Sweatshop Wages and Third-World Workers: Are the Wages Worth the Sweat?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2024
- Prof. Ben Powell discusses the economics of sweatshops. He begins with a few photos and personal travel stories to demonstrate typical working conditions in third world countries. He then discusses the economic forces that determine working conditions and wages. Looking at empirical data, he finds that sweatshop workers earn higher wages than non-sweatshop workers in their respective third world country. He concludes with recommendations to activists who want to actually help sweatshop workers.
Credits: This lecture was delivered in 2009 at the Metropolitan State College of Denver School of Business, as part of the Exploring Economic Freedom Lecture Series, directed by Prof. Alexandre Padilla. This video was produced and directed by Scott Houck, and edited by Adrienne Christy. Video production provided by the Educational Technology Center at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Video used by LearnLiberty.org with permission.
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As John Stossel says (about activists): "Those who want to get you fired are not your friends".
Neither are those who want to get you murdered by rightwing death squads so that your country has no organized labor that can secure a decent standard of living for you and your fellow workers.
@@poppychimera1726 The only thing that organized labor achieves is drive away companies from your country.
That why workers of the world need to unite then there will be no where to run and no where to hide
@@poppychimera1726 Bullshit. Secure a standard of living? You mean sending my grandfather to the street? You mean sending people back to poverty so others could have a better living? What kind of mind must you have in order to think that sacrificing the few for the many is a great thing?
Organized labor killed manufacturing.
It's not like sweatshops are some distant memory in the US. My great grandmother had to go work in one when she was 10 (in New York City). And through the wages she and her sister earned, her brothers were able to attend law school and medical school respectively. Without those wages my extended family's fortunes would have been very different.
It always interesting to hear the other side of the debate. Thank you for this video.
Someone working inside; someone working at 5x the price they were making; someone working on tennis shoes instead of scavenging through garbage heaps or in prostitution. "Much better labor than what they were doing before.", labor they freely chose and were glad to be able to choose.
There is a huge, real difference between this and actual slave labor, which many people here have pointed out, he addresses in the video. Accuracy, not political correctness, is the issue here.
What they do move production from higher wage areas to lower wage areas. Then they bring the product back and sell it in the high wage area for the same price as when they were making it high wage area. That's because to make profits they have to constantly drive down the price of labor because their system has the problem of the natural tendency of the rate of profit to decline overtime.
Everyone grumbles about profits, but I never hear workers demanding to give up their money when the company loses money.
Why should you have control of production in the first place? You have no god given right to a profit. The profit system goes into bigger and bigger crisis because it only works during primitive accumulation. You control the government and you start doing stupid things like going to war for profits. You spent 4 trillion dollars on war and then you say the Chinese are taking you profits and we need to compete. You want us to fight them because your a bunch of idiots who go around the world destroying things in the name of Democracy. That's why everyone hates you. Your no different than King Charles who was launched wars and was destroying England for taxes while you destroy the world for profits.
Those who oppose hiring 3rd world workers, do one of the following:
1. Start your own business in 3rd world country and pay your workers a fair wage.
2. Help them to immigrate to first world countries so they can work for a fair wage.
3. Donate money to them so they don't have to make a living in sweat shops.
If you can do neither, SHUT UP and stop trying to get those people out of work, which for them, mean starvation--which means blood on your hands.
Excellent response. "The man who wants you fired is not your friend!"
If you donate money to someone in a poor country, all you are doing is making them dependent on you. You basically become a welfare provider. Also, it’s not possible for all the poor people in the world to immigrate to rich countries, because that would only strain the resources of the rich countries while depriving the poor countries of needed human capital. The best thing to do is teach people in poor countries how to create their own wealth where they are, thus enriching the poor countries.
1st world countries dont pay fair wages eiither
@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent To me, fair is 100K/yr.
I agree only with #1.
Did... did... did you just convince me that sweat shops might not actually be that bad? Or, that they might actually be preferable?
It's not that they're not bad. They are bad comparing to our standards. They are amazing for their standards. In one way the sweatshop owners by acting on their own self interest are helping these poor people.
they are not preferable. they are the growing pains of a developing country. as he said, we want them to exist as temporary as possible.
@@frankienbloo1723 they are preferable by those people relative to their other current day options. They are not preferable to other people somewhere else, with better options.
They are the growing pains to a developing nation. Necessary, unavoidable, & healthy for theor future.
The opposition argument is simple: "Making money is evil and all profit should be eliminated."
No, sheer speculation, the central banking system, and globalization of the economy is what makes this usury possible and actually incentivizes it.
@@Jordan-mn2ty So what's your solution?
profit are usually invest in capital either human or machine like better condition or better machine or better job education(for the right interest rate) lead to increase productivity and higher wage. For too low interest rate it would be too dangerous as malinvestment usually occur and they won't focus on their main business, for solution to interest rate i really dont know, i dont have the power go ask government and banks.
@@tomservo75 the market is the solution. Why must a solution come from the state? The government is inherently inefficient, corrupt, & their very existence is dependent upon diverting resources away from the (productive) private sector. They're not the solution. They're the problem.
@@generalsalami8875 Of course. I don't remember what I was thinking, that comment was over a year ago, but if it comes off as saying that I said otherwise, then I was being sarcastic.
Actually he addressed this very question specifically and articulately in his presentation. He made a very clear distinction between what he was talking about and slavery. He specifically excluded cases when the work is not voluntary, and he is not defending the situations where the "workers" actually have no choice (and are therefore not workers, but slaves). People who truly advocate for liberty (which is what he is doing here) do not advocate for slavery.
