Kate Bennett, with the story of her visit to the Chinese factory, made
exactly the point I also made before.
Colin then replied (to Kate's sentence: "yes, the wages are lower but so is
the cost of living...by a lot...")
> This is just a sop to our consciences, one i have ehard before. The fact
is they may be paid well in comparison to being dirt poor but are still paid
low and are still poor whyile we rich can buy what we want more cheaply at
their expense. No matter how one dresses it up it still stinks. bw colin
Sorry Colin, but I strongly disagree! I think you really need to
distinguish (as Bob also said) between exploitative sweatshops and places in
the 3rd world making products that may well be much cheaper (and even lead
to closure of factories in our own country) which are actually benefiting
the people there! If you have to wait until those people are earning what
we are earning here, they simply will have lost their chance to compete!
As you know, I am the proud owner of 2 of your wonderful sweaters, but even
if I could afford more of them, I don't think that would help someone say in
Peru making cheap sweaters, who now won't have anything to sell to me! OK,
maybe the example is not good, maybe the Peruvian sweater was made by kids
or in exploitative circumstances, and I WOULD like to know about it and
would not buy them if I knew that was the case, but I am just saying you
can't make such a generally sweeping statement as you did about Kate's
example from China.
You say " they may be paid well in comparison to being dirt poor but are
still paid low" - my question is: what is LOW? There are no absolute
standards of what is high or low. Comparing to our wages is pointless.
Their economies have not reached that level, and what's worse, they never
will if we refuse to buy the goods they now produce with lower wages!
I know 20 or so years ago wages were much higher in Sweden than in Belgium
where they were still much higher than in England. Does that mean Swedes
should not have bought Belgian or English products?
I think the real issue is, that in a way we have to be prepared, however
tough it is, that if we buy e.g. Chinese products, we are indeed helping the
Chinese economy and that can be at the price of some of our own economies.
I see it as some levelling which is fair in the long run, even if it is
painful. The people put out of work here in the West will get social
benefits and will not starve such as the people in 3rd world countries would
if they lost their job. I can only hope the thing will balance out in the
end, with people in the West indeed finding other industries to specialise
in, or maybe to all work less hours and spread the income out a bit more...
And talking of which, I have to go and do some more work very urgently.
Good grief, can someone please remind me that I don't have time to post? As
I told some people at the Jonifest, the reason that I don't post is because
I know that once I start, I won't be able to stop - so please help me to
stop!
Lots of love,
Lieve.
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