Honestly I’m not prepared to make a judgment without actually visiting a sweatshop and interacting with the people there as well as their families. Maybe “it’s debatable” was a bad phrase because I don’t actually have enough facts to debate, period. But so far the arguments to the contrary hinge on treating people like the sum of their financial assets, which I don’t think is true at all. My issues with the arguments so far (i.e. why I am not persuaded by them, NOT why I think other people should believe Sweatshops are evil) are this:
a) I frankly disagree with the statement “people are normally good at choosing what makes them better off.” The whole point of a rationality blog, I thought, was that people are notoriously BAD at this and rationality makes them better at it. I know that I personally stuck around in a dead end job for way longer than necessary because it was the path of least resistance. Changing jobs is scary. You don’t know for sure you’ll be better off. There might not be multiple factories available in every area. The factories might have unspoken agreements about hiring practices to keep prices down. And while people aren’t forced to work in the factories, part of the whole reason sweatshops get a bad wrap is emotional abuse that the employers dish out, which can impede people’s judgment once they’re in the situation.
b) the basic system seems to be one where families offer up sacrificial lambs. On person spends basically their entire waking life at a crappy job to support an extended family. This might or might not create an overall net bonus to utility, I don’t know. I know my gut reaction says that’s unfair. That may just be Western bias.
But my sense from what I’ve read is that the people in question face extensive pressure to make that choice. Interviews I’ve seen suggested that they aren’t completely miserable and that they genuinely feel that staying is the right thing to do, but that they don’t at all consider it a “good choice,” just “the least bad choice.”
I’m not sure which way you mean that: the employee shouldn’t risk switching jobs, or the employer shouldn’t risk changing the situation for better or worse?
Honestly I’m not prepared to make a judgment without actually visiting a sweatshop and interacting with the people there as well as their families. Maybe “it’s debatable” was a bad phrase because I don’t actually have enough facts to debate, period. But so far the arguments to the contrary hinge on treating people like the sum of their financial assets, which I don’t think is true at all. My issues with the arguments so far (i.e. why I am not persuaded by them, NOT why I think other people should believe Sweatshops are evil) are this:
a) I frankly disagree with the statement “people are normally good at choosing what makes them better off.” The whole point of a rationality blog, I thought, was that people are notoriously BAD at this and rationality makes them better at it. I know that I personally stuck around in a dead end job for way longer than necessary because it was the path of least resistance. Changing jobs is scary. You don’t know for sure you’ll be better off. There might not be multiple factories available in every area. The factories might have unspoken agreements about hiring practices to keep prices down. And while people aren’t forced to work in the factories, part of the whole reason sweatshops get a bad wrap is emotional abuse that the employers dish out, which can impede people’s judgment once they’re in the situation.
b) the basic system seems to be one where families offer up sacrificial lambs. On person spends basically their entire waking life at a crappy job to support an extended family. This might or might not create an overall net bonus to utility, I don’t know. I know my gut reaction says that’s unfair. That may just be Western bias.
But my sense from what I’ve read is that the people in question face extensive pressure to make that choice. Interviews I’ve seen suggested that they aren’t completely miserable and that they genuinely feel that staying is the right thing to do, but that they don’t at all consider it a “good choice,” just “the least bad choice.”
If all that’s available is a “least bad” choice, it’s still important not to rearrange things in ways which result in a worse set of options.
I’m not sure which way you mean that: the employee shouldn’t risk switching jobs, or the employer shouldn’t risk changing the situation for better or worse?
If you’re a third party, you should be careful not to set things up in a way that merely eliminates a least bad choice that looks ugly to you.
For example, making poor quality housing illegal may lead to an increase in people living on the streets.