Very bad conditions indeed do NOT make it slave labor. Coercion has to be involved.
Question: Assuming the non-coercive nature of these sweatshops, where would these workers be if we close all of them? Would these people be better of or not?
I know this is a old comment as I see it has a date of 5 years ago. You may have got your answer elsewhere by now or had a completely different way of thinking approach you and now the question doesn't apply. You may even have more questions.
Point is, if you had watched the video thoroughly you would have heard him say the sweat shops are often times the best in their individual area. We can't compare them to us, just as we can't compare the present to the past and expect the past to have a different outcome. First world people have convinced themselves this is a apples to apples issue when its clearly a apples to oranges issue.
Is it better that the sweat shop worker had to work out in the field like a pack mule or doing a easier job which takes far fewer calories out of them and gives them higher wages? Should this be hard to figure out? Again I will ask, are higher wages and better conditions better for the sweatshop worker than lower wages and worse conditions?
I'm not going to patronize you on the issue. You can figure it out. The only thing which stops someone from understanding the math presented here is ideologies.
@Triple fife forcing higher wages/benefits just diverts resources away from production (thereby hurting the consumer) & the producer (which hurts the incentives to supply). By hurting them they then hurt themselves, as everyone is a consumer. Not everyone is or should be a worker. They should be paid their market value. Unions, especially through state protectionism, hurt real wages & productivity. That's what's needed above all for an economy to grow. Societies must go through this painful period. In america for example it was the industrial revolution (a period we also saw immense growth in).
And the thing is, they're doing waay better than they historically were before liberalization. Our standards should be relative & realistic. Stop reaching for the stars. Those interventionist policies ruin countries, especially in all these african nations where it's been tried for a century.
Don't ruin their streak.
@@generalsalami8875 You should change your name to General Baloney.
@@kimobrien. not an argument.
Real unions don't get protection from the capitalist state. Rather the are the natural outgrowth of the organization of the working class which seeks to better its position in the capitalist labor market. The origin of the profit is the unpaid labor of the workers. The problem for the capitalist is the natural tendency for the price in the market to sink towards the cost of production. To boost profits he must therefore seek the maximum exploitation of the workers and to replace skilled labor with unskilled labor and machines. To get the longest hours at the lowest wages and the fastest pace. The long term problem of making profits from industrial production is that they decline because markets are not infinite and once the market is full the profits stop flowing and an economic collapse occurs. This is the true cause of depression/recession over production for markets that are brimming with commodities but no buyers. .
This a goodass video damn I learned some real shit watchin this one! Five stars!
thank you for the enlightenment...
my job got outsourced and I got another one. I keep my eye out for what is valuable and try to keep myself valuable to employers.
the same interference you are advocating by the government is what sends a lot (if not most, and close to all) of the jobs overseas in the first place. You put stuff in place that makes it expensive to do business here, people go other places.
I'll be spreading this around as much as possible. Thank you for the upload
I am missing actual calculations for cost of Labor and Bill of Materials for each shoe produced. Let’s say Nike pays 2 dollars a day in Indonesia and the labor per shoe is 10 hours; that’s only $2 of labor costs. The shoe costs $80 retail, maybe $40 wholesale. If Nike would pay twice the average garment production wage, by paying $4 per 10 hour day, this would increase the wholesale price by 5% to $42 and the retail price to $84. Most people would not care about a $4 price increase or gladly pay it, if it is certified “fair wages”. For budget brands this may not work, but Nike does not sell $20 shoes. Even in the Philippines I cannot buy a pair of Nike below US$60 retail.
It's important to note that Ben here is comparing "sweat shop" wages to AVERAGE wages. This means that it is likely that significantly more than 50% of workers are making less than this wage. The "50% of workers wage" is the median wage, which is (almost) always lower than the average wage, because wages do not have a maximum. What I'm trying to say is that, in relative terms, the wages at these sweat shops are very likely even better than what we are seeing here.
This shows that the bosses always seek to pay the lowest wage and not a quote "fair wage". The only way to change that is with unions and strikes.
@@kimobrien. I don't understand. What is a "fair wage"?
@@scramptha5949 You tell me? Obviously an "unfair wage" is one which can not keep the laborer at work. So he demands "fair wages." The worker finds himself in a class struggle with the capitalist because the two have diametrically opposed class interests. If wages are to rise then profits must decline and if profits are to rise the wages must go down. If productivity goes up without a new market than profits at first rise but since the higher paid skilled labor is replaced with unskilled labor and machines than the rate of profit must also go down as prices sink towards the cost of production while capital value goes up. Unless production is halted. This is why capitalism is constantly in and out of crisis. Once the markets are brimming with unsold products production is halted to defend profit rates despite the need for production and the inability of the workers to buy back all that can be produced. .
@@kimobrien. Ok so you are saying that the sweat shops being described in this lecture are paying fair wages? Also you are describing a false dichotomy, It isn't "workers" vs "capitalists". The "workers" are also "capitalists", they have a service to sell just like the factory owners, they are attempting to maximize profits just like the businessman, they do not have "diametrically opposed class interests". Both parties are attempting to sell as little as possible for as much as possible, this has nothing to do with capitalism, this is just the natural incentive of the universe. That incentive exists no matter the economic system that the government decides to employ.
