10 ms·

SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

200 points by sphericalgames 12y ago

mkaroumi 12y ago
Hey, Swedish guy here. Any link to a non-Norwegian page with this content?
- moystard 12y ago
  It looks like there is only an English trailer for now.
- unwind 12y ago
  The text on the page is mostly English. Also it's kind of funny that you should ask, since as a Swedish person, you're probably better-equipped than the majority of HN readers to understand a few words of Norwegian. :) Here's a trailer, with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCHfV97D7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCHfV97D7I.
- tellarin 12y ago
  It shows in English for me here. Quartz also had a brief article on it: http://qz.com/333940/what-three-norwegian-fashionistas-learned-after-a-month-in-a-cambodian-textile-factory/ http://qz.com/333940/what-three-norwegian-fashionistas-learn...
- legulere 12y ago
  http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatshopenglish/ http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatsh... The episodes with English subtitles. Also don't try so hard to not understand it, it's not Danish.
tellarin 12y ago
Better link: http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatshopenglish/ http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatsh... This one shows the whole thing. One can watch all episodes online with English subtitles.
JonnieCache 12y ago
The BBC did their own version of this in 2008 called Blood Sweat and T Shirts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_and_T-shirts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_and_T-shirts The gimmick was that most of the kids were ludicrous pampered upper middle class fashion students with no sense of perspective, or at least the programme was edited to portray them as such. Much of the entertainment came from watching them subjected to backbreaking labor while their self-contained worldviews crumbled around them.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  The Danish version had the same angle. They where terrible at the sweatshop work, but wouldn't admit it. One of them ended up stealing food from the film crew.
  - KPLauritzen 12y ago
    What was the Danish version called? I don't recall hearing about it
    - chodk 12y ago
      Blod, Sved og T-shirts http://www.dr.dk/Undervisning/Gymnasium/Samfund/Oekonomi/Globalisering/globalisering.htm http://www.dr.dk/Undervisning/Gymnasium/Samfund/Oekonomi/Glo... I think it is besides the point that they were pampered upper middle class kids. The things they saw were horrible. In the danish edition, they went to India where there was a whole town build up around a mountain of trash. The folks there would drink black water from the mountain.
      - collyw 12y ago
        I think a dose of reality is what most middle class kids need. Otherwise many of them grow into arrogant right wing adults with no real clue about how much of the world works.
        12y ago
dmorre 12y ago
Episode 1 - 5 with subtitles. The links are extracted from the mobile version of the site. http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560575076668800-c5989e5b-587c-4ae4-96b1-01769129a2a1-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560793016364200-93c4380c-7389-4e8d-8863-d153a8629986-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560716079490100-1607549d-d005-4644-8099-06da0f1ef9e7-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560802092290500-eb93b63b-ca5f-4ee5-9fc9-ec1dc197d473-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560480020584800-40b974e4-5dca-41b2-a92a-8224e873f066-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/...
- andor 12y ago
  Same videos in 720p: http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560575076668800-6c54d98f-b101-43e6-b7db-7238e9f4f0b0-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560793016364200-d3b98b5a-82d9-4f98-8d8f-7ceff3111766-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560716079490100-581508d7-bc38-472d-95cb-3534d032bae3-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560802092290500-7508f519-4431-41d9-b12b-e952ed799132-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560480020584800-9f3fbec7-90d9-490b-b978-3c169d7eac31-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/...
colmvp 12y ago
So, I remember seeing this on Reddit a few weeks back. Some commenters mentioned that sweatshops are a necessary evil for developing nations. It's better to have a shitty job than to have the alternative of being jobless and resorting to theft/prostitution for sustenance. How true is such an argument?
- savanaly 12y ago
  One of my all time favorite pop economics essays is by Paul Krugman, addressing this topic: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19... His argument is summed up thus: "And as long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard--that is, the fact that you don't like the idea of workers being paid a pittance to supply rich Westerners with fashion items."
  - xorcist 12y ago
    "No realistic alternative" -- that's a bit of a dishonest either/or argument. Of course there are alternatives. It's not like it hasn't happened before. In the Western world this gave rise to the biggest social movement in a century, with demands to assure workers all kind of rights. Krugman needs to motivate why we should deny third world children the same rights we demanded for our own a hundred and forty years ago, if he really wants to make that argument.
    - pluma 12y ago
