5 ms·

Ah yes, the wonderful world of libertarian thought. Where sweatshops to make cheap shit for rich countries is a win-win.

Mikeb85 13y ago
Look at how far China has progressed. It has nothing to do with Libertarianism, and everything to do with Economics...
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Surely it must be possible to have economic development in poor countries without sweatshop-level exploitation.
  - bd_at_rivenhill 13y ago
    Probably not, all of the developed countries went through a sweatshop phase at some point in their past.
    - ForHackernews 13y ago
      That's true, but just because something happened a certain way in the past, doesn't mean it's absolutely necessary it proceed that way in the future. As an industry, the technology sector prides itself on innovative thinking and using new approaches to solve old problems in a better way. It doesn't seem like economic development should be a path-dependent process. It saddens me to see people shrugging off human misery as though it's required by some ironclad law of economics. Instead, we should devote serious effort to figuring out how to get from "poor, subsistence farming" to "developed economy" without the "child labor and sweatshops" step. Rawanda is already trying to make that leap: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e...
  - corin_ 13y ago
    The fact that something happened due to economics doesn't mean there aren't other ways it could happen.
  - mathToCS 13y ago
    Care to name an example from the last 100 years?
    - ForHackernews 13y ago
      Elsewhere I gave the example of Rwanda attempting to do this: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e...
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    For sure it might be possible, but historically it hasn't happened. Furthermore, there are still, to this day, occupations in the West which have deplorable working conditions. For instance, construction, mining and oil field work - where workers are outside in conditions as cold as -40 degrees, and work 12-16 hour days for 2-3 weeks strait without days off...
w1ntermute 13y ago
Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty because of their manufacturing boom. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that you're still clinging to the outdated economic beliefs that used to keep the Chinese people poor and starving.
- ssdfsdf 13y ago
  It's a broken world where the solution to poverty is the exploitation of a generation.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    Yes, it is. Do you have any proposal of a solution that does not make it more broken?
  - hessenwolf 13y ago
    Who said the world is not broken? If it were not broken, why would we spend so much time trying to fix it? People work in sweat shops because it is better than not working in a sweat shop. It is the bottom rung on a long ladder, albeit one that starts underwater in the sewer.
  - pyre 13y ago
    Well, we better keep them in poverty while we work on making the world perfect. You can be the one to tell them that they world isn't perfect yet, so you're going to keep them in poverty until it's ready.
  - tracker1 13y ago
    You should take a look at the US from about 1880-1950... It's the case of every empire where things are built on the backs of the poor. Or in the case of earlier US, and many other societies, slaves. That's simply how the world works. Sometimes it's a matter of greed, sometimes it isn't. The success of Walmart and Amazon seem to indicate that people will lean towards lower priced goods, period. Unless you don't buy any mass produced goods, and only source your needs to local crafts(|wo)men? Do you buy your clothes from a local tailor? How about your furniture from a domestic manufacturer?
Touche 13y ago
Sure, it would be preferable to jump straight from poor farmers to a picket fence and a swimming pool without the in between, do you have a suggested way to do that?
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Rawanda is trying to do something like that: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e... They're attempting to bypass the heavy-industry stage of development, and go straight to being a knowledge/service economy. The jury is still very much out on that effort, but it's certainly worth a shot.
quaunaut 13y ago
As someone who wholeheartedly disagrees with libertarian economic policies, I still find your facetious comment worthless. Hell, even Paul Krugman doesn't label the issue as black and white. I want to remove sweat shop conditions as much as anyone, but keeping people alive through poverty takes priority. Also, you don't fix sweat shop conditions by closing sweat shops. You just move them into the underground, where instead of shady business owners as bosses, they have shady crime bosses as bosses. The real trick, is to better sweat shop conditions. This can even be done at Samsung/Apple's level, where they can make part of the requirement set for a contract certain workplace conditions/pay.
- deaconblues 13y ago
  Purely anecdotal, but a buddy of mine lives in Shenzhen and tells me that Apple's leading the pack in terms of sweatshop conditions. Whether that's completely true, who knows.
  - mcross 13y ago
    Leading the pack in which direction? Improving sweatshop conditions or the factories they use have the worst sweatshop conditions?
    - mempko 13y ago
      which do you honestly think it is?
coldtea 13y ago
>Hell, even Paul Krugman doesn't label the issue as black and white. As if Paul Krugman is the pinnacle of radical thought on the issue? He is a Keynesian -- which I guess counts for something like "far left" in the US.
- awkward 13y ago
  Not only that, but he's been consistently pro globalization for his entire public career - even his work that lead to a nobel prize was along this issue.
  - schnable 13y ago
    Exactly. And at this point, his columns basically act as a fig leaf for Democrats to continue to support global "free" trade.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  In a conversation-oriented forum like this, the context of a remark is important. It was in response to a claim that this was some sort of libertarian fantasy, not radical thinking overall. I think it's pretty safe to say Krugman is not a radical libertarian (hence the "even Paul Krugman").
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  > He is a Keynesian As is pretty much every economist. Neoclassical economics (which borrows many of Keynes' ideas) dominates modern economic thought. 'Austrians' seem to exist only on the internet...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    I'm from Europe. We have much more wild flavors.

