You know you live under a rock if:
You don't know most coffee is grown by farmers too poor to send their children to school.
Nike exploits their workers in sweatshops.
Slave children farm the chocolate for Hershey's.
The list goes on. It ridiculous that we the consumer let this happen. However, especially during this economic hardship, we willingly ignore this because of the results it yields. Namely; a much cheaper product.
But I think it is time we did something about it. A lot of this behavior goes unnoticed because it takes place in other countries. I propose that no good gets sold in the U.S. that does not meet certain specifications.
I understand this would be extremely difficult to police. However, that is of no concern as of now because if the above mentioned proposal was law and it wasn't policed, we would be no worse off now than we were before. The only difference is that we would have this law that could be policed at any time.
Election Integrity Seminar, January 17, 2023
1 year ago
I bet you will be the first one in line to complain when you can't make your mortgage payment, or your bills are late because you are paying $7 for a cup of coffee or $9 for a candy bar.
ReplyDeleteWhat about clothes... $400 for a pair of basic shoes, $300 for a pair of pants.
You can't pay everyone in your production line $50 an hour with full benefits and easy work hours and still manage to turn a profit, market your goods, and sell them at a reasonable price to the consumers.
The reason companies are constantly looking for a cheaper way to get their goods created is because of the HUGE amount of competition in a free market.
What you want is communism not capitalism. As bad as it may seem in the capitalistic countries, it is a FAR cry from the communistic countries.
So are you REALLY willing to give up all that for someone else? Survival of the fittest, it sounds cruel but its how it goes.
The hungry lion doesn't starve so the gazelle can live another day. Maybe take a lesson from nature and understand that this is how the world works.
I would submit the same message with a slightly different spin that NDS did. I am all for enforcing human rights in this country, but I don't think it is the US government's job to police human rights throughout the world.
ReplyDeletePolitical pressure on those nations that allow sweatshops to improve worker conditions is one thing. Mandating it is another thing entirely. It is pretty arrogant to tell a sovereign nation that they have to conform to our standards or we will economically decimate them.
Another question, what happens to the workers in that sweatshop when the American companies can't buy from them anymore? Now you have a population of already impoverished workers who are unemployed. Sucks to be them, I guess.
To NDS:
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know how to respond. I can't make a counter-argument because no argument was made. You seem to just justify your greed with, well I don't know how to finish. We are talking about people, and you seem to have no regard for them as long as your world stays the same. Do you think you could make any more outrageous prices for these products?
You then made a straw-man argument by somehow tying communism to humanitarianism. I don't see how the two can be confused, and I don't see how you came up with communism out of what I wrote. It was a bit of a stretch.
To Matt:
You actually did present a solid argument. I agree that the US shouldn't be the world's police. My proposal had to do with US countries and goods being sold in the US. I'm not suggesting our companies pack up and move out. I'm suggesting they treat their employees like humans instead of tools. We have plenty of regulations for our work force in this country, how arrogant would it be for us to allow our countries to exploit other countries laws (of lack there-of). If the conditions aren't good enough for our workforce, than why would they be any different for the foreign workforce. To be sure, I'm not suggesting we go into other countries and change their laws. But the products we consume in this country should not be made by an exploited workforce.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteDon't confuse my position as one that believes capitalism is about the corporate bottom line and step on the necks of whoever to win. I do believe there is a social responsibility inherent in a capitalist system. (Maybe not in a capitalist system where legislators protect corporate interests over interests of the people, but in a real free market economy. I digress.) My argument is about enforcement of humanitarian standards and the imposition of our "morality" on other cultures.
Just for the record, I doubt highly that if you looked at the *employee* roster of Nike, you would find a single employee who works in a sweatshop in Bangladesh (or wherever). You would more likely find that they outsource the production of their products to foreign companies instead. So the real argument is whether Nike should do business with foreign production companies that practice unscrupulous business tactics.
Back to the point =) I don't disagree with your sentiment at all, I only disagree with the solution. I don't believe that government should be the enforcer of this problem. It is illogical to think that an immoral entity such as government, can enforce humanitarian morality. There would undoubtedly be some sort of payoff or quid pro quo involved in a political solution. The only real lasting solution is through consumer and activist pressure. For example, a few years back, I recall activists protesting Gap clothing stores for this very problem, which prompted the Gap to cancel hundreds of contracts with sweatshop production companies. A similar situation occurred with Kathy Lee Gifford's clothing line. The standards you are talking about can be reached with activists educating consumers and then consumer purchasing power telling corporations that this behavior is inappropriate.
Fair enough.
ReplyDelete