Slave Labour by the Back Door or Free Market ??

[Sparks]

This article has triggered an old question in my mind.

Chinese Imports to EU

The process I follow is this.
We in the west (I'm saying Europe and North America basically) have over a long period of time set ourselves minimum standards of livimg which we consider acceptable.  This is basically enshrined in the concept of minimum wage - it comes down to the idea that anyone in paid employment has a right to a certain standard of living which we consider basic.  To get to this point we have rejected child labour, slave labour etc and within our society made minimum standards for buildings, water supply, etc which all require income to pay for. This would seem normal progress.

Now the developing countries, China India for example, have developed to a point where volume manufacturing in many sectors is firly advanced.  However the standards which we have chosen do not apply in those countries and so the employees in these industries do not get the same relative pay as their western counterparts and have a proportionately lower standard of living.   Factory workers in China are probably living to a standard we have for many years considered unacceptable.

the net result is those industries in the west competing with China and the like are shutting down with the attendant job losses.

However we are very happy to reap the benefit of lower prices in our malls.

So have we in fact accepted Dickensian slave labour by the back door - it's ok because it's not on home turf ?

Or do we have to accept that in order to keep the industries we have to lower our standard of living ??

Or do we say that volume production is dead in the west and our ecomomies should now be based on high skill sectors and service sectors ?? What about those children today who don't have the required skill level ?

Quotas to me seems like an admission of guilt that we know something is wrong but..... " hey we like cheap t-shirts".

I'm not sure what the answer is but we certainly need to look at it.  Maybe it should be a free market but manufacturers who import to the west should have to meet certain criteria in terms of workforce standard of living before they are allowed to sell their products - an even playing field.

Having been to some of these countries I have an increasing uneasiness that the shirt I'm wearing and bought for 9.99 could only be sold for that price because the person who made it was living in a slum.

Thoughts ???

[Gunslinger]

interesting to say the least.  There was a article I read about a year ago bashing wall-mart for there business in third worlds.

Basically they want to offer the American consumer low prices as much as we want them.  When they demand lower prices on a shirt the workers in panama or indonesia that make them have to work longer for less pay in order to price themselves competativly.  The people that supply them have to do this as well.

There's gotta be a turning point eventually were hiring Indians isn't actually cheaper or when chinese labor revolts.  History has shown that these people won't accept a low standard of living for ever.

[Nilsen]

Whenever a countrys living standard gets higher or the poulation no longer are desperate for work they are usually abandoned by big business in favor of the next poor country on the list. Therefore the poorer countries will only ever reach a sertain level of increased prosperity before it halts.

The rich feeds on the poor.. always will.

[bozon]

That's globalization. As long as the markets keep expanding this will continue.

In the old times, when a region was prosperous, the standard of living would rise - even that of the lowest paid workers. At some point they will get orgenized in unions and apply pressure on employers for a better pay.

Today, capitalists can reach around the world to find cheap workers whose standard of living has not risen yet and are un-orgenized in unions. It will take long years till this process will raise the standard of living on a global scale - if at all.

Capitalism is exploitation by definition. The reason that the man at the top is getting filthy reach is because he is paying his workers less than their labor is worth. Does anyone here think Bill Gates' skills REALLY worth over 50 billion dollars? Whether or not this is fair is a matter of opinion.

Global market just allows the most powerfull exploit the weakest. If you are on the 'winners' wagon you'd benifit from the cheap products. If not, you'll quickly be cast aside with little hopr of climbing the social ladder, which is getting steeper and steeper,  again.

Bozon

[beet1e]

It's not a new situation. Nearly 20 years ago in the 1980s yuppie years, I can remember strutting around London wearing a Van Heusen shirt and silk tie - bought at Moss Bros in Covent Garden. And I had noticed that every one of those shirts on sale at Moss Bros with a prestige brand name had been made in Indonesia, or some other third world country employing sweat shop labour.

But what to do? If we did not buy, the people in those countries would go from having little income to even less.

[DREDIOCK]

The Reason.. Chaching!, $$, Mula, denaro.greenbacks.cash. MONEY.

We are no better then the companies we criticize. We like cheap stuff. So we turn a blind eye to how this stuff is made. Oh sure we make a big stink about Kathy Lee Gifford and her deal and a few others just so we can claim we care and feel good about ourselves.
But the reality is most of us dont. And for the same reason companies use this kind of labor overseas. So we can get the stuff we want cheaply.
And as long as its N.I.M.B.Y.. We dont see it. And because we dont see it. We can pretend it isnt really there

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by beet1e

But what to do? If we did not buy, the people in those countries would go from having little income to even less.

Always makes me wonder how in the world these people ever survived before we went there to hire them. LOL

[FiLtH]

Great post.

   My thoughts..If our government doesnt have the balls to boycot those countries, its up to me.

[Sparks]

Originally by Drediock

We are no better then the companies we criticize. We like cheap stuff. So we turn a blind eye to how this stuff is made. Oh sure we make a big stink about Kathy Lee Gifford and her deal and a few others just so we can claim we care and feel good about ourselves.
But the reality is most of us dont. And for the same reason companies use this kind of labor overseas. So we can get the stuff we want cheaply.
And as long as its N.I.M.B.Y.. We dont see it. And because we dont see it. We can pretend it isnt really there

The problem is that, even if we put our "free market" head on and ignore the social conditions where these products come from, we still experience an outcome from it i.e. the loss of a whole manufacturing sector from our own industries.  That has already happenned in the UK - textiles are gone (which used to be huge) volume car manufacture has gone and so on.  What do we do with a workforce suddenly obsolete but not skilled enough to move up a level ??  So pretending it isn't there doesn't cut it - hence quotas.

But quotas and such are the anti-christ to free market globalisers.

The more I think about it the more i believe that manufacturers who want to export to another country should have to have some kind of license from the importing country and to get it they have to meet certain working conditions for their employees.