@@scramptha5949 Well I guess you've never been a workers which is why you don't understand the difference. The bosses seek to pay the lowest wages and work us the longest hours at the fastest pace to maximize profits. Idiots like Warren Buffet demand profits from a chair where the brag about paying lower tax rates than their secretary while demanding trains run faster with more cars and fewer workers witch results in derailments as a cost of doing business. The bosses run industry into the ground to maximize shareholder value and then demand a bailout. This is why the workers must demand that private property be abolished.
The min wage paid is not what workers can get elsewhere, but rather what replacement labor is willing to take to do the work.
If an idealistic intern is willing to do your job for half your wage, then that's the floor you have to compete with, not what you could earn at another employer.
That may work in an individual case, but not in the aggregate. In the aggregate the idealistic intern will make their decision in the context of other employers offering idealistic interns a particular range of wages. Interns also have an incentive to maximize the return on their labor. It has a floor if other employers are offering interns with his/her qualifications more than half your wage.
I've got to admit, this certainly gave me a lot to think about. My reasons for being against sweat shops, however, is more about American wages and opportunities than worrying about people in another country.
But Americans benefit from this transfer, they get access to cheaper goods created by labor in other states AND they get to free up their time to participate in more productive jobs. The claim that moving jobs abroad is hurting Americans in general is horrible fallacy. You can create a tariff or subsidy that would keep clothing industry in US. But then, you'd either have to rise price or taxes. I don't think that neither higher prices nor higher taxes are good thing for Americans.
no that means americans have to compete with slave wage labor abroad
@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent No they don't. They shift to different, higher productivity and thus higher earning, jobs.
there all sweatshops in the 3rd world
@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent the competition only exists assuming people would buy the products at far higher prices. In Australia our minimum wage works out to roughly $15USD, as opposed to less than 50c an hour in a 3rd world country.
We may be willing to pay $5 for an item made overseas in a sweatshop that we certainly wouldn't pay $40 for if it was made in Australia.
Given that you have the reserve currency and are able to run a trade deficit where other countries supply you with goods at the cost of land, labour and the pollution that goes with it, and the only cost to you is worthless pieces of paper that you can endlessly print, you're certainly getting the better end of the deal
If you want better worker conditions you better be prepared to pay for it in higher product prices, because there's no way that the companies are going to (or the shareholders and executives that are taking the profits) are going to do it with their profit money
@qkcxv He actually suggests that in this video. Having a group or organization certify that some garment or pair of shoes are made with sweatshop labor, and instead of boycotting the item, charging an extra premium that would go straight to the workers. For this to work though, the consumer would have to be willing to pay that extra premium.
"So mr Nike tells the group of hardworking AMERICAN employees and fires them, moves jobs over seas,"
So what, it's HIS company. You could also thank Mr. Nike for the time you had the job. He didn't HAVE to create it.
"takes advantage of a small group of poor people..."
Who were better of with Mr. Nike's job, otherwise they would have said to Mr. Nike: "F%#k you Mr. Nike and your lousy factory!".
As long as the job is voluntary, nobody's being taken advantage of, and both parties benefit.
He didn't have to create it? There will always be capitalist around to play be the rules. We should bow to him? He didn't make a single thing by himself. He's not entitled to as much as he can possibly rake off the top. He's a manager. Workers created the goods...it was a cooperative effort.
@@georgeroberts613 Ok sure. Then if the workers have ownership of the profits they have ownership of the losses too.
@@georgeroberts613
Then build a factory and split shares evenly among the employees. Watch how long it lasts.
@@rondoclark45 Hey Ron. Successful co-ops are around. But special interests work against those as well as unions, though not as much or as fiercely, which gave us our middle class back after the industrial revolution empowered capitalists to rape the working man. In truth, as Lincoln observed, "There would be no wealth without the worker...and hence, he deserves a seat at the table." Economic slavery is little better than physical slavery. The working man must have more than just enough to barely survive, he must have a little extra to make life worth while. There must be a level of compromise for a realistic economic "ecosystem", or it all falls down regardless. Since consumerism is 70% of the economy, shipping our jobs overseas is automatically a downward spiral for the country they ignore as it's not their problem, money can move at the push of a button these days. So much for patriotism at the elite level.
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Adam Smith the 'right' quotes from the 1700s. They lied about what he said when briefly mentioning "the invisible hand" once and "free markets" twice in passing in The Wealth Of Nations. He said in a previous book, Moral Sentiment, that you should never leave two banker (special interests) along together in the same room lest they conspire and collude. He hated big banks and insider trading. He was for lots of small banks that did the primary job of backing the small businessman and entrepreneur. Wages at the time were supposed to be 'temporary', not the mainstay of the majority of the population, as after the industrial revolution.
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The "invisible hand" of self-interest he hoped would keep markets fair and level. He thought "patriotism" would keep big players from "offshoring" contributing to "the invisible hand" for self-regulating markets based on the idea that businessmen and investors were always rational and self interest would equal common interest. Wrong. It's now being identified by research that business deals, etc., have strong emotional responses inducing a natural drug high from endorphins and are especially significant for the overly authoritarian personality. Elitism ignoring those at the lower end of the scale is cancerous to humanity as a whole and it's survival.
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In short, we need go-getters, but they need to be on a leash...lest they try to take it all. You can't put the whole of humanity under the whims of authoritarian one-trick ponies and expect mankind not to be herded and squeezed for profit first and last ending in a "Parker Brothers Monopoly" game pyramid scheme rife with bubble and bust scenarios and everything going to the top .01%. Of course, they will pay their shills and wannabees well, pretend they're in the "club". Think "Hunger Games"...then you get close.
