Why You Should Buy Clothes Made In Sweatshops
In 2002, Nicholas Kristof had an op-ed a piece in The New York Times, headlined "Let Them Sweat." I never read it then, but I saw a link to it from a blog item by Jacob Sullum on reason.com. Kristof actually writes that there should be an "international campaign" to promote sweatshop products, with a "bold label" with the words, ''Proudly Made in a Third World Sweatshop!'':
The Gentle Reader will think I've been smoking Pakistani opium. But the fact is that sweatshops are the only hope of kids like Ahmed Zia, a 14-year-old boy here in Attock, a gritty center for carpet weaving.Ahmed, who dropped out of school in the second grade, earns $2 a day hunched over the loom, laboring over a rug that will adorn some American's living room. It is a pittance, but the American campaign against sweatshops could make his life much more wretched by inadvertently encouraging mechanization that could cost him his job.
''Carpet-making is much better than farm work,'' Ahmed said, mulling alternatives if he loses his job as hundreds of others have over the last year. ''This makes much more money and is more comfortable.''
Indeed, talk to third world factory workers and the whole idea of ''sweatshops'' seems a misnomer. It is farmers and brick-makers who really sweat under the broiling sun, while sweatshop workers merely glow.
...''I dream of a job in a factory,'' said Noroz Khan, who lives on a garbage dump and spends his days searching for metal that he can sell to recyclers. He earns about $1.40 a day, and children earn just 30 cents a day for scrounging barefoot in the filth -- a few feet away from us, birds were pecking at the bloated carcass of a cow, its feet in the air.
I'm reminded of similar columns -- surprising revelations on recycling by The New York Times' John Tierney:
Are reusable cups and plates better than disposables? A ceramic mug may seem a more virtuous choice than a cup made of polystyrene, the foam banned by ecologically conscious local governments. But it takes much more energy to manufacture the mug, and then each washing consumes more energy (not to mention water). According to calculations by Martin Hocking, a chemist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, you would have to use the mug 1,000 times before its energy-consumption-per-use is equal to the cup. (If the mug breaks after your 900th coffee, you would have been better off using 900 polystyrene cups.) A more immediate environmental impact has been demonstrated by studies in restaurants: the average number of bacterial organisms on reusable cups, plates and flatware is 200 times greater than on disposable ones.Should you recycle today's newspaper? Saving a tree is a mixed blessing. When there's less demand for virgin wood pulp, timber companies are likely to sell some of their tree farms -- maybe to condominium developers. Less virgin pulp means less pollution at paper mills in timber country, but recycling operations create pollution in areas where more people are affected: fumes and noise from collection trucks, solid waste and sludge from the mills that remove ink and turn the paper into pulp. Recycling newsprint actually creates more water pollution than making new paper: for each ton of recycled newsprint that's produced, an extra 5,000 gallons of waste water are discharged.
...America's supply of timber has been increasing for decades, and the nation's forests have three times more wood today than in 1920. "We're not running out of wood, so why do we worry so much about recycling paper?" asks Jerry Taylor, the director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute. "Paper is an agricultural product, made from trees grown specifically for paper production. Acting to conserve trees by recycling paper is like acting to conserve cornstalks by cutting back on corn consumption."
And finally, don't forget the "carbon footprint" of New Zealand beef and cheese compared to that from locally raised cows. This Montreal Mirror story compares Kiwi beef to beef in the U.K.
So...things are not always as they seem. Feel free to add your surprising revelations on issues where people are "sure" they have the virtuous answer.
It's going to be really hard to change some people's minds, especially the ones that are die-hard, gung-ho environmentalists, even when you present them with the facts. Human nature being what it is. They're not going to want to be wrong about it. o_O
Flynne at June 26, 2008 6:24 AM
Basically, we should all apologize to the earth for our very existence right now.
