This also applies to the sweatshop example. If everything else is fixed, then yeah, probably those poor families are better off being allowed to work in awful conditions for low wages. But everything else isn’t fixed.
When a bunch of relatively wealthy and powerful people are benefiting financially from the existence of an extremely poor underclass (who, due to their poverty, are willing to do hard unpleasant work for little money), this creates resistance to reforms that would improve the situation of the poor and thereby give them greater bargaining power.
And, slightly more optimistically, the alternative to sweatshop employment might not be as dire as it seems. When people are literally at risk of starving for lack of work, there tends to be greater political and charitable will to help them, compared to when they’re out-of-sight out-of-mind doing something unpleasant but useful.
The wealthy may benefit from the existence of low-skilled labour, but compared to what? Do they benefit more than they would from the existence of high-skilled labour?
Yes, they benefit from low skilled labour as compared to no labour at all, but high skilled labour, being more productive, is an even greater benefit. If it weren’t, it couldn’t demand a higher wage.
Even without sweatshops that produce products for Western audiences, the wealthy in a given third-world country still profit from cheap labor.
Most communities that have sweatshops also have people who are at risk of starving. It would be surprising to me if there are those dynamics that a closed sweatshop leads to significantly more political and charitable help in the region. Do you know of any case studies where a sweatshop closed and that resulted in increased political and charitable help?
This also applies to the sweatshop example. If everything else is fixed, then yeah, probably those poor families are better off being allowed to work in awful conditions for low wages. But everything else isn’t fixed.
When a bunch of relatively wealthy and powerful people are benefiting financially from the existence of an extremely poor underclass (who, due to their poverty, are willing to do hard unpleasant work for little money), this creates resistance to reforms that would improve the situation of the poor and thereby give them greater bargaining power.
And, slightly more optimistically, the alternative to sweatshop employment might not be as dire as it seems. When people are literally at risk of starving for lack of work, there tends to be greater political and charitable will to help them, compared to when they’re out-of-sight out-of-mind doing something unpleasant but useful.
The wealthy may benefit from the existence of low-skilled labour, but compared to what? Do they benefit more than they would from the existence of high-skilled labour?
Yes, they benefit from low skilled labour as compared to no labour at all, but high skilled labour, being more productive, is an even greater benefit. If it weren’t, it couldn’t demand a higher wage.
Even without sweatshops that produce products for Western audiences, the wealthy in a given third-world country still profit from cheap labor.
Most communities that have sweatshops also have people who are at risk of starving. It would be surprising to me if there are those dynamics that a closed sweatshop leads to significantly more political and charitable help in the region. Do you know of any case studies where a sweatshop closed and that resulted in increased political and charitable help?