Are you as appalled as I am?

[Mr. Bloom]

Well, always being one to offer a controversial perspective...are you suggesting that hard working people in poorer countries would be better off if we didn't employ them by purchasing their inexpensive goods? I suppose that while I acknowledge the existence of bad conditions, it's my sense that it's now the exception rather than the rule.

[Zen]

Well, always being one to offer a controversial perspective...are you suggesting that hard working people in poorer countries would be better off if we didn't employ them by purchasing their inexpensive goods?

yes. Do you have a reciprocating saw? I need to borrow one.

I suppose that while I acknowledge the existence of bad conditions, it's my sense that it's now the exception rather than the rule.

sense...

[Eden]

Well, always being one to offer a controversial perspective...are you suggesting that hard working people in poorer countries would be better off if we didn't employ them by purchasing their inexpensive goods? I suppose that while I acknowledge the existence of bad conditions, it's my sense that it's now the exception rather than the rule.

hmmmm..... Just yesterday I listened to yet another documentary piece on the working conditions in China (on NPR).... Dangerous and abusive companies in developing nations sound more than less like the exception.... Sure China has a lot of laws meant to protect workers, but pretty much no enforcement, so they are all just ignored.

Said company I worked at for a short time imported most of its product from China. I saw lots of pictures of working conditions - pretty primitive.... The owners big claim to generosity was buying the guys at one factory sun hats... Forget the fact that many wore shorts and were shirt and/or shoeless... The owner actually once bragged about working some of the guys over there for two days straight and into the wee hours of the morning.... and I'm sure none of the workers got any overtime.... This guy practiced evil ignorance extremely well..... He also said "don't tell me that" when I told him that you cannot dispose of computer monitors in the regular trash... and proclaimed that well the smoke goes up the chimney when I told him burning scraps of plywood gives off toxic fumes... (we had a fireplace in the office...) Other people meant nothing to him. The sad thing is that we have many people in this country (in the world for that matter) who are like him.

I'm not going to put all the burden on the consumer.... it's nearly impossible to avoid buying things from China too... you may not even know it if the parts are made there, but assembled elsewhere. Some things are difficult to buy at all, as they not made elsewhere anymore. I guess I wish collectively the world could show just a little more outrage at the treatment of its fellows, rather than demanding everything be as cheap as possible and perpetuating the abuse....

I'm also not going to take any of the burden away from the retailers.... I watched another documentary about clothing workers in China. I think in the end it cost about $4 in labor to produce a pair of jeans, when shipping and other costs of business were factored in the cost went up to maybe $9ish per pair and they were being sold for $60..... I've yet to be convinced that some retailers couldn't survive on slightly smaller profit margins and pay their workers better... (I know it doesn't work this way for all retailers - places that have to deal with middle men, distributors, and such - like bike shops... they get the costs passed onto them and have to make a profit to stay in business. I'm talking about those middle men and other places that directly sell what they have produced)

[Mr. Bloom]

Dangerous and abusive companies in developing nations sound more than less like the exception....

But is it really the rule? We say crime is rampant, but only 2% of the population has a felonious record...but crime seems the rule in some places.

The owner actually once bragged about working some of the guys over there for two days straight and into the wee hours of the morning....

It honestly sounds like my minimum wage job at Mr. Gatti's Pizza at the Eastwood Mall in Birmingham Alabama in 1979.

I respect that all of you feel sincere in your concern on this issue...I really do. But back to my original question...would these people be better off (if so, how???)if they had no work at all and had to fend for themselves or starve?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

But back to my original question...would these people be better off (if so, how???)if they had no work at all and had to fend for themselves or starve?

Interestingly, the very same argument was used to discourage the idea of freeing black slaves during the 1800's here in America. That they were 'better off' working as slaves and would not be able to fend for themselves and would therefore starve without their kind masters 'providing' for them.

No, these low wage workers would not be better off if they were starving and had no work at all.
But they WOULD be better off if their working conditions and hours were improved and they were paid/treated more fairly, as other workers are treated in other parts of the world. The truth is their working conditions and pay could be vastly improved and still leave plenty of room for all the business owners and middle men, all the way to the consumers, to profit. I would much rather pay 30-60% more for an item if I could be sure it was produced under decent and fair working conditions.

Unfortunately, if labor/humanitarian laws are not being enforced, then people in power usually try to get away with as much as they possibly can at the expense of those under them who are powerless.

[Eden]

I respect that all of you feel sincere in your concern on this issue...I really do. But back to my original question...would these people be better off (if so, how???)if they had no work at all and had to fend for themselves or starve?

I guess I see it as not having to be an all or nothing situation. It should be more than possible to make the lives of workers in other countries at very least humane (not even asking for luxurious here - just at least a living wage, and the things we expect in this country, like a reasonable work day/week, safe work environment) and still have a very fine standard of living in richer nations. It might mean sacrificing being a multi-million/billionaire for some people...... and probably higher prices for goods many people, but mostly the sacrifice of making the very few millions.... Personally I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I made money like that on the backs of poor people..