      I'd argue that Europe in the Industrialisation was in a slightly different situation because the world economy wasn't as globalized yet. If Cambodian labourers unionize and become more expensive, the business could easily move to the next third-world country, leaving them economically worse off than before. The problem is that the suppliers they work for are as dependent on the international companies paying them as their workers are dependent on them. Basically, either the international companies have to act against their immediate economical interests and invest money in improving the working conditions and pay at their suppliers, or the suppliers in different countries would have to "unionize", too. Alternatively, all labourers in all countries would have to unionize in the same timeframe (so the business can't just keep country-hopping) or the businesses would have to be forced to act against their own interests. I think the most realistic sequence of events is that as the national economy in each country improves their workers begin to unionize and within a few decades the conditions may have improved universally. But that won't be an easy process and will likely result in a lot more protests and violence than the alternatives. The naive ideal would be that customers force the businesses to pressure the suppliers to improve the situation, but outside a few marketing stunts I don't think that is very likely. All previous calls for boycotts have been unsuccessful and the average citizen doesn't care enough about these issues to do anything politically (aside from the obvious difficulty of out-lobbying the established lobbies). We'll see.
Kenji 12y ago
I wonder, how can we in the first world change our behaviour here to stop things like that? Does the very way we live cause this or are the causes local?
- stray 12y ago
  We could refuse to buy the product.
- pain 12y ago
  We can begin to report common commodification and objectification of human beings. We can use tools like Aether (http://www.getaether.net http://www.getaether.net) to give power to voices that may be hushed, find known unknowns in terms of pain.
- niklasni1 12y ago
  Local labour laws allow this. Who's to say if it's internal or external pressures that keep them like they are -- there are certainly locals who are also making money off this. As for what you can do, you can sew your own clothes.
  - blfr 12y ago
    I don't think local laws matter much. Those countries are simply poor. Unless they become wealthier, more stringent laws simply won't be followed and merely result in corruption. All freedom is compound interest. Seriously. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/517051922428067840 https://twitter.com/vgr/status/517051922428067840
  - angeNoble 12y ago
    And where exactly do you think the fabric would come from?
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  It's a combination, but we certainly play a part. If there's no pressure from developed countries, then rising wages and conditions of work in one manufacturing nation will ultimately just mean making themselves less competitive. In some ways there's a lot of potential for action on our part, because the effect on final price is so minimal through even drastic increases in worker pay. To take it to absurd levels, you could increase worker pay tenfold, and only add $1 to the cost of $14 shirt [1]. So we only have to care enough to be willing to pay a tiny amount more (12c more to double wages, or spent otherwise to drastically improve working conditions), for it to be worthwhile for companies to market themselves as being decent employers. There are various things we could do. As individuals, you could buy brands which have signed up to some sort of agreement for better treatment of workers - in the UK we have Fair Trade (the main focus is agriculture, but they do seem to do clothes as well), and also the more mainstream Ethical Trading Initiative, which some major high street shops have signed up for. As governments, I personally see no reason why we shouldn't have at least some basic worker rights built into international trade deals. It's difficult or impossible to see what things are like on the ground, but at least we could make the existence of national laws mandatory. [1] http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/what-does-that-14-shirt-really-cost/ http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/what-does-that-14-sh...
3454359009 12y ago
Kind of funny. I started in similar conditions. But I hear constantly to "check my privilege" from someone with $100K+ income, university and $500 handbag.
- Omniusaspirer 12y ago
  That's human nature for you. It's very difficult for most people to put themselves in the position of someone else. An example from my own life that I find striking is a janitor at the hospital where I'm employed. He grew up in Thailand in a remote farming village. While there he lived in complete poverty (bamboo house, no electricity, drinking rainwater) since he was born to a multigenerational family of rice farmers. He worked hard in school, spent time as a monk, and then eventually had an opportunity to immigrate to the US where he's been for about 10 years now. He speaks four languages and seems very intelligent in all the conversations I've had with him- it seriously pains me when I see people talk down to him. With that said; It's just ignorance- best not to dwell on it and just keep moving forward. Focus on self improvement, then when it's you with the 100k+ income try not to forget where you came from.
chippy 12y ago
