan 13y ago

I wish there where campaigns against exploitative child labor in US and western world. So if a given country's minimum wages are low and they seem to be exporting a lot, the campaign could call for Boycott of products from the country until they raise minimum wages. May be there should be a kickstarter of sorts for launching such campaigns (Money to cover for marketing and other expenses).

kansface 13y ago
Such a system would surely just put these factories out of business (not good for their employees).

chrischen 13y ago

1. Are the lives of the people who work in these factories better or worse as a result of these jobs existing? Are the benefits short-term or long-term? Foreign demand for the products and short-term uplifting in quality of life is artificial, and could in fact serve to hurt the development of the country in the long-term. For example, high availability of low-paying jobs could distract the country from focusing on education. People might start optimizing for the current situation, by preparing kids to work in the factory as young as possible, instead of realizing that education and investment in human capital is the only way to long-term lift oneself out of poverty.

richcollins 13y ago

There there are significant profits to be made as a factory owner, why don't more people start factories? Wouldn't this increase competition for labor, increasing wages?