Just consider that Nike paid Michael Jordan $20 million to endorse their shoes.... that was more money than they paid their entire 35,000 member workforce that year to produce them... They also have annual profits in the billions... Is it unreasonable to expect them to not squeeze the workers so badly?

[Mr. Bloom]

So, the problem is not our patronage, but the conditions. This is something we can agree on.

But the comparison to slavery is loose at best when you compare employing indigenous people to enslaving kidnapped people.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

So, the problem is not our patronage, but the conditions. This is something we can agree on.

The two are closely linked. The widespread conditions would certainly not exist on such a grand scale if we were not eagerly buying up the unimaginably vast quantities of product as fast as they can produce them. Our abundant money and grotesquely engorged level of insatiable consumerism is fueling and perpetuating the system just as as it is. The rich keep getting richer and more powerful on the backs of the poor, and the poor keep getting poorer and more powerless.

But the comparison to slavery is loose at best when you compare employing indigenous people to enslaving kidnapped people.

Not so loose a comparison as one might think. Just as coal miners were virtually permanent indentured servants before labor unions came into being, who really had no choice but to work under severe and unsafe conditions until they sickened and died, the system being carefully arranged so that they would never be able to pay off their debts to the bosses, so it is that these people (including, not so accidentally, actual prisoners) laboring under slave-like and dangerous conditions are all virtual prisoners of this modern unjust and inhumane system. They may not be kidnapped people (no need to kidnap them from other countries since the available labor force was there already), but are nonetheless no better off than permanent indentured servants, who in order to survive have little choice but to labor their entire lives from childhood to old age under abominable conditions. The system is laid out in such a way as to ensure they can never advance, get out of debt, or improve their situation in life, or even hope to provide their children with a life any less hopeless than their own.

One half to two thirds of all immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants. At times, as many as 75% of the population of some colonies were under terms of indenture. Even on the frontier, according to the 1790 U.S. Census, 6% of the Kentucky population was indentured.
This was a labor system, not a system of apprenticeship. (Galenson, 6) The historic basis for indenture grew out of English agricultural servitude and began because of labor shortages in England and in the colonies. It developed at a time when England had a great number of people being displaced from farming. This led to an early growth of the indentured labor system.
The importation of white servants under contracts known as indentures proved more profitable as a short-term labor source than enslaving Indians or using free labor. Eventually, the final attempt to ease labor shortages was enslavement of Africans. Wherever you find slavery, you first find indentures.

[shootingstar]

Hey, now we know why there are still many who still want to immigrate to North America --despite China's growing economy and Communists loosening up on economic privatization.


But then they get here and some end up in sweat shops. Yea, well several of my cousins who immigrated to Toronto in 1980's, did factory clothing piecework ..in their homes at times. I would drop over to visit and find their work/set-up. But now the garmet industry in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada, has shifted to China.

No wonder why their children go gangbusters at university and try to scale the professional worlds here.

A person sees too much.

[Grog]

Well, always being one to offer a controversial perspective...are you suggesting that hard working people in poorer countries would be better off if we didn't employ them by purchasing their inexpensive goods?

It would be great if solutions to the world's complex problems were so easy! What I am certainly suggesting is that increased consumption is not improving anyone's condition beyond perhaps the immediate short term, not even for those who consume the goods. As much as I hate sounding like an old, bearded ideologue (I don't have a beard), there are still a lot of good times to be had by thinking about the relationship between the Master and the Slave, and how the Master is in fact enslaved.*

I suppose that while I acknowledge the existence of bad conditions, it's my sense that it's now the exception rather than the rule.

At the very minimum, unless you consider living in a perpetual cloud of thick, debilitating smoke to be a good condition, no, the bad conditions are far from being the exception. I will skip the details about authoritarian regimes precluding freedom of speech, freedom of association, and worker's rights, or anyone's rights, for that matter.

North American or European countries will not challenge the situation, as they increasingly see how the giant dragon could crush them if it cared to sit down. Individual outsiders - you and me - can try, but taking pictures or talking to people who know something about what's doing on (middle managers?) is difficult and dangerous. Ironically, as the current economic difficulties in China show, this is another great example of Master-Slave role ambiguities...

* Nobody cares to read Hegel anymore, but this page offers the gist of it: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1104725AA2hpOZ

Edited to Add: There are also poor people in the United States. There sure are lots in Canada. They also bear most of the weight of pollution and stuff like that. Geez, there are so many problems and so few easy solutions.

[smilingcat]

* Nobody cares to read Hegel anymore, but this page offers the gist of it: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1104725AA2hpOZ

Another thing on my reading list...

It really is sad about our culture and our myopic view of the world.

"out of sight out of mind"

I don't care to discuss some of the points brought up here 'casue afterall this is cycling web site. We can go over to a political web site like randi show to talk more about it. There, we talk about politics (obviously), we talk about religion, economy, environment, LGBT issues... in separate categories. Yes its mostly liberals but there are some prominent conservatives there too. The rule there is if you state a fact, you have to post your source of your fact. If it's hannady, Limbough that's fine but you have to say where you got your source. My handle there is the same as here. And I haven't seen too many flaming there.