We hear every day of American corporations setting up factories in foreign countries, cashing in on the cheap labor available in the poorer parts of the world. It is said that these companies are exploiting the people hired by these "sweatshops"...That the companies profit at the expense of these workers, who have no other opportunities, and are therefore "forced" to work in factories where conditions are poor by American standards.
To those who cry out that this is wrong or immoral, I ask this question: Is it immoral to offer someone a better opportunity than what they already have available?
Interestingly enough, I have asked this question of a few people, and I'm usually told that the comparative level of opportunity offered is irrelevant when workplace conditions are poor. I must admit that this logic escapes me.
If I offer someone a job, as an alternative to starvation, prostitution, or outright theft, and they choose to accept it voluntarily, haven't I just made that person's life better? How is it moral to say that I shouldn't offer the opportunity unless it conforms to some arbitrary standard? Shouldn't it be up to the individual to decide by his or her own standards?
Better Alternatives
If I set up a factory in Bangladesh to make t-shirts, I have to attract labor. In order to do so, I have to offer a better comparative opportunity for potential workers. This means I will have to pay more or provide better benefits than other businesses in the region. In many cases, it may simply be enough to offer the job at any amount of pay...if the alternative is no job at all. Even if the work is dangerous or the conditions hazardous, the individuals who accept the jobs are making a choice between alternatives. If they choose to work in my factory, it is simply because I offer the better alternative.
I've often heard the argument that the workers in this situation "have no choice", and so it's wrong for me to take advantage of that. The truth is that they do have a choice. It may not be a good choice, but it's a choice nonetheless. If the choice is between having a job and starving to death, how am I in the wrong by offering them the opportunity to not starve to death?
What if the machinery in my factory is cheap, defective, or poorly maintained, and therefore dangerous? What if someone loses a hand, or worse? Regardless of whether or not I'm held accountable by law for the injury or death of a worker, there will still be consequences. Some workers may decide that the risk of working in my factory is not worth the pay and quit. The ones that remain may demand more pay. Productivity may suffer because the workers are more cautious around the machines and work more slowly in the name of safety. Word of my dangerous factory will undoubtedly spread, discouraging applicants and reducing the available labor pool. In any case, the costs of the worker's injury or death will almost certainly exceed whatever I may have saved by purchasing shoddy machinery. Most likely, I'll have to invest in newer, safer machinery. Even if I don't do so, however, I may still attract workers who feel that my factory offers a better alternative. An individual could certainly decide that the potential of losing a hand is better than certain starvation, and they should be allowed to make that choice.
Wouldn't Regulations Help?
American companies choose to set up factories in foreign countries for various reasons, but the main reason is to reduce production costs by making use of inexpensive labor. Many who feel that the laborers are being exploited call for government regulation of overseas expansion, primarily with regard to workplace conditions and wages. They want to elevate the conditions of foreign labor employed by American companies to an "American" standard. The problem with doing this is that it increases the cost of foreign labor to the point that it nullifies the incentive to use it in the first place, thus denying foreign laborers the opportunities they so desperately need.
After all, we Americans were only able to advance ourselves to our current standard by taking risks. Consider the puritan settlers who first colonized the New World. Most of them were farmers and tradesmen, many of them poorly educated. Additionally, sea travel in 1620 was horribly treacherous. They took a grave risk setting sail for an unknown land, but the choice represented an opportunity to better their situations. Should they have been allowed to go? Shouldn't some human rights activist group, concerned for the separatists' well-being, stepped up and petitioned King James to prohibit the voyage of the Mayflower because they believed the risk to be too great? Was it immoral to allow them to choose to take such a risk?
In my view, what is immoral is to impose one's own standards upon another, rather than allowing the other to make his own choice. Freedom means being allowed to choose one's own destiny, even if the path is hazardous or the choices dangerous.
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3 comments:
If I were you, I would consider going back to school, just one class a semester at first, and getting a degree in econ.
It would be more of a consumption good for you, than an investment in human capital. It may not be relevant to your day-job, but you'd enjoy it, I think. You'd get to do writing like you did in this post and feel like it's somehow productive. One night a week for 28 weeks a year. That's less time-consuming than teaching an MSF course or taking care of a newborn baby (by a few degrees of magnitude on the second one).
Your statement is an interesting rationalization of a pure market perspective. The reason that you are classified as taking advantage of this body of workers is because you are lowering your cost of production by 'taking advantage' of the looser or lack of worker protection provided in the local where you have located your plant.
On a moral level you should value one person’s life the same as another’s. You are placing no value on the worker except what government protection requires you to. This is the basic tenant of government, to protect the weak from the strong. So in your argument lies the foundation of the thing that you dislike the most.
He that was fun!
It's not necessarily true that I would be taking advantage of a lack of worker protection, for the simple reason that worker protection (presumably provided by some entity external to the business itself, i.e. government) is unnecessary in a free market. The reason for this is quite straightforward: It is to the economic advantage of the business owner to ensure the safety of his employees. Dead or injured workers aren't terribly productive. A factory owner who allows workers to be killed and maimed with any frequency will soon find himself with no workers, assuming they are free to leave if they find the conditions unacceptable, of course. Were the workers being forced to labor at gunpoint, it would be quite another story.
As for valuing life, I believe there is a big difference between valuing a person's life and valuing his right to life. I naturally value the lives of my family and friends more than those of individuals I don't know, but I value and will defend the right to life of every individual who respects the same right of others. I wouldn't value the life of someone who engages in such self-destructive behavior as, say drug abuse, because apparently the abuser doesn't value it himself. I do, however, respect and defend his right to live his life as he sees fit, even if it means by doing so he destroys it.
By the same token, I respect the right of anyone who chooses to put his life at risk by entering a hazardous line of work, regardless of his reasons for doing so. Would it be right to disallow an individual who wants to be a policeman, firefighter, or soldier from doing so on the grounds that it is too dangerous? How, then is it right to dictate whether or not an individual in another country should be allowed to accept a job in a factory where conditions are hazardous? You may argue that in the case of the policemen, firefighter, etc., they are providing a service to others, therefore the risk is acceptable, but is an individual working in a factory to feed his family not also working for the benefit of others? One cannot impose a value judgment upon another without violating that person's right to life.
Herein lies the (only) legitimate role of government...defense of individual rights. Governments are established in order that those who would violate the rights of others are held accountable for doing so.
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