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Germany had one simple helpful solution: They made their corporate boards of directors half from the workers. No more of this 'good ol boy' network of CEOs scratching each others backs and kiting paystubs. And this nonsense of making CEO pay increases with stock options. This was a temorarily ex bankers idea in the Clinton administration to get around congressional efforts to limit their pay...and it's been madness. It turned into a free for all of corporate blood letting where CEOs have to increase their quarterly reports or die. Then they turn around and kite their stocks options to sell them off at a huge profit increase that then falls back screwing the average stockholder. Recently, the 08 bailout money, etc., went to buy back their own stocks...a well known bullshit idea in the business world benefiting an elite few. No "investment" in the company there. They were supposed to share that windfall with the workers and invest in the company...uhhu.
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Backing the '08 bad investments instead of the banks themselves where the money dould be mulitplied in new loans was another dissaster Obama was talked into from the "trickle down" community that permeated DC completely, thanks in no small part to the Koch bros. efforts for decades to make supply side economics the only game in town. They spent hundreds of millions pushing that and lobbying for tax breaks and rule changes....it's netted them tens of billions. They were doing free week long vacations at five star resorts for 'certain people'...and all you had to do was attend a "seminar" on supply side economics for an hour a day. This has been "Neo-liberalism" in takeover form...anti-liberalism in short. "Individual freedom" which equates to their freedom to turn you into a slave by buying the ground out from under you...just cause they can. Democracy means the people banding together to have power. Money has power whether we do or not. WE either maintain control over big money and special interests, or they will control us. For nature abhors a vacuum.
that, was amazing.
A Multinational took over a local company . The workers immediately served a strike notice . The management were puzzled and told them that they contented before .
The workers said "we work for a multinational now".
its the opposite here, when a multinational company comes, they're even worse and lower the standards because they get managed by locals here. You can blame the law that requires partial local ownership.
@hazeywolf You might think its despicable, but aside from corporate greed, the fact remains that they need money and other countries aren't as fortunate as us where children are actually better off going to school than working. Many people may complain about their 9-5 jobs and though their experiences vary, and while taking into consideration the cost of living in the U.S. it may very well suck, but most of these people do not know true despair that many of these sweat shop people know well.
Somebody get this man a pop filter
Mexico raised wages for manufacturing companies, guess what? no manufacturing company left, they all agreed on the policy and didn’t left.
This is why a few owning the means of production will almost always have bad outcomes. The only way a company will profit from being ethical is if its essential to getting employees or its why people buy their products
I mean...that's true with lots or few employers, it doesn't matter. When Rockefeller rose to prominence with Standard Oil, there were dozens of small to mid size oil companies. Yet wages and conditions in that industry improved as Standard Oil consolidated it and continued to improve moving forward despite the industry being comprised of a handful of large companies rather than a larger number of small ones. And all of this before Standard Oil was broken up. And a number of other industries have similar and reverse stories.
Employers will pay wages somewhere between what workers will accept and what they can afford while making rational sense. That's always true, be the company large or small. The reality is, in developing countries both of those numbers are often very, very low. So whether it's a big multinational or a local operation, wages will be low. Because for small local companies, they cannot afford more. Larger multinationals can, but it quickly makes no sense. Why pay, say, a worker in The Congo $5 an hour to do the work while also shouldering infrastructure expenses to store, secure, and transport the goods and export them while dealing with uncertainty in the region, bureaucratic slowdown, corruption, and so on when you could pay more in upfront wages in the US, Europe, or more developed Asian countries but not have all those other costs. The opportunity cost of hiring the worker has to be considered. This keeps wages low because the labor being so cheap is the only reason they shoulder those additional costs and - even more importantly - risks.
As Ben explains, you just gotta grow out of it. And this happens in economies with big and small companies, with and without unions, etc. It's part of the evolution of an economy. South Korea, for ecample, is absolutely dominated by mega corporations and has modest unionization rates and yet has developed into a wealthy country with low poverty and very high standards of living. It's growth with fundamental freedoms with regards to property rights, labor rights, etc that gets you past the sweatshop phase.
This definitely made me rethink my opinion about sweatshops.
Such an awesome video, thanks for that! I shall pass this around to all the bleeding-hearts.
I worked in something like this in America for over 10 years. Eventually it got a little better. I think a sweatshop is any job where a worker works strenuous manual/mass production labor for cheap wages while the owners make millions and millions, no flexible hours, and with little to no benefits. Yep I worked this for many years.
To answer your questions in order. 1.) It's only stealing if people take it as a fact of life. Or if it's in contract form. 2.) You can't. You can only just keep replacing and hope a good one gets in. 3.) It slows down.
I agree with most, but the problem is that most of the multinational keep most of the profit to themselves, and don't pay fair compensation for suppliers, by playing one vendor against the other leading to cut throat competition and reduced wages and working condition.
The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
bad management in these countries in managing businesses is also a big problem, to give an example, when you show a very good process that doubles productivity, they simple would refuse to do it and believe it will work, whereas in a country like US or europe, a process improvement that lowers overhead costs or improves productivity is usually welcomed. The local mindset is also important in productivity and getting the economic development needed to not have sweatshops.
sweatshops might be good in these countries but im still against it because of the capital the multinational companies have where they can straight away have way better conditions through process improvements in worker compensation. To give an example, free meals might cost money, but they can save time and energy for the workers in them not having to battle time and traffic just to go out and get their own meals or to prepare their own. To have a place for them to stay on site so they have no need to travel or spend money to travel and are much more reliable in attendance.
