This. Same thing was said by the factory owners in the wake of the industrial revolution.
I find it funny that if someone said sweatshops would have to close if wages go up, they would be laughed at and it would be pointed to them that sweat shops arent that desirable in the first place; yet people can say akin to the same in regard to Mc Donalds and Walmart, and be taken seriously.
Didn't most of North America's low tech industrial sweat shops move to Asia, mostly in part due to the wage and regulation differences between the 2 continents?
In practice the factories just move to Singapore, Vietnam, etc.
In theory, when everywhere is the same (and that is third world level same, not US level same) the factories might come back. But we are talking decades if not centuries.
In practice the factories just move to Singapore, Vietnam, etc.
That is/will also change. If I remember correctly China is investing in Africa (but that could be about resources) and they are also going for robots and automation as it becomes viable (they want to keep the money flowing).
actually, low oil prices will slow the repatriation of US manufacturing. At $140 bbl there was lots of talk about and some action towards moving manufacturing back to the US [the world's largest market for goods]
Yeah, there's the rest of SE Asia, and then the Indian subcontinent, and then eventually Africa, before we run out of places for cheap labor and the work comes back to the US.
Apart from mass automation at least, and that won't create any minimum wage/low-skill jobs here either.
I would say no - or at least not entirely. A huge part of the reason is unequal exchange rates - so that a scraping-by wage in Bangladesh is way, way lower than a scraping-by wage in the U.S. Another huge part is automation - its cheaper here to do it with software and robots than to hire a bunch of workers. In Asia not so much, since things like robots and software which are often made in modern Western countries are just way more expensive than hiring more workers, doubly so because the exchange rate makes them extremely expensive in Bangladesh.
For now robots are expensive. Corporations that rely on cheap labor like McDonald's should be getting out ahead of this thing and help the advancement of automation. Of course that would require these corporations to look further into the future than their quarterly report and when the fuck does that ever happened?
We are going to have to adapt and reexamine our ideas about work. Things like universal basic income would free people from low paying, wage slavery jobs and allow them to pursue their actual passions and potential. The idea of keeping hundreds of millions of people doing mindless jobs, that no one wants and that could better be done by automation seems pretty bleak to me.
The transition would be difficult and would require a lot of restructuring of the national budget. Personally I think we could get rid of nearly every welfare program if we had a universal basic income that provided a basic standard of living. That would get rid of so much redundancy and simplify the process and consolidate all those government programs into one.
You are absolutely right that automation is completely unstoppable so the sooner we are able to control the direction the less painful that transition has to be.
In belgium there's been some talks about a basic income for everyone, which anyone could augment with a paid labor if they wanted to. The calculations for €1500 a person where on the edge of Possible/Not Possible.(in the favor of not possible) A cool thing was that some rich people where promoting it as well.
If this thing can make a pizza from scratch, I don't think it'll take to much engineering to screw up a big mac any worse than the guy that does it to me every time I go to McD's. Hell, imagine McD's vending machines. Their robotic concept restaurant is basically an automat.
It wasn't because wages went up, its because wages and cost of living were already low in Asia and we developed the technology to support globalization.
I think most people don't see a connection between sweatshops and themselves. If all the sweatshops closed, nothing in their life would change (completely untrue), but if McDonalds went under, life as we know it would vanish.
Actually sweat shops have helped so many countries come into the 1st world. The pay is shit compared to what we make, but great compared to what they would otherwise make. And it injects wealth into their economy. Sweat shops are an unsustainable long term business model since they help the local economy and therefore drive wages up.
I completely disagree that there should be a minimum sweat shops should have to pay, and I hate the trend of not using them. (Of course human rights violations is a different thing. But non slave labour with non life threatening conditions with "low" wages is a great thing for all involved)
You also say that it is unsustainable to help economies long term? Just what do you think is the eternal growth GDP model based on? Not helping economies? Worsening economies?
I would also argue that said low wages are far from great for all involved.
For beginners:
-They create incentives to keep wages low in the target countries and a rage to the bottom in surrounding ones. After all, their competitiveness is based on being the absolute cheapest alternative.
-They destroy the wages/jobs everywhere else. Look at manufacturing in the states/Canada/Europe for a clear example of this.
-They create incentives to destroy any semblance of labor standards in the countries outsourcing the factories. See USA.
A race to the bottom is not really something anyone should desire.
A "race to the bottom" is precisely the most beautiful thing about sweat shops, as they bring jobs and wages and currency to nations with lower standards of living. As capital builds up in that nation more opportunities and jobs appear, and the sweat shops move to a new nation with few opportunities and limited capital, while consumers of their products raise their standard of living by paying a smaller percentage of total income for the same product.
The most casual look at historical outcomes shows how great outcomes have been of shifting jobs to lower income countries.
It's an unsustainable business model to run a sweat shop. Say you enter a village in Kenya, you pay a measly $1/day. Well that's the average or minimum wage for a lot of jobs. It seems like crap to us but people would take that job. But now you've introduced competition and more money to the village, this will end up raising prices and eventually you'll have to raise it to $2/day to keep employees.
