No-one else will, so I'll support sweatshops. Appalling though the conditions in them are by western standards, workers there do actually get paid more than they would if they were trying to find work elsewhere in their impoverished countries.
The extra money workers in the sweatshops earn helps the economy on a (roughly) decade-long time scale - first they use their money to buy bicycles, then scooters, and the workers in the first sweatshops in.... Vietnam I think are now onto their first cars.
This is partly due also to competition as more foreign companies try to find cheap labour in a given country. More competition for workers, wages rise, standards improve...
And eventually, the companies find another country to base their factories in, where the labour is still cheap, and there the situation improves again.
Hence "Made in Malaysia" and "Made in Korea" became "Made in China" and "Made in Vietnam". Or something like that. I may have the chronology wrong. But that's roughly the case for sweatshops.
Close them down, and the third world stagnates. Economics dictates that they don't remain sweatshops for ever.
Re: thank you! :)
The extra money workers in the sweatshops earn helps the economy on a (roughly) decade-long time scale - first they use their money to buy bicycles, then scooters, and the workers in the first sweatshops in.... Vietnam I think are now onto their first cars.
This is partly due also to competition as more foreign companies try to find cheap labour in a given country. More competition for workers, wages rise, standards improve...
And eventually, the companies find another country to base their factories in, where the labour is still cheap, and there the situation improves again.
Hence "Made in Malaysia" and "Made in Korea" became "Made in China" and "Made in Vietnam". Or something like that. I may have the chronology wrong. But that's roughly the case for sweatshops.
Close them down, and the third world stagnates. Economics dictates that they don't remain sweatshops for ever.