A few years ago In malaysia there was a sweatshop with horrid conditions where they end up being coerced (despite coming illegally in that they were promised some sort of green card but never got it). So my issue with sweatshops is that it is a hotbed for crime and a constant reminder of how backwards you are especially if you have the capital and capability to have a modern factory with refined processes and high productivity per worker. There are many factories in the US and EU and while their salaries arent high, they get decent compensation with a livable wage but good conditions which all translate into better productivity.
when you say worker compensation eats into their profits i say otherwise as there are studies that have proven that by increasing the compensation, it is not only cheaper overall but you get better productivity. If it costs a worker $5 for a meal, and you provide that meal for your workers (many workers in bulk so it now costs $3 per meal) you can provide more for a lot less while optimising things.
The problem with multinational corps when they come is that they only match the best locally or do a little better not what they're able to, which translates into exploitation instead and thats the controversy because these companies are getting way more profit per worker but not improving their standards. Those factories existed because they were how those countries knew how to earn in the past, a time when people knew little in productivity like the US for example before ford came out with revolutionary methods in factory management, people simply did not believe that doing so would result in better results before ford did it.
@shinimog Even if we may disagree - thank you for your polite and thoughtful insight and sincere, informed conversation. Peace!
@me25422 ALL wages are determined by supply and demand and demand is contingent upon the return that the worker can produce. Employers who deviate from market wages suffer significant consequences - underpaying results in the loss of the best workers and bankruptcy; overpaying results in undermined competitiveness and bankruptcy. In either case, the workers find the jobs gone. How does that make them better off?
There is a limited supply of jobs. That's true of America and it's true of any other country one might care to cite. In a lot of countries, particularly those in Third World classification, the supply of labor far outstrips the demand, and so competition for those jobs is intense while wages will have the tendency to be lower than can be found elsewhere. No surprises there. Other factors such as governmental influences, educational levels of workers, availability of raw materials, etc. can and do cause variations, but the rule still holds. When there are fewer capable workers than may be employed, wages will tend upwards but will never exceed the margin between the cost of creating the goods or services, and what the market value those goods or services is. The employer is then responsible for making astute decisions when setting prices which are acceptable to buyers/users while ensuring retention of competent employees and resulting with enough profit to make his or her business worthwhile. That is the trick that makes the whole circle where all three points are better off. Labor, consumer, and business.
There is a limited supply of jobs. That's true of America and it's true of any other country one might care to cite. In a lot of countries, particularly those in Third World classification, the supply of labor far outstrips the demand, and so competition for those jobs is intense while wages will have the tendency to be lower than can be found elsewhere. No surprises there. Other factors such as governmental influences, educational levels of workers, availability of raw materials, etc. can and do cause variations, but the rule still holds. When there are fewer capable workers than may be employed, wages will tend upwards but will never exceed the margin between the cost of creating the goods or services, and what the market value those goods or services is. The employer is then responsible for making astute decisions when setting prices which are acceptable to buyers/users while ensuring retention of competent employees and resulting with enough profit to make his or her business worthwhile. That is the trick that makes the whole circle where all three points are better off. Labor, consumer, and business.
I think in this debate he left "forced" labor that labour work against their will. But I have seen in sweat shop owners made it difficult for opening school ( this school is free and free food ) and when opend they threatened teachers to leave. Leaving no options for kids...
In this case kids not working against their will. They just dont have option. Its simple sweat owner find way to remove other options for labor.
This is not about you or me and what we do or not do for society. This is about the fact that you criticize someone without actually listening to his arguments. So in fact this is about common decency.
When a company is forced to raise the salary and improve the working conditions, then the money will have to come from: 1) consumers having to pay higher price, 2) owners (which is not always the fat cats, but they can be millions of workers who hold Nike or Walmart stocks in their 401k), 3) lower wage to the American workers (developers of iPod in the US get paid less). There is no such thing as free lunch.
everythings mostly decent til around 11:20 when he trys sayin sweatshop working conditions are shitty cuz the workers arent productive LMAO! NO bruh, its cuz theres no laws to prevent the employers from letting the conditions be shitty! THATS the result of AnCap ideals! 😂 whats even funnier is he admits around 13:05 that if a companys profit margin falls too low, they might move the factory to a different country sometimes. obviously you wont move if this new countrys workers arent gonna be at least as productive, cuz then you wont make the same profit margin as before anyway. so then why when companies move do they have shitty conditions in these new countries that they couldnt have in, say, America due to OSHA laws? cuz they can get away with it and increase their profit margin. he basically undercuts his original assertion lmao 😂 then at 14:45 he claims that US labor unions try to campaign for better conditions for 3rd world workers to get 3rd world workers fired. *CITATION NEEDED!* 💀 then at 28:56 he says we should just pay more for sweatshop products to give their workers better working conditions, BUT WTF MAKES YOU THINK THEY WONT JUST POCKET THAT EXTRA MONEY AS PROFIT!? 🤣 then around 31:35 he said legislation didnt end sweatshops in the US and great britain 💀 he also sneakily never mentions how much more a living wage is than the national average in those countries lmao 😂
Yeah lmao if businesses really liked highly educated, specialized and productive workers, why would they move to countries where none of those things are present in the first place? Makes his entire point about things already being as good as they can possibly be for those workers invalid.
I wonder if the people in Bangladesh think that highly of working indoors now over 1100 women lost their lives. I guess we know now that the price of a human life is $0.13 an hour. Maybe it’s time we get use to paying a bit more for our T-Shirts in the west …. Na, will forget about Bangladesh in another week or so.
