Sweatshops are ethical

(a) Sweatshops Don't Cause Harm In places with the worst conditions, sweatshops can be rather terrible, but still better than death. If they don't want that, they are free to not. The sweatshop can't be causing the harm because the result would be worse without it. If you need to get a shot to not get the flu, the minimal pain felt by the needle is worth not getting the flu. This works the same way. Overall, it relieves harm, it we consider death to be the worst possible result. Oh, and I believe that they do agree to the unpaid overtime if they agree to be paid a certain amount but need to meet a certain quota. People aren't forced to work in sweatshops in the same way that sick people aren't forced to go to a hospital. If they don't, they suffer more. Does this mean that hospitals are bad? (b) They Provide Better Jobs than the Average Jobs It is clear that sweatshop jobs are "better" because the people take the jobs. If the sweatshop jobs were worse, why would so many people be working there instead of elsewhere? Why would you say they are being exploited? Wouldn't they be exploited more by domestic labor, which pays less? They often have better conditions and better pay. My opponent offers a terrible definition of a sweatshop, as a place that aims to keep people poor. If it wanted to do that, it wouldn't offer them more money than they already have. Economists argue that the third-world people have only one comparative advantage over more industrialized nations: The willingness to work cheep. My opponent argues that once they aren't willing to work as cheap, the company will move elsewhere and start over. This acknowledges that it helps people rise above what they used to have, first of all. Second of all, it would be silly to move the entire factory out of one country to another with little reason. The wages aren't going to be going above what they are very soon because they are already high above wages offered by domestic work. For them to be forced to increase wages, there would have to be very few people willing to take the place of the people already working, but instead, people actually line up for these sweatshop jobs to replace their subsistence agriculture. If you talk to many people working in sweatshops, you will find that they like their job, and would be terribly upset if it was gone. The following conversation is printed in the book Naked Economics between a father of a worker and questioners: "She is paid $2 a day for a nine-hour shift, six days a week. On several occasions, needles have gone through her hands, and managers have bandaged her up so that she could go back to work." "How terrible," [they] murmured sympathetically. [She] looked up, puzzled. "It's good pay," he said. "I hope she can keep that job. There's all this talk about the factories closing now, and she said there are rumors that her factory might close. I hope that doesn't happen. I don't know what she would do then." While any labor seems better than starvation, some labor is better than other labor. They already have terrible domestic labor. Sweatshops are even better. As people work in these factories, their human capital improves, so they are better at working. This leads to better pay or competition over others who would work the same job. A company wouldn't want to leave where they already invested so much into human capital. The vicious cycle does not "keep them poor." It makes them richer than they were before the cycle, and they improve through it. People who have worked for Nike for a long time from third-world countries are able to buy cars. [2] By working in these sweatshops, they are able to actually save money, something they originally couldn't do. People who manage to have higher wages from sweatshops are able to purchase more. This means that they can buy things that are imported. They are also commonly provided with things like shelter and food, so their wages are even higher than it would seem. I do not see what my opponent is trying to say in that wage increases isn't good. (c) The Workers Choose to Work There Voluntarily Looking through Consequentialism [3], because the workers have better jobs than they did before, sweatshops are very ethical. It's hard to say that it is unethical to provide people with something better than they originally had. Say you are walking along, and you see somebody crash into a wall on a bike. They are very injured. You have a dirty sheet that you can use to stop the bleeding, but it might cause a minor infection. What do you do? Doing nothing results in death. Doing something results in minor infection. While it would be more ethical to use a clean sheet, if you don't have one, using a dirty sheet would still be ethical. Employees are seen as people in need of work that can be provided by the employer, as they always are. You most undermine their autonomy by banning sweatshops and giving them no option to work there. If I was an impoverished worker in a third-world country, I would want to be "exploited" and given a job. == CON'S ARGUMENT CONTD. == My opponent's arguments seem to be more against a mixed economy rather than against sweatshops. Outsourcing is a way of giving the job to the person that deserves it. You can't say that the reason that they don't deserve it is because they aren't western. The westerners don't inherently deserve these jobs, they need to show how they can do it better than the people in third-world countries. Creative destruction kicks in, and new jobs would be created in industrialized countries. You are more saying that welfare is unethical than sweatshops are. Most sweatshops provide housing and food, so they do give minimal standards. In conclusion, sweatshops provide jobs for people in third world countries that improve their lives and make the world more productive, and being voluntary and having positive results, are quite ethical. [1] "Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan, p. 201 [2] http://www.johannorberg.net... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...