Don't play the innocent

Think about it. Be honest with yourself. Does it really come of any surprise to you that the big supermarkets and discount clothing stores are relying on Asian sweatshop labour?

How else do they produce shirts for £5 for pity’s sake? Suits for £30? We all know it, we just don’t want to admit it to ourselves.

And you can guarantee that this is just the tip of the iceberg; you can guarantee that most of the clothes that you wear with a 'Made in Vietnam' or 'Made in China' label inside will have been made in conditions which you would find appalling.

We cannot shrink from the fact: Western nations' standard of living is based in no small part on what can only be descibed as a rapacious economic imperialism which forces millions around the world into indentured graft on poverty wages. Labour which is in all but name forced.

Having recently spent six months poking around the remoter corners of the Indian sub-continent, I can assure any doubters that only a small minority of that enchanting regions' inhabitants are benefitting in any meaningful way from the 'economic revolution' much-trumpeted by the likes of the Economist and the FT (and, yes our sister publication Financial Mail too).

And I can also assure you that the people who end up in these sweatshops have very little realistic choice in the matter: faced with a choice between baking cow dung into patties under the sun and selling them for fuel at the roadside in 40-degree heat - and sitting for 16 hours at a sewing machine in 35-degree heat … what would you do?

With the rise of Primark and of supermarket clothing (and not just them but the more fashionable High Street fashion chains), we have grown to expect clothes at knockdown prices. 'Disposable clothing' some call it. And I'm no exception. But as I've argued before in this blog, maybe we should start thinking of paying a little more, and buying a little less if necessary.

Then perhaps nobody else is paying for it too.

Adrian Lowery, This is Money

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Comments

[Seamus McCauley]

"And I can also assure you that the people who end up in these sweatshops have very little realistic choice in the matter: faced with a choice between baking cow dung into patties under the sun and selling them for fuel at the roadside in 40-degree heat - and sitting for 16 hours at a sewing machine in 35-degree heat … what would you do?"

So...before they could only bake cow dung into patties and sell it by the roadside (a sophisticated and by no means patronising analysis of the diversity of south-east Asia's economy, incidentally), and now they have the additional choice of working in a (slightly cooler) factory. Their lives have got appreciably better, their choices appreciably wider.

And that's somehow bad because these improvements to their lives are happening incrementally and haven't instantaneously lifted them up to first world standards of living? Come now. You can't cite an improvement and say it's a priori bad because it fails to incorporate a second or third hypothetical improvement.

The world gets better in stages and by degrees, or occasionally (alas) by violent and bloody revolution. I am proud to wear clothes that have *marginally* improved the lives of, apparently, Indian ex-dung-patty-makers. Next year I expect I'll be hearing again about some new (marginal) improvement in the lives of the people who make my clothes and how that improvement fails to meet some arbitrary first-world standard they should allegedly aspire to. But I'll be better off, the people who makes my clothes will be better off, and so by degrees the world improves.

[Adrian Lowery]

"(a sophisticated and by no means patronising analysis of the diversity of south-east Asia's economy, incidentally)"

ever heard of rhetoric Seamus?

[Jamie]

Consider also Turkey. It'll be interesting to see what happens when/if it is admitted to the EU. Will its sweatshops be shut down, will the workers' conditions and pay improve? Probably not. Keeping the economies of the west ticking over is what counts. Let's not forget that the UK too has unofficial sweatshops, that the government turns a blind eye to. The only difference here is that the workers harvest cockles and process food for the supermarkets.

[NBP Smith]

I agree in part with the comments from Adrian, BUT having visited Dubai where much the same thing is happening on the building sites, I am assured by the workers that things have never been better for them.
They tell me that they get much more money, food, and accommodation and that they are able to send money home to to their families in India.
It's all about comparisons, what is awful to us is heaven to them.

[Mr Richard Lum]

Although I certainly do feel sorry for the poverty that third world children find themselves in, maybe the government could put an additional tax on these goods and give it to the governments of these countries to improve working conditions? Just a quick thought.

[karen frost]

I dont know about other countries but what about the people that work in this country for minimum wage, for the big superstores so that the British public can have a buy one get one free senario, those who work in a chilled environment and who are mistreated and abused, and whose living expences far outwiegh those of other countries abroad due to the taxes and charges that are imposed in this country resulting in debt and misery and if you become ill or incapable to do such work, tough you should have been able to afford private insurance

[Steelman]

People say that these people are low paid , but the value of wages is relative to what it can buy.
What we should be comparing is how many bread loaves a weeks wages can buy , or how many years wages are required to buy a house
It doesn't matter how much you are paid, its what you can buy with the money

[Ron S]

I find it a bit ironic that we are now so concerned about the wage levels in these countries when it wasn't too long ago that these very manufacturing jobs were taken away from this country due to the cheaper costs being offered by south-east Asian companies.

[Toni]

How about Nike, Gap etc who exploit people in these sweat shops who go without breaks for hours on end, who sell their trainers and other sport clothing for extortionate amounts of money while paying the workers in these less developed places peanuts?

The companies that are exploiting their overseas workers need to do more in taking care of their employees, it all boils down to a lack of good business ethics.