Great video as always, It is good to know I am also not the only person to use beer as a relative form of exchange rate.
@hazeywolf
"...address human rights, labor, safety, and environmental laws."
Well he does mention labor and safety when he discusses the total cost to the employer vs. wages. But yeah, he doesn't mention everything, because obviously these presentations are supposed to be concise and specific. E.g. I don't see why he should've talked about human rights violations in this speech, since it's pretty much universal to think that human rights violations are bad(while opinions on sweatshops vary).
@hazeywolf When we industrialized child labor declined because more families could afford to send their children off to school because they made enough money to do so. The labor laws did nothing but hurt the poorer families that needed the extra money. You must understand that making comparisons between us and 3rd world nations is unfounded. They are a lot less wealthy and have a lot less technology and infrastructure than we do. Forcing our living conditions on these countries would crush them.
@hazeywolf
You have 2 options for being against sweat shops
1. You can take the protectionism angle and say that sweatshops take jobs away from the USA
2. You can be wrong
I will also add that one of the issues with people being abused by workers is due to the lack or opportunities to migrate. Government around the world block a free market environment keeping people out their countries to benefits its own people instead of develop a real free market where people is part of resources. Thats why America was prosper because was a free country that allowed workers to move in and that should be the example of freedom all countries should have. The reality is that people vote with their foot and blocking borders only lead to these issues.
Ofcourse this is a perfectly reasonable argument from the perspective of an "old school" economist.
The problem, in my opinion, is that the wages&benefits for the workers are only set to optimise the profit margin of the companies. There is absolutely zero altruism in their calculations. This is normal in today's economy, but I would argue that we should work to overthrow this, since it is hell-bent on maintaining the status quo and thus not improving the situation.
Although I do believe in capitalism, I also believe that we can combine it with a more altruistic approach. If you calculate the "opportunity cost" solely based on the current/historic situation, you will find that conditions won't improve without some kind of internal/external resistance. If you would measure a "forward opportunity cost", comparing what would be the situation if you would pay the worker a bit more, or offer a bit better working conditions, to what you are offering now, I believe that you will see an increase in the wellbeing of the workers, in health, education, living standards etc.
If more people and companies would join this way of thinking, we can work on improving the world as a whole.
@shinimog I think you entirely missed my point. If you allow to be imported or buy an imported product made in a sweat-shop, you are supporting an exploitative system. Instead, we should should impose trade agreements that don't exploit the poor, but rather pressure their government's and businesses to adopt our values and create more equity and fair trade practices. We should pressure our trade partners to agree to the same minimum labor and safety values which we impose on ourselves.
We must not forget that we can legistlatively create our own economic base and if we in the West force down wages and degrade conditions rather than improve technology advance science and invest into decent living standards and conditions then not only do we create an profitable sustainsble asset and improve lives whilst saving valuable resources in the process but we help to improve the lot of the developing world whilst also discouraging it's further exploitation eventually creating an level playing field. .after all just look at the European Union and it's 27 member states in comparison to places like Indonesia Taiwan or the rest of the far East because very soon these fast advancing economies and nations will actually overtake the west in terms of industrialisation production and living standards...
Another counter-intuitive idea has changed my mind.
This video should be required watching by every idiot politician that wants to increase the minimum wage.
5:50 So you are telling us basically the same thing that Mugatu was saying to Derek Zoolander...
Wow, in 30 mins I became a sweat shop entrepreneur.
I'm going to start building sweatshops in 3rd world countries so I can help the poor, become rich, and afford to buy overpriced American made products.
This guy should be a politician
need higher wages so learn liberty can buy a pop filter lol jk good video!
Watch the gumball poverty video....You start to see how rich we are.
Oh damn that was a good suggestion
He addresses this exact issue in the video, look starting around 12:57 . You're arguing that the presence of profit is a reason to raise the wage. In other words, you're saying "profit exists, therefore it should be reduced". The profit is the reason the business is there in the first place. At the end of the talk he discusses what you can do to increase the wages in a way that won't end up destroying jobs.
Very insightful video. I liked his idea at 29:30, protesters should induce higher pay in sweatshop workers by convincing employers to rebrand their products.
@superlucci Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. I was saying that more effective stratigies need to be thought up.
Compare the issue of trying to reform sweatshops without putting workers out of work to feminists protesting until female models are put out of work. It IS easy to hurt the demographic we seek to help.
Hate it or love it the most satisfying average life is lived in America.
Awesome
You people have obviously not served in the US military in the South Pacific and the Western Pacific or Indian Ocean. Frequently we went for months in extreme heat, especially engineering spaces where heat reached 120-140 degrees; I was commissioned so I was paid exceptionally well … $305/month. Get over yourselves and look at the context and the relative economics involved.
Who are these "you people" you're speaking to? Who needs to "get over [themselves]?"
Your only point in your comment was to boast that you were an officer in the military. Congrats?
You say, "look at the context and relative economics involved;" all the economist talked about was economics.
You made absolutely zero arguments to the video or to other comments.
American companies: "So what you're saying is we're paying our employees too much?"
@m3anmik3y - Being motivated to provide a good or service for other people and get something in return is the antithesis of anything immoral.
@m3anmik3y I don't deny that the conditions of the worker in those areas have extremely poor living conditions, compared to what the Western world enjoys. But for the most part (not counting FORCED sweatshop labor) they are free to leave. They choose to work there because that's their best opportunity. In the example of Hong Kong, the poor of China were risking their lives fleeing from Communist China and into Hong Kong where free markets allowed them to make upward progress.
