I think your argument that exploitation is an acceptable way to build an economy or that it's acceptable for big companies to make profits by the same method, then I can't agree. It might be more difficult to improve conditions in these countries using more ethical means, but as human beings that is the direction we should be encouraging. If the world hadn't finally put people before profit we would still have slavery.
No, my argument is that as outsiders we can't transform the whole economy overnight, it's taken us hundreds of years to create the levels we have here. If you go in with jobs etc that are significantly better than what is already there then the corruption from the leaders of the country will ensure that people who want to maintain the status quo get those jobs. By going in with jobs that are slightly better than those already there the liklihood is that relative wealth will stay with the general population and that it will gradually force up the standards elsewhere as local companies have to improve their conditions to match in order to try to keep the best workers. Once you reach that point you improve the standards in the western firms factories again and force it up that way.
In an ideal world that would be true, but here in the real world, the driving force is price(at least it is in the UK) so the vast majority of people don't give a **** about the circumstances that goods were made in, they only care about what it costs. In France and Italy you don't get the same sort of rubbish, everyone expects freshly baked bread every morning, rather than 'Value' baked beans, they expect goods to be produced in their own country and they're willing to pay for it. Food is bought on quality, not price, the same is true of clothing, we just get ****e as it's all we're willing to pay for(likewise in the US).
The people who run these sweatshops at source are not going to spread the wealth under any circumstances. All that is happening is that one corrupt group of gangsters are getting steadily richery by keeping the poor at the lowest level possible (a more extreme version of what happens here). This is the ugly face of capitalism and not the solution to poverty.
Thirty years ago, when I first started going to Hong Kong, the whole place was a mass of industrial buildings with a factory on every floor(they were hot, people were poorly paid and there were no workers rights at all). Thirty years on and those same factory owners have relocated the factories to China and the Hong Kong factories have become offices and Hong Kong is one of the wealthiest places on the planet. The factories in China are air conditioned and the staff get holiday and sick pay and China is no longer a cheap place to make goods(cheaper than here, but not cheap in international terms). Cheap manufacturing has now moved to Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and once these places start to get expensive, it will move again(probably to West Africa). It's not true that the growth of cheap manufacturing doesn't benefit the population as a whole, it does and it does so in every single instance.
It's ironic that the example you chose relates to a communist controlled country improving people's living standards and not a capitalist one. In capitalist India (which is the nearest equivilent) none of the increased wealth has found its way into the pockets of the poor.
China, India and Brasil, are the three fastest growing economies in the world, all growing on the back of manufacturing and all seeing massive increases in the standard of living, including India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_India And China may remain a communist country by name, but I think you'll find Shanghai is currently the world capital of Capitalism.
There's a lot of statistics on that link OLM but most are projections and expectations. The only reality so far is that the Indian economy is a lot richer, but how much of that money actually does filter down to the lowest levels is still debatable. Will the Untouchables become touchable? And yes communist China is benefitting from capitalism, but maybe the communist influence is the reason why some of that wealth is being fairly distributed.
Dont be a moron by picking out one sentence from my comments , i went into detail about that and if you think - if i was living in a gutter in some far flung country without state help i wouldnt be happy sending my kids and ageing parents out to help put food on a table then you havnt a grasp of reality. FORTUNATELY i live in a country where i dont need to make these choices and so its totally irrelevant to me and millions others . Why dont more people buy fairtrade products ? because they arnt prepared to pay the additional costs ! Why does fairtrade cost more than other options when its been said that most of the cost we pay for a product goes to the product owner as profit ? If fairtrade was as wholesome as it claims it would be cheaper to buy giving those of us living in the real world the ONLY real incentive to buy it ! One last point Communism never worked , and never will
Congratulations on bringing an interesting discussion down to name calling. Think I'll quit this one before the playground swearing starts.
im not sure we are on about the same thing being irrelevant Im talking about the plight of the poor in those "far flung" places across the world . IMO , they are irrelevant to us , we either dont care or forget to remember about them Im just being honest in that i dont give a thought as to how my trainers are made , who makes them and why it is . But if asked to think about it , i can only shrug my shoulders because the alternative is for me to pay MORE than im prepared to. Im not here debating whats right or wrong , that debate IS irrelevant , nobody or at least the vast majority of the "western world " just dont care.
