I have a real treat for you guys this week--one of my all-time faves. This article was orginally printed in the New York Times, but was back when they were requiring a subscription to read their op-eds. It sure caught my attention and I’m sure it resulted in many folks bunching up their panties in a wad. This is the reason Nick Kristof is one of my favorite journalists. He writes from a real understanding of being on the ground in developing countries and doesn’t pull punches. Enjoy.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060607/ai_n16484112
Here's an earlier article about "sweatshops" (hey, they're factories--he just uses the dirty S word to catch our attention) in Asia:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806E0DA1F3FF936A15755C0A9649C8B63
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6 comments:
I think the authors of these articles do not understand the source of the moral outrage. The problem is not the $0.15 that Kamis gets when I buy a new pair of shoes; it's the $90 that Phil Knight and his evil minions rake in. There is absolutely nothing (save greed) preventing Nike from putting money into the developing countries where they produce their goods--either through higher-than-market wages or simply gifts. I'm sorry, but spending $100 so that Kamis can get paid $.15 is not an effective way to 'develop' Afghanistan.
Excellent point, Prange, although I do think some people do take issue with what they see as “exploitive” wages. (Exploitation is always in the eye of the beholder). However, you’re absolutely right that greedy companies are making out big time and are not returning the favor to a good enough extent. I could make an argument that I don’t care—the point is getting food to starving people. If the greedy benefit in the meantime, that sux, but that’s not my main goal. As Kristof points out in the second article, once Nike pulls out of Cambodia, you have tons more starving people and women going back to sex trade. I’ll take the negative as long as people can make a relatively decent living. I guess it depends what your end goal is, and mine is a much more simplistic on-the-ground impact of a few fewer starving people. If you want to change the system that creates this inequality, we need to pay a lot more attention to your argument.
If you have $100, buying a new pair of sneakers is not an effective way to help Cambodia. I totally agree, though, that if homeboy/girl in Cambodia wants a job that sux, I'm in no position to tell her not to take it. I totally respect folks willing to do shitty work to feed their families. But I don't respect folks that build glittering empires in Beaverton on the backs of poor folks that can't get any better work than sewing shoes. I'm very happy to trade w/ developing countries, but I'm pretty reluctant to participate in extracting resources (human or natural) from countries w/o paying a fair price for them. If a significant amount of the profit does not stay in the producing country, it's counter-productive.
I'm with you Micah. How are we to determine what is a "fair price"?
quarter of the retail price.
That's more of a qualitative answer than I was expecting, Micah. But if you would be "very happy to trade w/ developing countries," that sure doesn't leave you very many opportunities to do so, does it? So I guess we just have to be patient for these opportunities to arise, or do a lot of homework to find products that support developing countries in a fair manner, eh?
I guess my next question would be, if you can't find a pair of shoes that's a quarter of retail price, would you rather buy the shoes that were made more expensively in America (or somewhere else with higher labor costs) because there's less of a profit margin?
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