I do understand that people in third world countries have less options and should be grateful for getting a job in those so-called sweatshops but this does not mean that they should work in dangerous environments that work them to death because the workers are poverty-stricken. I should know because I come from a third world country. Someone who knows how to sew is considered skilled worker as opposed the common scavengers who wouldn't be given a job in a garment factory. I have no problems with the wages these workers are receiving and don't want them to receive the same wage given to citizens of first world countries, but it would be nice if they can work in a place that is not too hot for them to do their job or have enough toilets to use when they need to heed the call of nature.
Strong argument based on data. I would like to hear someone with an opposing view.
Now the question is if it is your only option can we call it a choose?
yes. If someone is not physically threatening your harm you aren't forced in the traditional sense. forced to make a decision based on your circumstances is different. the first points to corruption. the later points to economic development (sometimes, often even caused by corruption).
@@GIboy1990 But if it your only option or your less worst option, are you really free choosing? If I make you chose between a bad option and a worst option, do you chose the bad option, so do you freely chose that option? There options are, working under the sun a sweatshop or starving ...
Lol, doing "beer conversion" in Czech Republic is kinda useless since here is beer the cheapest in the world compared to wages.
@therealtruth123 To answer the question: No, there should not be a limit, and certainly not a governmental limit. As long as a consenting adult chooses it for themselves, no matter how depraved, even if that means prostitution, and as long as that person doesn't harm another in the process, who are you to ever impose such a limit?
Thanks for the ad hominem. And how's this a reaction to what I said anyway? The guy didn't even listen to what Powell said and I point that out.
"There is no discussion on slave labor, it's BAD."
Of course it is! We ALL agree on that, Powell included. But sweatshop labor is not the same a slave labor. Powell makes that distinction very clear at the beginning of his talk. Kinda relevant, right?
So instead of calling people names, maybe replying to what they say is a wiser choice of action.
Sounds like the microphone was made in a sweatshop for $2
Extremely interesting analysis.
I would like to have time, knowledge, and will, to work very very carefully through the logic of each of the points presented in this video.
My feeling is that there is an awful lot there, but also a lot that isn't. The professor even touches on some of stuff that isn't, but it is done so briefly that one has the feeling not much is there because it is stated so briefly. Whereas with a fuller understanding, one might realize that quite a bit might be there.
Also, the logic used in all analysis in economics might not be fully true.
For instance, I recently read that in reality some places might have people who have more preference for ethnic similarity in certain places than for lower prices.
If this is true, it pulls the rug out from under of that area of knowledge we call "economics."
I never realized beer is an international currency! Does it work in the Middle East?
Is it me or does this guy sound like Vince Vaughan.
Why is the 'Third World' the third world?
What are the historical conditions that made them so.
What is the more developed world offering? What is it demanding? What are the costs?
Sweatshops are a symptom, not an answer.
Looks like good solid research leading to an uplifting message for once. It quells my middle class anxiety somewhat. 😉So keep buying but be aware of how truly blessed you are to be able to and consider the hard work put into your goods by others and appreciate it. Thanks for sharing such thoughtful information. Trade not aid.
Sweat shop labor jobs are how poor people can sweat equitise a better future for theirself, their family, their community, and their country. If you help provide such jobs, you can control how fast people can pull themselves out of poverty; either for bad, or good. To pull people out as fast as is safe and healthy is the best. Remember when the concentration camps were liberated? A real meal would have actually killed them in their terribly weakened state. Help people too fast, and it just stops being help. I, for one, am committed to doing the best job possible in this area. Who's with me?
Let me dumb it down for you Mike South ... Nike (using them as an example of greedy corporation)
Nike, in the begining, made a few sneakers. Mr Nike was unhappy that while people started buying his sneakers, he was working hard, but he was also not making any additional /more money yet (high gain). So mr Nike tells the group of hardworking AMERICAN employees and fires them, moves jobs over seas, takes advantage of a small group of poor people, gets a couple sub contractors to build a shoe fac
What if I don't care about someone in another country and only care about having a healthy economy in my country? Sweatshops or not, low wages, long hours, little health and environmental compliance are unfair competition practices, which doesn't work with a healthy capitalist free market, only crony capitalism, corporatism! I'm not even pro-union or minimum wage, just pro fair free market capitalism! Employ young folk for sub-minimum wage, teach them responsibility and how to be a grown up. If he's capable and has the will he should move up the corporate ladder, if his will is elsewhere, then he moves on, if he's not very capable or has any will, at least he earns a buck. The problem is, this only works if we have a dynamic economy based on real industry production employing qualified labor at fair wages and practices creating a strong lower middle class!
I was liking this until "I love sweat shops and so should you". It good that the negative effects of the strategies for fighting sweatshops were pointed out, but use that as an excuse for not fighting them at all is ridiculous.
I totally agreee--you're talking about the IRS, right?
"let me talk about bad conditions in sweatshops, i will use this presentation which a made on my APPLE computer" What a parody!
How does a company make massive profits? It is not off the sale of on or two items, but off the sale of many items. If a company makes a $0.02 profit on a product, and sells 300 they have only made $6.00. That same product if 3000 are sold, that is only $60.00. The profit margin hasn't changed, just the number of sales of products. It is all a numbers game. The more a company sells the more profit they make.
plus pinching the value of the worker every hour
It's amazing how many economically illiterate people have economic solutions to hand.