Pirate Jo at June 26, 2008 7:31 AM
YES!!! Finally, I can not feel guilty for not recycling the paper. I've always thought that just planting more trees was a better answer. I do *think* (having done no research) that recycling things that never decompose and are finite in availability is a good idea. Austin had a "zero trash" proposal come up, I will try to find the details and post them. That's where we need to be headed, recycle finite items, compost all decomposables.
What I really love are when people buy old houses, and gut them and redo them, to "make them green". Uh, no, adding all that torn-out house crap to the landfill isn't green, using it would've been.
momof3 at June 26, 2008 7:32 AM
I've been reading like stories lately and have also wondered about energy saved versus energy costs. (Dare I hope I also have an excuse for using plasticware when it's just me and a TV dinner so I have no dishes?)
Maybe, all this will put the emphasis on where what's really causing the mess the world's in today -- overpopulation. I get pissed every time I see those charities for children that just want to feed them slop and not teach birth control ('cause God knows that would be a sin).
Donna at June 26, 2008 8:32 AM
I've been to one of those garbage dumps (literally where the city garbage trucks dumped the trash) in a third world country and seen the people living off of it. Adults had built shelters out of trash and kids and adults (and scavenging birds and rats) all would pick through each fresh batch of garbage looking for usable things. I didn't see them eat out of the garbage but I don't know where else they would have found food. Many of the kids were barefoot. All were filthy.
As I was driving to and from the airport I could see the "sweatshops" where Adidas, Nike, etc. manufactured clothing. One of the locals was telling me that because of these factories many were able to move up to lower middle class. He showed me the tract housing where many of the factory workers lived. These neighborhoods didn't exist before the US companies moved in (so he said.)
Dale at June 26, 2008 9:18 AM
Anyone ever read the article about how building Priuses (what the hell is the plural of Prius?) being worse for the environment that a gas powered car? That was an eye-opener.
And now I have a strange urge to purchase Chinette. :D
Ann at June 26, 2008 10:08 AM
Since starting kindergarten, my 5 year old has brought up pollution and recycling several times. She was actually worried because I was using a leaf blower one day, and her classmate compared driving a car to killing animals.
I've been arguing with adults for years about over-the-top environmentalist dogma, but I didn't expect that the indoctrination would start so early. Parents (especially of kids in public/ government schools) should beware.
Lee at June 26, 2008 10:44 AM
Virus + virus = Virii
Prius + Prius = Prii
Crid at June 26, 2008 10:44 AM
Wasn't sure where to put this, but regarding your ire against Bank of America, here's a guy who has set up a web page to catalogue people's ire against it:
Quizzical at June 26, 2008 10:51 AM
I hear the sweatshops keep kids out of working in brothels.
Chrissy at June 26, 2008 11:20 AM
I think the perceived dilemma regarding sweatshop labor is one of internal moral consistency: Based on typical claimed principles behind the matter (perhaps a debatable assertion that child labor is wrong, for example), then you MUST either be okay with having sweatshops in all countries, or you must be against having them in any country at all. (Alternatively the only other way to resolve that dilemma is to decide that it's indeed OK to have different standards for white and brown children, but that's a position few want to openly take, and is likely poorly grounded anyway.)
So .. if you're FOR sweatshop labor, then you must be for sweatshop labor in your own country, even your own hometown or neighborhood. The hired kids are no longer abstracts far away, they're your neighbors' kids. Suddenly it is glaringly reduced to a NIMBY problem. (Alternatively one could try argue, for the moment, that poor kids in developing countries have their lives improved by sweatshops but the opposite is true in a developing country - but this is neither a consistent nor sustainable line of reasoning.)
If you're AGAINST sweatshop labor, then you must boycott all the cheap products you probably enjoy and impose trade limitations on "guilty" countries. This is also untenable in the long run, as you effectively are merely castrating your own economy.
So it's easy to say sweatshops are good but I'm wondering how many of you who agree would be just as strongly for that position if they were legalised in (say) the US and started appearing closeby you, employing people you know?
