Much hand wringing in the Observer today about third world labour. The headline is designed to make us all feel guilty.
Admit it. You love cheap clothes. And you don’t care about child slave labour
No one is forced into servitude and the people who work in third-world sweatshops are paid. Therefore it is not slave labour and there is precious little evidence that the young adults who take this work are children. So emotive cockwaffle apart, what is the problem?
Well, the Islington set do like to berate us for wanting what they take for granted. The idea that mass-produced and cheap commodities available to the proles is an anathema to them. They despise the working people and make no mistake about it.
Those people working in sweatshops do so for the same reason our ancestors left the fields in their droves to work in the satanic mills – it is better than the alternative. Yes, they work long hours for low wages. But those low wages must be compared to the alternative of scrubbing a living in the dirt, which is the direct comparison, not the wages one would expect for similar work in a western country. With time, their standards of living will rise. But that’s the point – it takes time. We are where we are now one hundred and fifty years after the satanic mills – mills that have declined and gone. Now those mills have shifted to third world countries and those workers are now getting the opportunity to do what our forefathers did – drag themselves out of poverty. Ah, but, ain’t that the root of the problem? “Drag themselves” as opposed to constantly holding out their hands for aid provided by the NGOs that raid our pockets to fund their bottomless pit and over-paid executives.
No, I don’t feel guilty. And, no, I am not going to boycott companies that use third world labour. Because by buying from them, I am helping someone, somewhere do their bit to pull themselves out of the grinding poverty of their rural existence.
XX Admit it. You love cheap clothes. And you don’t care about child slave labourXX
Correct on both points!
So what?
Harsh but fair. It isn’t slave labour and buying their products is ultimately a benefit to them – a greater benefit than aid.
I’ll be quite honest here; I deliberately try and buy items which are made in the UK, or at least in Europe (although these days they’re not always easy to find). But it’s nothing to do with the lovey-dovey “think of the cheeldren in the Far East” line (if anything I feel more sorry for British manufacturers who are being steadily squeezed out of business by those very same sweatshops). In truth I buy UK/European-made items mainly because I find they are infinitely better made and much better quality than most of the cheap tat that emanates from the Far East and ends up in the High Street. True, it costs more, but it lasts a whole lot longer, too, so cost-wise it probably evens itself out over time.
Admittedly, I don’t have a family of kids to clothe or buy items for, and for them I suspect that the cheaper foreign items are probably fine – kids aren’t best known for their attention to a good finish and neither are they the best in the world at taking care of whatever they’re wearing. I guess it’s considerably less galling for a youngster to come home with a grass-stained, mud-splashed or torn t-shirt which cost a fiver than it is for them to come home with one which cost twice that amount. But for adults, if you don’t want to look like you’ve bought most of your stuff at a jumble sale, you’ve got to “Buy British.”
It is quite absurd to suggest that anything not made in the UK or EU looks ‘like it was bought from a jumble sale’… 🙄
Does that go for all the electronic goods, mobile phones, iPads, DVD players and TVs too…?
“Those people working in sweatshops do so for the same reason our ancestors left the fields in their droves to work in the satanic mills – it is better than the alternative. “
Especially when, for some of them, the alternative is even less palatable than backbreaking field work…
The modern right constantly rails against immigration on the basis that “it takes jobs away from British workers” yet is quite happy to support a system of globalized trade that takes jobs away from British workers. But then we’ve long ago ceased to expect any intellectual consistency – or indeed honesty – from the modern economically liberal right.
What’s the “modern right” (whatever that is) got to do with the price of fish? This was about hand-wringing in the Guardian. As I am not of the right – modern or otherwise – your comment is somewhat irrelevant. If I had my way, we would have free movement of trade and labour with no restrictions or import tariffs. Frankly, I would do away with immigration control and passports as well – but it would require worldwide acceptance to work.
I buy my goods and services based upon quality and price. The country of origin is immaterial to me. And As Kath points out below, wages are relative. What is a sweatshop to us, is an opportunity to those who choose to work in them.
for me it is relative , No I don’t care how much they get paid because for 1. their costs of living are a damn sight lower so the wages are in proportion pro rata. and 2/ we send so much in foreign aid to most of these countries I am already subsidising their living, so why should I pay more for my clothes when they are so cheap to make anyway.