@KarateKidX I watched your Semi-Socialism vid... u seem a little intellectually dishonest here, but I respect your thoughts. I'm mostly anarchic-libertarian ideologically; if u support "bailing out" environmental/evolutionary failures like endangered ecosystems or animals (tiger, buffalo, salmon, redwoods, etc.) - ie, stressed ecosystems which are subject to extreme depredation, then how can you not apply the same little "s" socialism/protectionism to human labor markets as a human ecosystem?
It's not, that's what you're trying to turn it into.
This is about UNCOERCED sweatshop labor.
@hazeywolf Well, once you start to include slave labor, then of course you can't support it in this day and age. However, these people aren't forced to do these jobs, they can quit if they wanted to. Now if you are saying that this is a sort of 'entrapment', you are correct, however this sort of entrapment still exists in countries including our own; they keep us in our WalMart jobs, and 9-5 shifts.
@hazeywolf (Cont) And you're implying that better conditions comes from our "values." It doesn't. It comes from industrialization.
"If the 1st world pushed for the adoption of such basic labor, safety & environmental via trade policy 2nd and 3rd world labor would still be cheaper than 1st world labor"
Few in the first world would take the job because there are better jobs out there for them. Businesses compete for labor too. You don't need regulations for better payment and working conditions.
It’s not that we are against the opportunity provided by multinationals to third world workers, it’s that they are unethical. Let’s consider it yes economically workers are better off working sweatshops, due to better economic opportunities, as they earn more stable wages, than substinence farming, as with substitenence farming your pay depends on harvest, harvests go bust which means no pay. But it seems unethical that multinationals which make billions of dollars and profits employ people in overcrowded factories, with unisanitaey conditions, poor ventilation, lack of workplace safety standards,, long work hours, and little benefits. That is the issue
The point is not that we couldn't do better, it's that banning sweatshops would only make the situation worse
Very relevant video right now because of the news about Apple and what occurred in India, look when it comes to Apple there is a lot to criticize and I do believe China uses forced labour but that's the CCP now Apple. The biggest threat I see in terms of freedom is the state, libertarianism is what will help ensure that nations develop and find freedom the state will happily stand in the way of that.
@hazeywolf
If you took the "semi-socialism" idea to sweatshops, that would mean that the government would have to come in, and give people in these third world countries better jobs than sweatshop jobs, but they would also have to draw a profit themselves in order to make it work.
In order to get the desired effect, you would also have to do it in such away that sustains the flow of income into that country, or else it just worsens the problem.
I don't get why we are all racing to the bottom to find the cheapest labor and cheapest material to make today's products other than its alot more profitable for big companies to make shoddy quality goods with the cheapest available labor. Goods that can be discarded and bought again. Long gone are the days of real economics when we use to make quality goods that had durability, and were not just thrown out. Long gone are the days when one salary was high enough to afford a home here in north America. Real economics is about economizing, by utilizing our resources efficiently, not by producing the lowest quality crap that has built in obsolescence, with the cheapest workmanship. You get what you pay for, and if you want cheap that is what you will get. Sweatshops will never fade if us consumers continue to vote for low quality goods with our dollars. Now the only exception to this rule is for high tech items like computers and electronics, but I am talking about our essential goods like clothes, food, furniture etc...
I'm a bus driver and I bought house at 30.
In north America.
Currency value Price conversions in your drug of choice
@hazeywolf (Cont) And again, these better jobs come from industrialization. Once these countries go through the process, sped up with globalization, they'll have better jobs and more alternatives due to higher production. A middle class will develop. What they lack is capital, which is why firms from 1st world nations investing in their country and moving production there is good. This happened in every industrialized nation to date.
"Are some corporate CEO’s, doctors, lawyers, politicians and scientists psychopaths? The answer could be “yes” if you use a definition which labels individuals who are often intelligent and highly charismatic, but display a chronic inability to feel guilt, remorse or anxiety about any of their actions. Tack on the use of violence and intimidation to control others and satisfy selfish needs and the label expands."
@hazeywolf
I'd argue with you, But it occurs to me that you ought to watch this video. The guy in the video can makes the argument in a much more compelling way than i can.
@Longlivepalestine That's a fair point. I would imagine after a time of building up wealth, competing business might enter the market and offer better working conditions and maybe better wages, thereby forcing Apple to increase their working conditions and/or wages to keep their employees from opting for the company with better working conditions.
But mandating that businesses must increase expendetures by increasing working conditions is most likely going to cost people their jobs.
There's one, significant risk with forcing higher salaries. If those people earn 2-3 times national average (so they are really well off, because typically only a minority earns over the national average!), and would earn 4-6 times national average, what you can clearly expect is that a sort of mafia arouses which will be happy to collect $1-2 a day (or sexual services) for arranging such a great job for the people. And beat those unwilling to pay, sometimes to death.
So I do not think it would be a morally acceptable direction.
Near the end he talks about the fact that there is little to be done in these countries (by external forces) to improve bad domestic policy like insecure property rights, bad monetary policy, etc.
But there is one way.....
Colonialism.
But that's bad of course. Like sweat shops.
Why do you think the colonial powers eventually left those very regions? Colonizing by force requires standing armies, building infrastructure and towards the end of the colonial era, upholding better and better standards just like in the home countries when it came to rights and laws, much easier to just reap the same benefits without the cost of building a proper nation. This is economic colonialism at its finest.
So, what you are saying is bad domestic policies like insecure property rights, bad monetary policy, etc., are something we shouldn't support because the only way to get them is through colonialism.