(For the record, I'm for them, everywhere, they're a net "good thing". I'm against child abuse but not against children working, there is a difference.)
David J at June 26, 2008 11:20 AM
So what do we do with all the trash? I followed you right up to the end, when I thought about what a stack 900 cups would make. Mountains of newspapers must biodegrade eventually (right?), but what about the plastic and polystyrene stuff?
Christina at June 26, 2008 11:37 AM
David,
I don't agree that "accept them everywhere, or accept them nowhere" has to be the best response.
It's not a different standard between brown children and white children - it's differing economies. In a country where a few dollars a day can substantially increase your standard of living, they are a net good. But in the US, say, paying a few dollars for a day of labor doesn't have the same effect - you're probably working for a net loss for that kind of money here.
I think as long as the labor is not forced, "sweat shops" are a good thing. People/kids will only work when it actually benefits them.
Quint at June 26, 2008 11:47 AM
Rent control is another good one for unintended consequences. It degrades the quality of housing, b/c landlords can't earn enough to cover maintenance and improvements. It keeps otherwise viable units off the market, driving up rents and limiting the stock of available units, which disproportionally harms the poor.
It also favors people who can, through bribes, connections, or other means, can find and get themselves into rent-controlled units. John Stossel did a report awhile back on rent control in NYC - among rent control's beneficiaries were needy types like Alastair Cooke, Carly Simon, and Mia Farrow.
BerthaMinerva at June 26, 2008 11:56 AM
Quint: That's precisely my point, what you say might be true TODAY, but for how long will that remain true? Look forward a decade or three. Emerging economies account for a massively disproportionate percentage of global economic growth; the world is changing, and extremely fast - if you want to take a moral position on the issue, it must surely continue to hold even as what is clear today becomes increasingly blurry as time passes. Also even today, what about the poor areas of the USA? The US may be rich but there are still millions who are poor - OK for them to be used as (perhaps slightly more expensive) sweatshop labor then?
David J at June 26, 2008 12:12 PM
"She was actually worried because I was using a leaf blower one day"
As well she should be. I recall a study a year or two back that proved a man with a rake is just as quick and efficient as a man with a leafblower. No noise, no cost, and no gas. For the leafblower, anyway.
No telling what the raker had for lunch.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 26, 2008 12:22 PM
"No noise, no cost, and no gas."
No noise? What the hell fun is that?
Snoop Diggity-DANG-Dawg at June 26, 2008 12:33 PM
Christina -- If you read the whole essay at the "revelations" link on Amy's original post, you'll see an argument that says finding places for it may not be as difficult as we have all been led to believe. And that newspapers/cardboard in landfills isn't really degrading...its "mummifying". I don't know enough about this topic to say what is right, but the argument is reasonably stated.
moreta at June 26, 2008 1:12 PM
I spent much of 2007 visiting the workers who made my clothes in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China for my upcoming book, "Where am I Wearing?"
While a job at a garment factory is much better than other jobs that workers could be doing, they could be treated better. I met workers who had to bribe to have their job, ones that didn't have contracts, ones that hadn't seen their children in years. Their lives are tough, but often no tougher than the living conditions of their country.
I think we need to separate the idea of a sweathshop -- which is a place by definition that workers are treated poorly -- from that of a garment factory. Not all of our clothes are made in sweatshops, but some are.
Kelsey at June 26, 2008 1:24 PM
BerthaMinerva writes:
"Rent control is another good one for unintended consequences. . ", etc.
You don't live in New York, do you? It's easy to come up with a few examples of people who don't need rent control (Alistair Cooke, Mia Farrow, etc.), but the plural of anecdote is not data.
First, there's a world of difference between rent control, which covers a tiny number of apartments in the city, and rent stablization, which covers many, many more apartments (a substantial, although dwindling, number of the city's rental units). There are enough rent-stablized apartments in the city that it's completely unnecessary to bribe one's way into an apartment, or exploit connections. Unless one wants to live in a very fashionable neighborhood. Then it's tougher, but so is finding a free-market apartment in those neighborhoods.