In terms of a large profit making company, the company has to make ever increasing profits for the shareholders or else it becomes pretty much illegal. Thus, currently these conditions are necessary, there is nothing to stop them, because to stop them means that a corporation is not operating properly. It is necessary because to not allow it means that a corporation is behaving badly. Like it or not, and in this example most of us hate it, a corporation has to make every effort to increase profit and decrease waste. How do we change it? As consumers we make it clear to these companies that it's not on. We vote with our money. But the tried and tested solution is via our politicians. We have to make it possible for our corporations to improve the conditions of their suppliers and not incur the wrath of their shareholders. edits - wow, please read both paragraphs.
- DanBC 12y ago
  I guess you're getting downvoted for repeating the myth that corporations must maximise profit.
  - chippy 12y ago
    Yes, fair enough, learnt something new today. I was wrong about it being legal in law not to maximize profits. There is still an obligation of directors to maximise value if that is what the shareholders want (and most of the time, all shareholders want a corporation to increase profit). But it's not illegal for a director to be negligent in the goal of the shareholders. They might lose their job or get a civil lawsuit, at the worst, I guess.
- vetler 12y ago
  > In terms of a large profit making company, the company has to make ever increasing profits for the shareholders or else it becomes pretty much illegal. Thus, currently these conditions are necessary, there is nothing to stop them, because to stop them means that a corporation is not operating properly. This is just bullshit, for lack of a better word. First of all, increasing profits does not force anyone to do horrible things. Second of all, that a company has to maximize profits all the time, is a myth: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/8146/230 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/8146/230
bruna597 12y ago
Something that bothers me is the fact that even though they have cried on the show and said that they were going to do something to help, if you search for them on the internet, its clear that they aren't doing anything about it! Even the girl who has a fashion blog, she is still writing about the trademarks that use this kind of abusive job to make their clothes...
- perdunov 12y ago
  This is probably the normal animal/human reaction: to react only when something is hurting you right now. If you take the pain away, the motivation vapors. This is one of the design flaws of the human mind inherited from animals that causes procrastination and lack of willpower.
  - rjaco31 12y ago
    > procrastination and lack of willpower. Well, it's one way to look at it. The other is to consider that the human mind is extremely adaptive and optimize the energy cost given the context.
  - colmvp 12y ago
    > to react only when something is hurting you right now. If you take the pain away, the motivation vapors. I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer believes he's going to die after eating the poisonous part of fugu. He changes his habits to embrace the remaining part of his life. After it's miraculously revealed that he'll survive, he professes to continue with the ideal of seizing life. This was an instructional scare to never take your life or those around you for granted. Yet, the final shot of the episode is him sitting on the couch watching TV like a drone.
    - monk_e_boy 12y ago
      From a personal perspective, I find being athiest really makes me prioritise things. This is it. Today is today. I washed my hands and murdered lots of little bugs n stuff. That may be me one day. See a near car crash, think about what to do to make today significant. Not sure what point I was trying to make really. Some days being a TV drone is OK, some days I'm tired. I don't want to spend every day tired, so I chill out today to make tomorow more epic. Hm.
pweissbrod 12y ago
any link for those of us that refuse to install adobe flash?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
RaffRaff 12y ago
That's why I keep clear of "ecommerce import from China" businesses. I just cant do it knowing people suffer while I profit
- pagnotta 12y ago
  They will suffer more without the job. You think not buying from them will help them...how?
  - kylebrown 12y ago
    Buying fair trade supports an alternative over the status quo.
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  I don't think there is much difference between those and big brands. Same with clothes. There is no difference between a super low cost brand, H&M and Versace. Or actually there is, the designer brands have often proven to be manufactured in even worse conditions.
auganov 12y ago
Am I a bad person for thinking it was going to be a post about a techie fed up with working at a software consultancy?
- markyc 12y ago
  that's why i opened the comments section
- arethuza 12y ago
  I thought exactly the same - especially when I saw the ".no" domain - sweatshops and Norway aren't think I normally associate!
- ersii 12y ago
  Well, I certainly don't think you're a bad person for that - considering this forum is generally focused towards the technical angle of things. For some reason, I thought I was clicking through to another Five Eyes/NSA, GCHQ, CSE programme. I guess it's since it was a single word in all capital letters and aftenposten.no previously reported on the "Oslo mobile/GSM surveillance" thing.
  - jmccree 12y ago
    Glad I wasn't the only one to think this was going to be about an NSA program and outrage they would name something SWEATSHOP.
