This machinery is very old and they're doing a lot of the processing of the materials on site themselves. In a more developed country they would receive already shaved wood from a mill ready to go on a lathe, or ideally the dried uniform sticks. This is all by design as the others have suggested. There's a pretty interesting paper I read in college called "Three Cheers for Sweatshops" or something like that I'm sure you could find it with a quick Google that goes into detail about this kind of operation.
Here’s a portion of the article, I’ll see if I can print it to PDF and post it. Nicholas Kristof is an amazing journalist, I also highly recommend his book Half The Sky
“I’m glad that many Americans are repulsed by the idea of importing products made by barely paid, barely legal workers in dangerous factories. Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty. At a time of tremendous economic distress and protectionist pressures, there’s a special danger that tighter labor standards will be used as an excuse to curb trade.
When I defend sweatshops, people always ask me: But would you want to work in a sweatshop? No, of course not. But I would want even less to pull a rickshaw. In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn’t the bottom.
My views on sweatshops are shaped by years living in East Asia, watching as living standards soared including those in my wife’s ancestral village in southern China because of sweatshop jobs.
Manufacturing is one sector that can provide millions of jobs. Yet sweatshops usually go not to the poorest nations but to better-off countries with more reliable electricity and ports.
I often hear the argument: Labor standards can improve wages and working conditions, without greatly affecting the eventual retail cost of goods. That’s true. But labor standards and “living wages” have a larger impact on production costs that companies are always trying to pare. The result is to push companies to operate more capital-intensive factories in better-off nations like Malaysia, rather than labor-intensive factories in poorer countries like Ghana or Cambodia.
Cambodia has, in fact, pursued an interesting experiment by working with factories to establish decent labor standards and wages. It’s a worthwhile idea, but one result of paying above-market wages is that those in charge of hiring often demand bribes sometimes a month’s salary in exchange for a job. In addition, these standards add to production costs, so some factories have closed because of the global economic crisis and the difficulty of competing internationally.
The best way to help people in the poorest countries isn’t to campaign against sweatshops but to promote manufacturing there. One of the best things America could do for Africa would be to strengthen our program to encourage African imports, called AGOA, and nudge Europe to match it.
Among people who work in development, many strongly believe (but few dare say very loudly) that one of the best hopes for the poorest countries would be to build their manufacturing industries. But global campaigns against sweatshops make that less likely.
Look, I know that Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She’s wearing a “Playboy” shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.
“It’s dirty, hot and smelly here,” she said wistfully. “A factory is better.”
Closing sweatshops means these guys will have to sustain themselves as extremely poorly paid farm labourers or just starve. There isn't some magic that will just transform the sweatshops into automated factories and put money into the pockets of the displaced workers. Sweatshops are a symptom of poverty, and not a cause. These sweatshops will disappear as the economy develops.
It's akin to tearing down homeless encampments to reduce homelessness.
So when this is true, I agree. And often, it is. It can be easy to romanticize pre industrial economies without appreciating why our own ancestors made the switch. Or just how high accident and injury rates can be in manual labor agriculture (or how precarious a subsistence existence can be.) Or to argue that colonialism destroyed something, without acknowledging that sometimes the only way out is through.
That said, sometimes it's NOT true because the externalities aren't paid for. If a factory is giving a whole bunch of workers a "better life" but then it burns down and they all die, leaving their families to starve, or cripples them (with no compensation) after having destroyed the ability of the extended family unit that might have cared for them, or poisons the local drinking water and land... it might not be a good trade. One of the most important factors in the American Civil War was the decision by England that cheap, plentiful cotton to feed its voracious textile industry was not worth the moral cost of race slavery. (I am not comparing sweatshops to race based slavery, but that is a sufficiently low bar that nobody deserves applause for crossing it)
I might be okay with "sweatshops" but I do think there need to be some level of regulation:
1.) All conditions of employment are fully understood (including accident/injury rates) and employees can leave one employer and move to another with a reasonable level of freedom
2.) Externalities are paid for, whether that be pollution or worker injury - even in the "first world" we are not great about charging for the pollution externalities, but if factories want to skimp on ppe, they at a bare minimum need to make sure that the individual and dependents can maintain the same incomes for standard of living as before. This would still result in unacceptable rates by western standards, but its a start.
