The sweatshops are good myth...

[RadioRaheem84]

Libertarians are now extolling the positive wonders of sweatshop labor in the third world.

They say the alternative is low wage work in non corporate jobs, prostitution, and servitude. Some just go homeless or live in the woods.

What's the Marxist argument against this new outlook on sweatshops? Should we consider primitive accumulation or what David Harvey considers accumiliation by dispossession?

[Ocean Seal]

Not a binary.
#FuckLibertarins
#NotEnoughRope

[B5C]

You should see the youtube video by Libertarian group "Learn Liberty" has promoted:

NxBzKkWo0mo

[Luisrah]

You should see the youtube video by Libertarian group "Learn Liberty" has promoted:

NxBzKkWo0mo

He presents 3 reasons why sweatshops aren't so bad.

One of them is that eventhough you can make it illegal when sweatshop owners pay less than the minimum wage to their workers, you can't make it illegal when they decide that paying the minimum wage isn't profitable enough and they close, creating unemployment.

What he forgets though is that eventhough you can't make that illegal, you can nationalise the damn company and give the workers good living conditions.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Well, apart from the facts that wages are below subsistence, hours are extreme, housing is at best extremely crowded and unsanitary, and suicide rates are extremely high, sure they're good.

There's a common argument that every industrializing country has to go through its sweatshop "phase," and that after development has increased, wages will increase significantly and hours will decrease as well. Of course, that is complete bullshit. conditions of labor in the US and the UK, for example, only improved after workers began to fight back against their sweatshop conditions. It did not just happen naturally.

[RadioRaheem84]

Counter argument is that when the shops begin to reach a certain profitability wages will rise because the owners will put more back into production. That's how even Richard Wolff keeps describing rising wages in America in his videos. Nothing about striking workers.

Oh and I'm playing devils advocate.

[jookyle]

Libertarians have the idea that the game is fair and people can simply work up. A person working in a sweatshop making 80 cents a day has just as much opportunity to become a CEO as anyone else. Of course, not only does that "anyone else" not have the opportunity but the sweatshop worker does not. Libertarians have decided to ignore the concentration of power with capital and what is needed to maintain that power.

[RadioRaheem84]

He presents 3 reasons why sweatshops aren't so bad.

One of them is that eventhough you can make it illegal when sweatshop owners pay less than the minimum wage to their workers, you can't make it illegal when they decide that paying the minimum wage isn't profitable enough and they close, creating unemployment.

What he forgets though is that eventhough you can't make that illegal, you can nationalise the damn company and give the workers good living conditions.

They're working under the free market business logic so if we were to come at them with that then they will just look at us as though we've just stepped outside of the realm of all reason. They will probably just end the debate there. That's not even close to what they're thinking of as any viable solution.

I am trying to get them to admit or at least expose their slight of hand tricks. For instance, would the factory still be profitable if they offered livable wages?
They might say no because the whole point of the sweatshop being there is to take advantage of the low wages. They'll say that this is a necessary stage before they reach a level of profitability to invest back into higher wages and production. But when would the state be reached? It should also be noted that the common notion is that higher wages came about in the US because of the investment back into production not any strikes, even Marxist Richard Wolff harps on this in his lectures all the time.

There is something they're leaving out though and that's the point that the owners of these companies could pay higher wages but won't. And you cannot force them to or they will leave and decimate a whole town. It's all from the pov of the business owner. They want maximum profitability. It depends on their definition of profitability and if it doesn't meet their standards, then they're shutting it down. But the factories can be profitable, right? Without the need for extreme profits?

Help me flesh out this argument guys.

[Lensky]

Counter argument: The millionaire bosses who own the factories can afford to pay their workers better wages.

[Lynx]

Richard Wolff often discusses the period in the US when real wages kept pace with increases in productivity - what does this have to do with sweatshops?
Until the 1970's the US had near to full employment...

[Prometeo liberado]

Counter argument is that when the shops begin to reach a certain profitability wages will rise because the owners will put more back into production. That's how even Richard Wolff keeps describing rising wages in America in his videos. Nothing about striking workers.

Oh and I'm playing devils advocate.

Never forget that this is about who can accumulate, not distribute. Larger and larger profits concentrated in fewer, fewer hands.

[Goooh]

They're working under the free market business logic so if we were to come at them with that then they will just look at us as though we've just stepped outside of the realm of all reason. They will probably just end the debate there. That's not even close to what they're thinking of as any viable solution.

I am trying to get them to admit or at least expose their slight of hand tricks. For instance, would the factory still be profitable if they offered livable wages?
They might say no because the whole point of the sweatshop being there is to take advantage of the low wages. They'll say that this is a necessary stage before they reach a level of profitability to invest back into higher wages and production. But when would the state be reached? It should also be noted that the common notion is that higher wages came about in the US because of the investment back into production not any strikes, even Marxist Richard Wolff harps on this in his lectures all the time.

There is something they're leaving out though and that's the point that the owners of these companies could pay higher wages but won't. And you cannot force them to or they will leave and decimate a whole town. It's all from the pov of the business owner. They want maximum profitability. It depends on their definition of profitability and if it doesn't meet their standards, then they're shutting it down. But the factories can be profitable, right? Without the need for extreme profits?

Help me flesh out this argument guys.

How do you know for a fact that the owner could form out higher wages?

[RadioRaheem84]

Richard Wolff often discusses the period in the US when real wages kept pace with increases in productivity - what does this have to do with sweatshops?
Until the 1970's the US had near to full employment...