    - pluma 12y ago
      I thought their convention for arbitrary project names was always using two words with no intentional revelance to the actual scope of the project (with projects like Prism being the exception). Then again, some of their names are so blatantly fitting (and offensive) that that claim doesn't seem very believable in the first place.
- robodale 12y ago
  That's what I thought as well.
foobar2020 12y ago
I really don't understand this problem. Why does everybody think people in Asia are forced to do this kind of work? These people would be incredibly poor if not for western companies. Actually most of them would die being children as a result of their poverty: malnutrition, accidents, preventable diseases such as polio or measles. Go now and check what was China's annual GDP per capita in Mao Zedong times. Just see it. Apparently a lot of people need this kind of basic history education. Yaron Brook has more knowledge on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwb8m_ZbU-U&feature=youtu.be&t=33m33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwb8m_ZbU-U&feature=youtu.be...
- mixedbit 12y ago
  These people are exploited by being paid a minimal wage, because they have no other way to survive, but to take sweatshop jobs. The Grapes of Wrath illustrates this mechanism well.
  - foobar2020 12y ago
    That is right, and what is the alternative? Suppose China had never opened their borders to foreign investments. What would these people do? I think I know the answer, just look at the following life expectancy graph: http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2008_L0_M.htm http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2008_L0_M.htm
    - mixedbit 12y ago
      The alternative is to fairly share profits with the people that make goods. This could be enforced by the legal system, as it was successfully done when slavery was banned.
      - danielweber 12y ago
        Average wages in China have tripled over 8 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages Whatever they are doing, they should keep it up.
pablovidal85 12y ago
We are the puppet people, put it on our TV, it's true. Sorry but the people that really care about these problems are anywhere but crying on TV.
dandare 12y ago
And the solution to the problem of poverty in undeveloped nations is.... ? (hint: it's not aid or communism)
- ptaipale 12y ago
  Agreed. Trade. First they sew your T-shirts. Then they assemble your smartphones. Then they design your smartphones. Eventually, they will also design your T-shirts, other fashion and music. This is what the U.S. did a hundred years ago, what Japan did 50 years ago, what China has done in recent years, and it's also what other formerly poor nations are going to do, if they are ever going to be formerly poor nations. That also doesn't happen without some hickups in the nations that were formerly quite rich. Think of Argentina, for instance.
- the_af 12y ago
  1- Why not communism? Does the average worker in a communist country live worse than a sweatshop worker? 2- Why not aid? Bill Gates, someone who I'm not particularly fond of, claims it works: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579324530112590864 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023041494045793245... Note I'm not necessarily advocating either of the above options. I'm just surprised at how persistent this belief in the properties of Free Trade is.
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  It is trade and private companies but just because that is the case here does not mean it should be greatly improved.
cpursley 12y ago
Idk, still beats wallowing around in the mud waiting for UN handouts. Europe and developed Asia have all been through this stage of development. It's what it takes to modernize. * I'm not arguing for abuse or child labor of course. There are limits.
- simondelacourt 12y ago
  I don't think this is a stage of development. It is a business concept. To keep some rich we need a poor majority. It is not that complicated. We like 6 new fashion collections a year, we like the primark for selling it for virtually no money, we like big brands advertising. We just dig cheap crappy fashion, and more over we dig not paying the full price. I always find it interesting if people attribute poverty to a stage of development. That just does not work. It is not something you go through, and in the end we all come out richer. It is far more part of the system, it is not a country being going through infancy or puberty waiting to mature. We benefit so much from their poverty.
  - cpursley 12y ago
    What's the alternative for us and them?
nkoren 12y ago
I'm an American with a left-wing upbringing and still broadly left-wing politics. When I graduated from architecture school in 2001, I wanted some international experience, so I moved to India. What I saw there utterly transformed my preconceptions of sweatshops -- because I saw it before the sweatshops began opening. One of the projects I was helping to design was a "science city" tech campus. The workers lived in an encampment next to the construction site. They worked from dawn until dusk for 6.5 days per week -- half a day off on Sunday -- every day of the month except for the new moon. Children as young as 6 were working -- moving and sorting materials, but quite dangerous inasmuch as it was on a live construction site. The standard wage was roughly $3 per MONTH (although food and very nominal shelter -- really more like "camping space" -- were provided for free). These were not outrageously abusive labour practices -- they were absolutely