Mikeb85 13y ago

Look at how far China has progressed. It has nothing to do with Libertarianism, and everything to do with Economics...

ForHackernews 13y ago
Surely it must be possible to have economic development in poor countries without sweatshop-level exploitation.
- bd_at_rivenhill 13y ago
  Probably not, all of the developed countries went through a sweatshop phase at some point in their past.
  - ForHackernews 13y ago
    That's true, but just because something happened a certain way in the past, doesn't mean it's absolutely necessary it proceed that way in the future. As an industry, the technology sector prides itself on innovative thinking and using new approaches to solve old problems in a better way. It doesn't seem like economic development should be a path-dependent process. It saddens me to see people shrugging off human misery as though it's required by some ironclad law of economics. Instead, we should devote serious effort to figuring out how to get from "poor, subsistence farming" to "developed economy" without the "child labor and sweatshops" step. Rawanda is already trying to make that leap: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e...
- corin_ 13y ago
  The fact that something happened due to economics doesn't mean there aren't other ways it could happen.
- mathToCS 13y ago
  Care to name an example from the last 100 years?
  - ForHackernews 13y ago
    Elsewhere I gave the example of Rwanda attempting to do this: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e...
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  For sure it might be possible, but historically it hasn't happened. Furthermore, there are still, to this day, occupations in the West which have deplorable working conditions. For instance, construction, mining and oil field work - where workers are outside in conditions as cold as -40 degrees, and work 12-16 hour days for 2-3 weeks strait without days off...

w1ntermute 13y ago

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty because of their manufacturing boom. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that you're still clinging to the outdated economic beliefs that used to keep the Chinese people poor and starving.

ssdfsdf 13y ago
It's a broken world where the solution to poverty is the exploitation of a generation.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Yes, it is. Do you have any proposal of a solution that does not make it more broken?
- hessenwolf 13y ago
  Who said the world is not broken? If it were not broken, why would we spend so much time trying to fix it? People work in sweat shops because it is better than not working in a sweat shop. It is the bottom rung on a long ladder, albeit one that starts underwater in the sewer.
- pyre 13y ago
  Well, we better keep them in poverty while we work on making the world perfect. You can be the one to tell them that they world isn't perfect yet, so you're going to keep them in poverty until it's ready.
- tracker1 13y ago
  You should take a look at the US from about 1880-1950... It's the case of every empire where things are built on the backs of the poor. Or in the case of earlier US, and many other societies, slaves. That's simply how the world works. Sometimes it's a matter of greed, sometimes it isn't. The success of Walmart and Amazon seem to indicate that people will lean towards lower priced goods, period. Unless you don't buy any mass produced goods, and only source your needs to local crafts(|wo)men? Do you buy your clothes from a local tailor? How about your furniture from a domestic manufacturer?

Touche 13y ago

Sure, it would be preferable to jump straight from poor farmers to a picket fence and a swimming pool without the in between, do you have a suggested way to do that?

ForHackernews 13y ago
Rawanda is trying to do something like that: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-exclusive-interview http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/paul-kagame-e... They're attempting to bypass the heavy-industry stage of development, and go straight to being a knowledge/service economy. The jury is still very much out on that effort, but it's certainly worth a shot.

quaunaut 13y ago

As someone who wholeheartedly disagrees with libertarian economic policies, I still find your facetious comment worthless. Hell, even Paul Krugman doesn't label the issue as black and white. I want to remove sweat shop conditions as much as anyone, but keeping people alive through poverty takes priority. Also, you don't fix sweat shop conditions by closing sweat shops. You just move them into the underground, where instead of shady business owners as bosses, they have shady crime bosses as bosses. The real trick, is to better sweat shop conditions. This can even be done at Samsung/Apple's level, where they can make part of the requirement set for a contract certain workplace conditions/pay.

deaconblues 13y ago
Purely anecdotal, but a buddy of mine lives in Shenzhen and tells me that Apple's leading the pack in terms of sweatshop conditions. Whether that's completely true, who knows.
- mcross 13y ago
  Leading the pack in which direction? Improving sweatshop conditions or the factories they use have the worst sweatshop conditions?
  - mempko 13y ago
    which do you honestly think it is?

coldtea 13y ago

>Hell, even Paul Krugman doesn't label the issue as black and white. As if Paul Krugman is the pinnacle of radical thought on the issue? He is a Keynesian -- which I guess counts for something like "far left" in the US.

awkward 13y ago
Not only that, but he's been consistently pro globalization for his entire public career - even his work that lead to a nobel prize was along this issue.
- schnable 13y ago
  Exactly. And at this point, his columns basically act as a fig leaf for Democrats to continue to support global "free" trade.
wutbrodo 13y ago
In a conversation-oriented forum like this, the context of a remark is important. It was in response to a claim that this was some sort of libertarian fantasy, not radical thinking overall. I think it's pretty safe to say Krugman is not a radical libertarian (hence the "even Paul Krugman").
Mikeb85 13y ago
> He is a Keynesian As is pretty much every economist. Neoclassical economics (which borrows many of Keynes' ideas) dominates modern economic thought. 'Austrians' seem to exist only on the internet...
- coldtea 13y ago
  I'm from Europe. We have much more wild flavors.