I thought he was talking about rising wages being due to investment back into production. My bad.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I don't know if there is an honestly Marxist argument against sweatshops -- except to note that labor organizing and political action is as much of the story as the abstract rise of wages due to increased productivity. Capitalism is a global phenomena. Marx would be the first to agree.

Here is liberal icon Paul Krugman's take on sweatshops:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.single.html

[CryingWolf]

What's the Marxist argument against this new outlook on sweatshops?



It's quite simple. These companies are able to offer the low wages and shit conditions that they do by destroying any alternatives the workers or capitalists of the target nation might make for themselves. International corporations collude with governments in the third world to destroy any possibility for unionization or organization amongst the workers or competition from the local entrepreneurs.

[Captain Ahab]

These arguments for sweatshops rely on a false dichotomy that we must either let them go on as they are or eliminate their existence entirely. The third way solution of nationalization has been highlighted above in this thread.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Yeah that one of the background realities that rarely is acknowledged. Free trade acts decimate the local agriculture, providing a large body of desperate people willing to work for wages at a subsistence level. An repetitive story stretching from 18th century Britain to contemporary Mexico..


It's quite simple. These companies are able to offer the low wages and shit conditions that they do by destroying any alternatives the workers or capitalists of the target nation might make for themselves. International corporations collude with governments in the third world to destroy any possibility for unionization or organization amongst the workers or competition from the local entrepreneurs.

[RadioRaheem84]

I don't know if there is an honestly Marxist argument against sweatshops -- except to note that labor organizing and political action is as much of the story as the abstract rise of wages due to increased productivity. Capitalism is a global phenomena. Marx would be the first to agree.

Here is liberal icon Paul Krugman's take on sweatshops:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.single.html

There is no Marxist counter argument? I always knew Krugman was a supporter of sweatshop labor and has called opponents of globalization "flat earthers".

So was the rise in wages due to political action and labor organizing or increased productivity?

[Popular Front of Judea]

The counter argument is to agitate for the right to organize the workplace and the passage of worker friendly legislation.

If there is more that can be done in a historical Marxist (not 'Marxist-Leninist') framework I am all ears.

Why the mandatory choice between wages rising due to productivity or or workplace organization and political action? Historically they have worked in concert.


There is no Marxist counter argument? I always knew Krugman was a supporter of sweatshop labor and has called opponents of globalization "flat earthers".

[RadioRaheem84]

The counter argument is to agitate for the right to organize the workplace and the passage of worker friendly legislation.

If there is more that can be done in a historical Marxist (not Marxist-Leninist) framework I am all ears.

What I meant is do they have an argument? Essentially, are these classical economists just using a slight of hand that these owners could afford the higher wages but wont pay. If you force them to they move on and devastate them.

As far alternatives, were these not mostly destroyed with the primitive accumulation process, the time when the government made room for these corporations to set up shop?

You sure nothings been written about this?

[RadioRaheem84]

Found some:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/MLB/SlaveLabor/SweatshopMyths.html


This argument assumes that the production costs associated with creating a safe workplace and paying a living wage will drive foreign investors out of developing nations and back to more developed nations. Naysayers rarely back up these claims with empirical data. In actuality, the proposed improvements are changes at the margin, making it possible to improve working conditions without sacrificing employment. For example, in the Dominican Republic, where workers are paid 8¢ for a hat that sells for $19.95, even doubling the wage would be a small change. Economist Richard Rothstein has written that in Bangladesh, wages could "easily be doubled without undermining the profitability of Bangladesh garment manufacturers or reducing the (already negligible) reinvestment of profits in capital development." (Boston Review, Dec/Jan 1995)

[Popular Front of Judea]

Found some:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/MLB/SlaveLabor/SweatshopMyths.html
I think the garment trade is probably a good place for push back. By its nature it is not returning to the developed world any time soon.

I have done temp work where we took packages of imported clothing off of pallets and stuffed them into semi trailers from floor to ceiling. That it made economic sense to hire gangs of temps earning $10 an hour to do so tells me just how much mark-up there is in the garment trade.

[Ostrinski]

Libertarians are some of the most misanthropic human beings on this earth.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Libertarians are some of the most misanthropic human beings on this earth.
Granted. But it isn't just libertarians that make the case that sweatshops are a net good thing. See the Krugman article below. The libertarian argument is merely a grossly simplified version of the standard neoclassical argument.

[RadioRaheem84]

Krugman is supposed to be the arch liberal nemesis of conservative economists in the US and even he calls anti-sweatshop activists "flat earthers". Ezra Klein, a steretypical establishment liberal journalist likewise defends sweatshops as a necessary stage in third world development.

So this is not a libertatian issue. Remember Penn and Teller's Bullshit show? Ironically titled Bullshit, it had a whole segment on how sweatshops were good for poor people.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Krugman is supposed to be the arch liberal nemesis of conservative economists in the US and even he calls anti-sweatshop activists "flat earthers". Ezra Klein, a steretypical establishment liberal journalist likewise defends sweatshops as a necessary stage in third world development.

So this is not a libertatian issue. Remember Penn and Teller's Bullshit show? Ironically titled Bullshit, it had a whole segment on how sweatshops were good for poor people.
For the record Penn Jillette is a self-identified "libertarian".

[RedAtheist]

So this is not a libertatian issue. Remember Penn and Teller's Bullshit show? Ironically titled Bullshit, it had a whole segment on how sweatshops were good for poor people.

Not only is Penn a libertarian, but the show itself serves the purpose of libertarian advocacy in addition to its stated purpose of debunking supernatural claims. Many of the episodes deal with some libertarian issue and the 'personal responsibility', 'if you're in a bad situation it's your own damn fault' message is laced throughout several of their episodes, such as their episode about AA.