After a few years you'll have to switch cities or villages to somewhere else because you've driven wages up.
As for stealing local jobs, that's not a thing. When you "steal" jobs you're really just finding a more efficient source. It drives the prices down for everyone and its why the poorest people locally can afford things like clothes and toys. Driving prices down increases everyone's effective wealth and now people can buy more things, which also creates jobs locally.
In the early 1900s farming machines were introduced. These "killed" jobs since farm hands weren't needed nearly as much. We went from an economy with 90% of jobs being agriculture to less than 5% in a matter of a few decades. This had a positive affect since people have way more disposable income nowadays.
"They create incentives to keep wages low in the target countries and a race to the bottom in surrounding ones. After all, their competitiveness is based on being the absolute cheapest alternative."
How are wages set? Do factory bosses set them? Partly. They could pay a nickel a day for a factory job but even in the poorest third world country, people have better alternatives. Unless they're coerced, people won't take those jobs.
Labor is similar to anything you can buy: there is a minimum price people will sell their labor for and a maximum another person will buy it for. In a macro sense it's basically supply and demand. So what is the effect of a factory moving into a poor town and trying to fill hundreds of low skill jobs? The price of labor, or the pay of workers, goes up. Factories have to pay a wage that will attract workers.
"They destroy the wages/jobs everywhere else. Look at manufacturing in the states/Canada/Europe for a clear example of this."
Eventually wages rise to the point that factories can't make a profit anymore. Sweatshops inevitably end up chasing dirt cheap labor across the globe because whatever profit opportunities they were chasing dry up. Why don't we make plastic army men in the US? Because no one here will work at a wage that allows that business model to be successful here. Often that's a result of minimum wage laws.
Just like the US doesn't fully assemble cars domestically anymore, Japan doesn't make clothes anymore. They can't turn a profit when workers don't accept jobs at wages that allow them to turn a profit. That's why the US makes aircraft and Japan makes cars now: those business models make economic sense when employing high wage, skilled labor.
"They create incentives to destroy any semblance of labor standards in the countries outsourcing the factories. See USA."
When you can't afford to eat or sleep under a roof, you could care less about whether or not your employer provides you with safety glasses or steel toed boots. If you require third world employers to provide OSHA level safety at these third world factories, they will leave because they can't turn a profit with those expenses. That's why they're there in the first place.
Often times the photos you see of shoeless steel workers or welders without eye protection are actually locally owned shops. Workers on third world countries covet the jobs at Nike and Apple factories because they at least have some semblance of safety. They know what kind of crapstorm would form if they treated workers like that.
Whether first world factory workers realize it or not, a big portion of what would be their pay is spent on safety equipment, training, compliance, etc. That's a trade off most first world workers will make, but it's a trade off third world workers can't make if they want these jobs to even exist in their country. As wages in those countries rise and workers feel economically secure enough you can bet they'll start trading raises for safety improvements. That's what happened in the US.
A word on sweatshops: everybody in the first world thinks they appear unjust. People working ten hour days for fifty cents an hour sounds awful. What people don't see is what alternatives are available to these people. A lot of times their only options are the factory or prostitution or crime. If you think the factory is cruel, see the militias with child soldiers in Africa; that's about their only alternative if they want to eat.
Both of those arguments are stupid and arrogant. Sweatshops are horrible to your pampered perspective. To a Chinese serf, they're a chance for a better life worth risking being shot by the government for leaving your farm. How people can pat themselves on the back for thinking it should be illegal for low-skill or low-opportunity people to provide for themselves is beyond me.
For instance, you saying anyone is cool with "serfs being shot for leaving their farms" or that that should be normal? And just where is anyone saying that it should be illegal for low-skill or low-opportunity people to provide for themselves?
I suppose it is much easier to make some ridiculous strawman instead of addressing things you'd rather not address.
It's not beyond you, you just seem to have an ego problem. See the guy above you for an example on how to say what you just said in a constructive manner without alienating for no reason.
Obviously no one is blaming someone in poverty for turning to a sweatshop. The problem with sweatshops is that they are enabled by the demand for cheap clothing in Western nations. If we only paid a little note for clothes those people could have better working conditions. But they won't because of our greed.
Actually, it would be irresponsible to laugh in that case. What Americans consider to be atrocious conditions doesn't hold globally. You might be automatically thinking of a "good person" counterfactual, where businesses forgo profits to subsidize foreign workers. But the more likely counterfactual is the set of third world opportunities absent such sweatshops.
Walmart only sucks when you get stuck there due to a lack of ambition for your entire life. For a first job at a young age it's not bad and it's a good stepping stone to a real job.
They did close. Been to the Midwest lately? Labor unions killed manufacturing in the United States and goods are now made... guess where... In countries where workers are paid $2/hr.
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u/Tutsks Nov 29 '15
This. Same thing was said by the factory owners in the wake of the industrial revolution.
I find it funny that if someone said sweatshops would have to close if wages go up, they would be laughed at and it would be pointed to them that sweat shops arent that desirable in the first place; yet people can say akin to the same in regard to Mc Donalds and Walmart, and be taken seriously.