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Comment by veganarchocap | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand people who are even against sweatshops, do they really want to deprive these areas of the only jobs they do have?

The middle-class westerners have good intentions, sure. Do they really think though, but starving sweatshops to the point of closure, all the staff will walk into well paid work? No, in all probability, the lack of competition and the low budgets will mean they have to fight over even worse jobs, if not... starve.

If you really want to take the moral high-ground, you should only buy from sweat shops, because the more they profit, the more you're contributing to bettering their lives and working conditions.

Buy all the masks you need!

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There must be ground rules for the game of capitalism. Market's are awesome at balancing things like price/quality/features. Most consumers can do that, and if they can't, well... caveat emptor.

But if the quality is so bad that people die, or are maimed, poisoned, or otherwise injured, we have different rules. Consumers aren't good at this, they aren't experts, they don't have the right information. So they turn to regulation (or certification - a voluntary form of regulation). These ethical factors are, of course, a trade-off with the others. Sweatshops and child labor are immoral, we will not tolerate that.

You bring up the interesting point of transition, though. If we stop buying these masks, those people lose their opportunities, and we run the risk that they'll just be produced in some other sweatshop somewhere. As such I am a big fan of transitionary programs with auditing, where if bad conditions are found, the owners are incentivized to make gradual improvements or risk losing customers.

These ethical factors are, of course, a trade-off with the others. Sweatshops and child labor are immoral, we will not tolerate that.

If we don't tolerate those, then we don't tolerate giving them the best alternative possible. Asking for more would make it uneconomical, and thus, economically destructive.

Do I understand you correctly, you suggest child labor should be legal, because a ban on child labor would limit their freedom, and they had to choose a worse alternative?

If so: Lat me tell you that 1) people are bad at evaluating their alternatives. Thats why we force our children to attend school as well, because our children might underestimate the long term positive effect school education might have for them, and 2) a child in a sweatshop might not have taken the decision to work for itself - it might rather work for the immediate benefit of their family, while taking the long term loss alone.

> If we don't tolerate those, then we don't tolerate giving them the best alternative possible.

Well, if we're talking about giving away stuff, like freedom: How much could we help these people if we gave away, say 15% of the combined military budgets of the EU, Russia, China and the US?

There are many, many more alternatives. Finding them starts with society saying "I am not ok with this, we must stop it, how can we do that?"

From there we get creative. We pay more to implement better working conditions, we provide aid to areas to send kids to school instead of to the factory, etc...

The fact that, if sweatshops are allowed, sweatshops will be the best option people can find, does not entail that if sweatshops are not allowed, the best option people will be able to find will be worse than sweatshops. This is because markets are not magic, and the conditions of employment don't come 'ex nihilo', but are rather a function of (amongst other things) what employers are able to offer; so, changing what employers are able to offer changes what alternatives are available.

'Able' here is a complex thing; to look at just two countervailing parts, how little can employers get away with paying, but also how much can they afford to pay?

If the sweatshops do more than break even, then the employers can afford to pay more and have better conditions for their employees - but they won't if sweatshops as they are now are legal, common, and accepted. Most sweatshops do a lot better than breaking even, so if we got rid of them, a better alternative would be able to exist. (If you believe in General Equilibria, a better alternative would be forced to exist).

That's cynical and easy to write from a warm chair in a western country.

The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst alternative for a lot of people. It's power, money and corruption.

There is no financial gain for western corporations or governments to really solve these problems. We profit from the political and economical instability in these countries and therefore from the suffering these people have to endure. We make ugly deals using the World Bank and the IMF to destabilize their markets. We help to keep corrupt politicians in place and happily exploit natural resources in these countries.

But nobody cares.

The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst alternative for a lot of people. It's power, money and corruption.

If the least worst alternative is taken away from them, then they have only the next least worst alternative. Asking to take this away is asking to take away the best thing they have.

It's easy to write from a warm chair in a western country that people should have better job conditions considering the availability of jobs that allow for consumerism.

I should have written that in a more neutral way. What I wanted to say is: Our corporations and our governments can and should be held partially responsible for these conditions. I'm not saying that it's only the fault of "evil corp" in the USA or any other western nation but saying it's their problem and sweat-shops are fine is in my opinion not the whole truth.

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