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[chucK]

Could we explain it away by calling you a kool-aid drinking parrot?

[JayB]

If that's the best that you can do, then by all means.

[olyclimber]

No, I was talking to myself. The conversation was with myself. I ended it. As far as yourself, I don't doubt you have honorable (misguided) intentions. You may even believe you are right, just like Bush believes he has "made our country more secure from terrorists"....I don't know, can't read your thoughts.

 

Why don't you just go ahead and read that article yourself and sum up your point. When you're done, I have some other stuff for you to read.

[chucK]

OK then

[JayB]

So Kristof falls into the misguided camp here as well?

 

I made plenty of arguments, which require no mindreading efforts on your part to address, which you are free to engage at your leisure if you wish to do so.

[olyclimber]

I addressed many of your points in my conversation with myself.

 

I skimmed Kristof's article, seems to have taken your own pessimistic view of things (or did you take his). "Suffering, get used it. "

 

Cambodia has a fair trade system and promotes itself as an enlightened garment producer. That's great. But if the U.S. tries to ban products from countries that don't meet international standards, jobs will be shifted from the most wretched areas to better-off nations like Malaysia or Mexico. Already there are very few factories in Africa or the poor countries of Asia, and if we raise the bar higher, there will be even fewer.

 

That would hurt American consumers. But it would be particularly devastating for laborers in the poorest parts of the world. For the fundamental problem in the poor countries of Africa and Asia is not that sweatshops exploit too many workers; it's that they don't exploit enough."

 

What sort of B.S. answer is this?? WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING BECAUSE THEN SOMEELSE WILL SUFFER.

 

You seem to be stuck in a rut there Jay, along with Kristof. Paralysis. Do nothing! Wait for the invisible hand! IT WILL CURE ALL!!! And why are we limited the conversation to just those that are exploited at this point? If the exploitation will move else where, will not the cause of organized labor? A round the world shuffle of misery and relief? (or relief and misery, if you take what appears to be your own outlook).

 

Why would you deny these people the right of organized labor that the United States enjoyed during a time that it needed it? Are you telling me that the U.S. NEVER needed organized labor and that all the advancements made by organized labor are rubbish?

 

[olyclimber]

Sweatshops = kewl

[olyclimber]

By the way Jay, I fail to see how Kristof's article is relevant to what I was talking about in my conversation with myself. I was talking about the right of sweatshop workers to organize.

 

Kristof is talking about "banning products". I never argued with myself about that. I think Chuck is correct...organized labor is just another market force. it also isn't a silver bullet.

 

another market force is disgusted consumers. but, as I said before to myself, that is not a reliable force. people will always go to the lower price at wallmart. the dollar has little in the way of morality.

 

i do think that Kristof is full of it. he has taken the position of being to intimidated by the problem, and just declaring it "to hard to fix", and I assume to just continue on in a "kill or be killed" world. little doubt that that will happen, especially with that attitude.

 

if you don't believe you can do something, you never will. but then there is an easy answer:

 

"The Buddha’s discovery of the solution to the problem of suffering began with the recognition that life is suffering."

 

Suffer onward!

 

 

[marylou]

Don't forget to vote!

[cj001f]

Cambodia garment productions enlightened bwahahahaha

[olyclimber]

Cambodia garment productions enlightened bwahahahaha

 

do you know how to suffer carl?

[Bug]

Porter, maybe you should continue this conversation with ourself offline.

Because you are missing the main point. These people had NO hope before they were being "exploited". Now they have hope. You select an arbitrary point in our industrial development and say we should hold other governments to acheiving what we could not - skip the hard part where people work for pennies a day.

Would that it were possible.

Japan, Mexico, Brazil and so forth went through this and in some parts are still going through it. Painfull yes.

How do we get past this point without walking through it?

Figure that out in your discussion and get back to us.

[olyclimber]

No, i do all my thinking online.

 

I really don't know that people had NO hope before they got exploited...i disagree with that entirely. You're basically saying the exploitation is a great thing. I don't think it is. I'm right. You're wrong. What don't you understand about this? I'm saying they should fight for a fairer wage. What is wrong with that? Admittedly they probably won't.

 

You're also agreeing with me! I'm saying I support these people's right to have organized labor. Did the United States NOT do this? Did it not result in improving our quality of life? BUT, because something wrong happened to us in history, is does that make it all good for someone else now?

 

What you are saying, for instance, is that well...the development of the third Reich and its subsequent destruction is a "natural process" that many countries will go through. can we learn NOTHING from history when it comes to suffering, so as to prevent it? you truly must be a buddhist to think such thoughts.