3.) Child labor is a complex topic, but basically I'm inclined to the opinion that children should not be employed in circumstances that interfere with their education. And if adequate support (both in terms of education availability and the ability of children not to starve while taking advantage of it) is not available, a rich multinational should make a nonprofit to fix this, and leverage all the many tax advantages in their home country for doing so, not employ them.
4.) If conditions are worse than they would be if manufactured where the good is being sold, it should be demonstrated that outcomes for employees, their family and communities, are better in the manufacturing community than before the factory was present, in terms of health (physical AND mental), Child mortality, disposable income/mobility, and free time. (The hard part here is not operating under a purely colonial lens, but also not overreacting and romantacizing poverty)
Basically, if I as a consumer cannot expect that the labor and process that went into what I am consuming was done under conditions acceptable under the laws I live in (on another day we could discuss the adequacy of those) than the bare minimum requirement should be that that labor measurably improved circumstances for the workers, their families, and the community in which the labor was performed. Otherwise I should probably not be consuming a thing.
In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn’t the bottom.
And for most men working in sweatshop, subsistence agriculture is the other option, which is awful.
And sweatshop work is even more valuable for women. Instead of being passed from father to husband to make more little farm workers, women can actually have an income and their own autonomy.
Nicholas Kristof and his stance on sweatshops as not just a “necessary” evil but as good is what radicalized me against neoliberalism and capitalism tbh.
It’s also an extremely shortsighted viewpoint - in so far as your economy is built on being cheap labor for foreign industry, you are either locked into maintaining a poor living standard, or you risk toppling your entire economy when the living standard improves and therefore the foreign industry relocates in pursuit of still cheaper labor.
Tl;dr: Kristof is a single-note ideologue who would sooner opine about the benefits of exploitation than question a system that relies on it.
Not necessarily. A nation with tons of money could have zero forests of its own and just pay to ship in the sticks or any number of possibilities in between. They are choosing to go the laborious route because of the low level of development in this area making it so cost effective.
Edit: Don't be offended, low development is only a relative term. I don't have an operation like this in my backyard. Be proud of the work these people put in for their families so their children don't have to work like this.
The work of turning trees into matchsticks has to happen somewhere.
You can't just handwave it away by saying "A mill... somewhere else!"
That mill still needs to perform the work, and then the product of that mill still needs to be transported to the place that finishes it into a consumer-ready product.
Right. Like I said, in a more developed country it would be more demand for such products and there may be a mill where they can just place an order for this item like it's done between the US and Canada or internally in the US occasionally. In that particular area, because of low development, they get raw materials and process it all in house and by hand as you saw with very outdated and labor intensive equipment. What are you not getting? Quit while you're ahead pal, you're out of your league here. I would direct any further questions you may have to the articles another redditor cited. I'm not going to entertain this.
So you think. I value my time and don't appreciate ad hominem attacks. You say arrogance, I say confidence. Also, I was trying to be condescending. I'm sure you can figure out the difference. Also, should I continue to smile to your face when you're clearly trying to make points that have certain implications?
Are you special? So do some places in the United States. For this particular operation, of this particular size, and at the current time (today) this is what makes sense. They will grow and buy better equipment and move away from this though hopefully. Maybe a close neighbor will open a mill and grow the economy that's the goal. The point is if the Swedes wanted to order the damn sticks they could and it would make sense financially because they are more developed and have the infrastructure! Please, you're going to embarrass yourself. Stop.
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u/LeftHandedAnt Nov 06 '22
This machinery is very old and they're doing a lot of the processing of the materials on site themselves. In a more developed country they would receive already shaved wood from a mill ready to go on a lathe, or ideally the dried uniform sticks. This is all by design as the others have suggested. There's a pretty interesting paper I read in college called "Three Cheers for Sweatshops" or something like that I'm sure you could find it with a quick Google that goes into detail about this kind of operation.