bog-standard practice of local industry, preferable to many of the alternatives for these people. Seeing this situation with my own eyes, I realised that if these people had the option to work in one of those $1/day sweatshops I'd heard anti-globalisation activists go on about -- in line with my own sympathies -- it would be an absolute DREAM. Since then, I've been rabidly pro-globalisation. These days, I get incensed when I see people going on about the horrors of globalisation, with absolutely ZERO understanding of the counter-factual. Utter ignorance of how bad it would be otherwise. The one case where I'll allow that sweatshops are problematic is when their owners become so powerful that they corrupt the local politics and take steps to ensure that that the population cannot develop its economy any further. This has happened in some places, creating locked-in populations for whom the sweatshop is not the bottom rung of the ladder, but the top. That's an actual problem, where it has happened -- but in most of the world (eg. India, China, most of the rest of East Asia), that's NOT the story that's played out, and sweatshops have been a vital (but temporary) step in economic development.
- daktanis 12y ago
  Its a similar story to the industrial revolution in America, a countries people will go through hardship to reach prosperity. Hardships and a revolution or two...
  - cynicalkane 12y ago
macarthy12 12y ago
Honestly I would imagine those 3 Millennials having an issue with most hard work. I live in Asia, I look though a different lens, - Imagine being loaded on to a truck and brought to factory everyday -- You mean a free ride to work? - Imagine your kids roaming the factory floor -- No child care costs? - Imagine having to working 12 hours a day -- I can pay for my kids to go to school ? - Imagine being stuck in a factory all day -- not under the sun planting rice/corn etc.. Obviously there are a lot of macro and micro-economic factors at work, I just saw a truck delivering a automated t-shirt embroidering machine, so that economic switch has tilted, but do you think the talk will be, "we are free!" or "where did the work go?"
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  That is such bullshit. I lived in Phnom Penh. That "free ride" you refer to is the most dangerous part of their day. There are lot of accidents with these trucks. Your other points reek of privilege and lack of actual understanding of how these people live their lives.
  - eitally 12y ago
    I believe you, but it's also true that in many parts of the world, those "trucks" are actually air conditioned buses. <source: I work for a global manufacturing company with 14,000 people in China, 2,000 in India, 12,000 in Mexico, 10,000 in EU, and 15,000 around the rest of the world.>
    - sleepyhead 12y ago
      You have to go in a tourist bus to get an a/c bus in Cambodia. The trucks for these workers have full natural a/c and traffic pollution nicely blended in. Also note that these workers are mostly from rural areas. Where educational level is very low.
- pluma 12y ago
  The caveat is that the health and safety conditions are atrocious and the income barely pays for the cost of living so it's unlikely your children will have any better status than you (i.e. they'll likely have to drop out of school early to help sustain the family just like yourself). But I agree about the perspective. Doing the same task every working hour for years isn't inherently a bad thing. That describes a lot of jobs and some would actually find that kind of job perfectly acceptable. The problem is only when this is the only job available to you and the money it makes is so low you're effectively locked into it and the working conditions are so bad you have a good chance of death or injury and there's really no hope you can improve your situation (or that of your children) of your own accord. Like Sisyphus, it's not the job itself, it's the hopelessness of ever succeeding. You're locked into perpetuating your status quo.
Sakes 12y ago
This is emotionally confusing for me. It seems like the general consensus on HN is that this is a necessary evil. I can get on board with that, but it still feels wrong. I guess the only way to think about it is progress is progress, so if sweatshops are an improvement for these people, then there is good in it for them... for now... We have seen China over a few decades transition from textiles, to tech manufacturing, and now developing IP products and services. Is this the norm? Or the exception? I just have questions at this point, but I guess for the time being... back to work.
- the_af 12y ago
  > It seems like the general consensus on HN is that this is a necessary evil The general consensus on HN seems to be that it's a "necessary evil" as long as it conveniently happens to other people, and allows us to buy cheap gadgets and T-shirts. You're right to feel it's wrong.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Why, then, the outrage of my correspondents? Why does the image of an Indonesian sewing sneakers for 60 cents an hour evoke so much more feeling than the image of another Indonesian earning the equivalent of 30 cents an hour trying to feed his family on a tiny plot of land--or of a Filipino scavenging on a garbage heap? The main answer, I think, is a sort of fastidiousness. Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit--and this makes us feel unclean. --Paul Krugman
vdaniuk 12y ago
I am depressed that significant part of collective intelligence of the most intelligent and influential tech communities on the internet is advocating for sweatshops because the alternative is worse. False dichotomy, if I ever seen one.