 

 

[olyclimber]

These people had NO hope before they were being "exploited". Now they have hope. You select an arbitrary point in our industrial development and say we should hold other governments to acheiving what we could not - skip the hard part where people work for pennies a day.

Would that it were possible.

Japan, Mexico, Brazil and so forth went through this and in some parts are still going through it. Painfull yes.

How do we get past this point without walking through it?

Figure that out in your discussion and get back to us.

 

this whole paragraph reminds me of the democracy in Iraq. We just need to stay the course, and soon they'll be out of the sweatshop and driving Lexuses

[JayB]

I don't think that Kristoff's argument is that there is nothing that can be done to alleviate the misery and suffering in the poorest nations - but that promoting trade is the best means of actually doing so. In many of these nations, the only comparative advantage that they have is low labor costs, and absent these, they have little or nothing of value to exchange.

 

Take the leading Asian country of your choice, roll the clock back by an arbitrary number of years, and the arguments that you are putting forth could have applied equally well to any of them. How is it that Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Singapore, Korea, Japan, etc made the transition from poverty to prosperity in the space of ~40 years? Direct foreign aid? Activists in the first world looking out for them?

 

My argument has been that the process of accumulating wealth, which started with them using their low labor costs to generate the profits which enabled them to make progressively increasing investments in machinery, capital equipment, education, infrastructure, etc - making incremental gains in real productivity and real wages until their standard of living was comparable to that of the developed world - and their labor costs were sufficiently high that they began outsourcing their low-skill manufacturing work elsewhere. The rise of unions in these countries was an effect, rather than a cause of their prosperity.

 

I'd honestly be interested in learning how you account for the transition from sources of cheap labor to outsourcing cheap labor in any of the countries mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bug]

So how do you get an industrial complex up to your standards without incremental steps?

[Bug]

 

this whole paragraph reminds me of the democracy in Iraq. We just need to stay the course, and soon they'll be out of the sweatshop and driving Lexuses

SEE!!?

There is no paragraph.

Check yourself in dude.

[JayB]

I'd also be interested in hearing how you generate sustained increases in real wages without real gains in productivity.

 

If you could demonstrate that forming unions and attempting to charge a higher price for the same output is all that it takes to make the transition from penury to prosperity, this would be welcome news indeed.

[Bug]

Actually, the time it takes to get through the really hard part is getting shorter and shorter with the growing global economy and better transportation for heavy equipment and improved training technuques.

[Bug]

Whoa.

Fruedian slip. "technuques"

[KaskadskyjKozak]

What don't you understand about this? I'm saying they should fight for a fairer wage. What is wrong with that? Admittedly they probably won't.

 

 

Fight whom? They'll be fired and someone else will be hired in their place. Or they'll have the crap beat out of them, or whatever.

[olyclimber]

I'd also be interested in hearing how you generate sustained increases in real wages without real gains in productivity.

 

If you could demonstrate that forming unions and attempting to charge a higher price for the same output is all that it takes to make the transition from penury to prosperity, this would be welcome news indeed.

 

Easy...it comes by transfering some of profit from the 1st world. In case you didn't know, many products you pay 10 dollars for only cost 1 dollar to make. So where is the other 9 dollars going Jay?

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I'd also be interested in hearing how you generate sustained increases in real wages without real gains in productivity.

 

If you could demonstrate that forming unions and attempting to charge a higher price for the same output is all that it takes to make the transition from penury to prosperity, this would be welcome news indeed.

 

Easy...it comes by transfering some of profit from the 1st world. In case you didn't know, many products you pay 10 dollars for only cost 1 dollar to make. So where is the other 9 dollars going Jay?

 

One result of your proposal is that the jobs will stay here, which is just fine by me. But you will not be helping the folks you claim to care about. They'll be out of a job, and SOL.

[olyclimber]

I don't see the point of continuing this conversation with myself with a bunch sweat shop loving exploiters.

 

I mean, its one thing, for me to participate in the the exploitation by buying plastic crap, but for you losers to revel in and boast about how the exploitation of other people is "just part of this great process of ours" is inexcusable.

[JayB]

I'd also be interested in hearing how you generate sustained increases in real wages without real gains in productivity.

 

If you could demonstrate that forming unions and attempting to charge a higher price for the same output is all that it takes to make the transition from penury to prosperity, this would be welcome news indeed.

 

Easy...it comes by transfering some of profit from the 1st world. In case you didn't know, many products you pay 10 dollars for only cost 1 dollar to make. So where is the other 9 dollars going Jay?

 

One result of your proposal is that the jobs will stay here, which is just fine by me. But you will not be helping the folks you claim to care about. They'll be out of a job, and SOL.

 

Exactly. I much prefer arguments for protectionism that are candid in this regard to those that attempt to pass it off as humanitarianism.