Sweatshops

[Edward R Weick]

Warning: this message contains irony and sarcasm!! (though I'm not sure of where and in what proportions). They're all there, just as they were in Seattle, jumping up and down, brandishing placards, getting dragged off by the cops, waving their arms in the air, even taking off their clothing. Once again, the MNCs are the great enemy of humanity, having corrupted the IMF and the World Bank, just as they had corrupted the WTO in Seattle. Well, perhaps the protesters have a point; power is power and those who hold power behave in their own interests. However, there is one point that the protesters are trying to make which I rather wonder about. This has to do with the abolition of third world sweatshops. While jumping up and down in Washington may accomplish this, there may be simpler ways of going about it. One would be to simply subsidize that part of the population of the third world which relies on sweatshops so that people wouldn't have to work in them. If each of the protesters gave up the money they now spend on clothes, some of the money they now spend on food, their university tuition and other such items, this might go some distance toward keeping young people in the third world out of sweatshops and in schools. However, a lot might have to be given up if it was really going to make a difference. Another solution might be to legislate an end to the kind of foreign investment that creates sweatshops. Force Nike and GAP to make their clothes in the United States. Protesters from the unions would like that. But if it were to happen, you might not only have to subsidize displaced third world workers, you might also have to subsidize American parents who have to buy clothes for their kids. But then perhaps not. The poor kids could simply pick up the clothes discarded by the kids who were able to afford to go to Washington or Seattle. A third solution might be to open up rich world borders and let the people from the sweatshops come in. I don't think protesters from the unions would go for that. Nor would the high tech sector which might then have to pay software designers $80K instead to the $4K they pay them in India. So, perhaps we are stuck with protesters jumping up and down, brandishing placards, getting dragged off by the cops, waving their arms in the air, and even taking off their clothing. Maybe that is the solution. Ed Weick