- kylebrown 12y ago
  The current system is not the best of all possible worlds. There are better alternatives (eg. fair trade), ignoring them is just laziness.
nhangen 12y ago
It's funny to me that the same HN continually bashing Google for being evil, Uber for being sexist, and startups in general for treating workers like slaves, is the same HN that generalizes and rationalizes this type of behavior. We complain that minimum wage workers here aren't paid enough in the US, and yet we're OK with people making $3/day, pushed to their limit by a boss that might as well be a warden. This may not be slavery, but it is indentured servitude. And I say this as someone lacking a single liberal bone in my body.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wyager 12y ago
  How is this indentured servitude? Indentured servitude is when you contract out your labor in advance, without the ability to void the contract without legal repercussions (usually imprisonment). Being stuck in a job due to circumstances may be unfortunate, but it's not indenture. You should have seen these areas before the sweatshops. Conditions were substantially worse, but because most westerners historically either didn't care or were unaware, it's easy to get the false impression that these workers are worse off than they were before the sweatshops. In reality the sweatshops are a huge improvement. Consider that, for the most part, jobs that existed in impoverished countries pre-industrialization still exist, yet most workers choose the sweatshops when given the chance.
beseth 12y ago
Here is the answer of an capitalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZSnUBzzH5_4#t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZS...
beseth 12y ago
Here is the answer of a capitalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZSnUBzzH5_4#t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZS...
known 12y ago
Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero-sum WITHOUT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
- tim333 12y ago
  Actually I think you'll find Globalisation is not zero sum. It hasn't made ordinary people much better off in the west but has transformed living standards in places like Asia.
sleepyhead 12y ago
I lived in Phnom Penh where this was filmed. The trucks carrying workers at the end of the day is a normal sight in the outskirts of the city. The average pay for this type of job is about $100 depending on how much extra overtime you put in. How to fix it? I have some ideas but that would be on a much smaller scale. Basically a more direct model. The fashion industry needs to be disrupted and consumers must get more information about how brands produce clothes. The problem today is that the government in Cambodia is extremely corrupt. They can't be relied on to improve conditions or put up the minimum wage (well they have a little bit but it is still under what can be considered a liveable wage). The big brands however point the finger at the government (H&M, Nike, Puma all put out press releases that blame laws and government practices). They say it is the job of government to improve. They sit in their nice offices in New York and Stockholm, in cities that were built over a long time with a long history of democracy and with a society that was built bit for bit. That took a long time. It is incomparable to the state of Cambodia (which started on a blank slate 30 years ago or so). Thus the government there is not qualified to make the required changes. The brands however are. They are in countries with good laws and fairly decent labour practices. They should take responsibility. They should not hide behind their suppliers. They can easily define contracts that require suppliers to have better minimum standards and wages for workers. It would not mean much difference in profits for these companies. A lady makes a shirt and earns $3/day, does it really matter if she is paid $5/day? Would the $50 shirt cost much more at the store? Nope. I think the most pragmatic solution is that developed countries introduce taxes for clothes that are not ethically produced. That $15 t-shirt from H&M should be $17 and with $2 clearly labeled as non-ethical tax on the price tag. Also I see some commentators here saying it's much better to work in a factory than to work on the rice fields. 20 years ago you could earn enough as a small farmer. Today that is not the case. Also the rising cost in Cambodia and elsewhere makes the small pay even more a problem than before. The workers earn $100. Rent is easily $30. I used to eat lunch at the market every day in Phnom Penh. It was about $1.50 for noodle soup. You can get a cheaper meal (I'm white and I added some better quality meat). But add that up. And consider you need to buy a towel. That's easily $4. A new pan? $5 for a cheaper one. I lived in Phnom Penh in 2012 and then in 2014. Even I as a foreigner noticed the inflation.
unimportant 12y ago
Sweatshops themselves aren't the problem, but rather the fact that the game is rigged against the average person. They could just farm self sustainably, however they lack the knowledge and large landowners own the land. They also tend to have too many kids as well. You can choose between being a peasant that is given some land to work as farmland in exchange for a shack to dwell in and some very basic food or be slightly less worse off in a sweatshop. You get fucked either way and there is no way out as education is a joke in cambodia and the like and there is no industry to employ any higher educated people to begin with.