Second, landlords can and do make a profit on rent-stablized units. A tour of the city's many clean, well-maintained, well-staffed buildings would make that quickly obvious. And it's equally obvious that the rent roll of a building is what determines the value and fair market price of a building, so owners of buildings are not paying such a price to buy a building that they can't make money with it. In fact, given that the buildings were purchased at a price that reflected their rent potential, eliminating rent stablization would amount to an enormous windfall for landlords.
And rent stablization is disappearing. There's a cap of $2,000 on stablized apartments. When the monthly rent reaches that point (via regulated annual rent increases), it becomes a free-market rental, and the landlord can charge whatever the market will bear.
Furthermore, landlords have input (far more than tenants) into the decision-making process that determines what rent increases will be allowed each year for stablized apartments.
Finally, New York is a very skewed housing market. It's simply not true that rent stablization drives up rents. This is a city largely built upon islands, so there simply is no more room for new buildings. Old buildings can be replaced, but there are enough rich, or nearly rich, people here so that there is no market incentive to build anything but luxury housing. And yet the city needs its middle classes, and its working poor. Who else will pick up the trash, put out the fires, police the streets, clean office buildings, do your laundry, be your secretary or work in your mail room, or prepare your food? And without rent stablization, where are they going to live?
LMM at June 26, 2008 2:04 PM
I hate to sound creul, but I dont have a whole lot of sympathy for people who refuse to stand up for themselves.
Why should I have to worry about their "plight" if they dont?
lujlp at June 26, 2008 2:43 PM
Lujlp -- I for one don't understand your comment at all. What people are you talking about?
Gail at June 26, 2008 6:55 PM
Yesterday's country of sweatshops is today's country of labor strife, because workers start demanding better wages to keep up with the growing cost of living, because as more people make more money, the cost of local goods and services go up, making other people richer, driving up prices ... so wages need to be raised agian ... and again ... and then Nike moves its factories to another country where the cycle starts again.
Capitalism raises all boats.
Socialism sinks all boats.
Howard Owens at June 26, 2008 7:06 PM
OK, now you've got me thinking about this.
Just recently I finally convinced my wife to stop buying bottled water -- she's been buying for years cartons of 12 oz bottles.
When I do my yard work, I carry around a plastic water bottle that I refill from our filtered tap.
It's just as good of water, and cheaper (cost being my motivating factor here, not the environment).
So, but, are we really being better for the environment?
And don't factor in water -- water may be the new oil in Southern California, but not in Western New York. We could take care of all of Los Angeles water needs and still have plenty for ourselves.
FWIW: You guys in California are crazy -- Western NY is such a better place to live on just about any count you care to name (and I'd include the weather) ... it's less crowded, less dirty, less crime ridden, less expensive, and has it's own charms and beauties. And I say this as a guy who spent his first 44 years in SoCal. I should have left long ago. I would have been better off today. And I doubt I'll ever return to SoCal. Now, if I were offered the job as publisher of the LA Times ... that might get me back ... otherwise ... why?
Howard Owens at June 26, 2008 7:25 PM
The work.
And the tail.
And the scuba & the restaurants & the mountains.
Enjoying all these treats in one afternoon is difficult to schedule, but it can be done.
Crid at June 26, 2008 8:40 PM
> Feel free to add your surprising
> revelations on issues where people
> are "sure" they have the virtuous
> answer.
Automobile sizes, Amy!
When you consider everything involved in an automobile -
-all the communication, travel, and research for design
-all the shipping and coordination for assembly
-all the expense and industry of marketing and delivery
-all the paperwork and office work of liscensing and insurance
-all the commerce of sustaining the damn things---
etc... The actual size of the car is probably not that big a deal.
So, like, know that.
Crid at June 26, 2008 8:56 PM
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