There seem to be two points of view on sweatshops and the role they play in the cycle of poverty. In Legraines pro-globalisation book, he seems to suggest that sweatshops play a part in reducing absolute poverty at the bottom level of society. He suggests they are a step upwards for a country climbing out of destitution. There are many economic rationalists who support this view. Two researchers from the New York times, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, summed it up thusly: "While regrettable, ... sweatshops are a crucial and necessary step in most economies' evolution to prosperity".
Sweatshops fit into a model of consumerism that profoundly illustrate the problems of globalisation. The 13 hour days of the lowest paid workers in the world support the hierarchical empires and power elites of 1st world countries. Activists rightfully say that sweatshops create a slave labour class, deny basic human rights and are all too often the scenes of enforced human misery. What the evidence seems to suggest is that the economic rationalist understandings of the role sweatshops play is a myth that very conveniently supports the unsustainable consumerism of first world elites.
2:16:23 PM 
|