200 points by sphericalgames 12y ago

mkaroumi 12y ago

Hey, Swedish guy here. Any link to a non-Norwegian page with this content?

moystard 12y ago
It looks like there is only an English trailer for now.
unwind 12y ago
The text on the page is mostly English. Also it's kind of funny that you should ask, since as a Swedish person, you're probably better-equipped than the majority of HN readers to understand a few words of Norwegian. :) Here's a trailer, with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCHfV97D7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCHfV97D7I.
tellarin 12y ago
It shows in English for me here. Quartz also had a brief article on it: http://qz.com/333940/what-three-norwegian-fashionistas-learned-after-a-month-in-a-cambodian-textile-factory/ http://qz.com/333940/what-three-norwegian-fashionistas-learn...
legulere 12y ago
http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatshopenglish/ http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatsh... The episodes with English subtitles. Also don't try so hard to not understand it, it's not Danish.

tellarin 12y ago

Better link: http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatshopenglish/ http://www.aftenposten.no/webtv/serier-og-programmer/sweatsh... This one shows the whole thing. One can watch all episodes online with English subtitles.

JonnieCache 12y ago

The BBC did their own version of this in 2008 called Blood Sweat and T Shirts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_and_T-shirts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_and_T-shirts The gimmick was that most of the kids were ludicrous pampered upper middle class fashion students with no sense of perspective, or at least the programme was edited to portray them as such. Much of the entertainment came from watching them subjected to backbreaking labor while their self-contained worldviews crumbled around them.

wodenokoto 12y ago
The Danish version had the same angle. They where terrible at the sweatshop work, but wouldn't admit it. One of them ended up stealing food from the film crew.
- KPLauritzen 12y ago
  What was the Danish version called? I don't recall hearing about it
  - chodk 12y ago
    Blod, Sved og T-shirts http://www.dr.dk/Undervisning/Gymnasium/Samfund/Oekonomi/Globalisering/globalisering.htm http://www.dr.dk/Undervisning/Gymnasium/Samfund/Oekonomi/Glo... I think it is besides the point that they were pampered upper middle class kids. The things they saw were horrible. In the danish edition, they went to India where there was a whole town build up around a mountain of trash. The folks there would drink black water from the mountain.
    - collyw 12y ago
      I think a dose of reality is what most middle class kids need. Otherwise many of them grow into arrogant right wing adults with no real clue about how much of the world works.
      - 12y ago

dmorre 12y ago

Episode 1 - 5 with subtitles. The links are extracted from the mobile version of the site. http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560575076668800-c5989e5b-587c-4ae4-96b1-01769129a2a1-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560793016364200-93c4380c-7389-4e8d-8863-d153a8629986-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560716079490100-1607549d-d005-4644-8099-06da0f1ef9e7-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560802092290500-eb93b63b-ca5f-4ee5-9fc9-ec1dc197d473-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560480020584800-40b974e4-5dca-41b2-a92a-8224e873f066-iphone_600kbit_64_480x360_vbr.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/...

andor 12y ago
Same videos in 720p: http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560575076668800-6c54d98f-b101-43e6-b7db-7238e9f4f0b0-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560793016364200-d3b98b5a-82d9-4f98-8d8f-7ceff3111766-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560716079490100-581508d7-bc38-472d-95cb-3534d032bae3-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560802092290500-7508f519-4431-41d9-b12b-e952ed799132-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/... http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/1416560480020584800-9f3fbec7-90d9-490b-b978-3c169d7eac31-h264_3000kbit_1280x720_medianorge.mp4 http://frontend.xstream.dk/ap/resources/content/mp4/2014-11/...

colmvp 12y ago

So, I remember seeing this on Reddit a few weeks back. Some commenters mentioned that sweatshops are a necessary evil for developing nations. It's better to have a shitty job than to have the alternative of being jobless and resorting to theft/prostitution for sustenance. How true is such an argument?

savanaly 12y ago
One of my all time favorite pop economics essays is by Paul Krugman, addressing this topic: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19... His argument is summed up thus: "And as long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard--that is, the fact that you don't like the idea of workers being paid a pittance to supply rich Westerners with fashion items."
- xorcist 12y ago
  "No realistic alternative" -- that's a bit of a dishonest either/or argument. Of course there are alternatives. It's not like it hasn't happened before. In the Western world this gave rise to the biggest social movement in a century, with demands to assure workers all kind of rights. Krugman needs to motivate why we should deny third world children the same rights we demanded for our own a hundred and forty years ago, if he really wants to make that argument.
  - pluma 12y ago
    I'd argue that Europe in the Industrialisation was in a slightly different situation because the world economy wasn't as globalized yet. If Cambodian labourers unionize and become more expensive, the business could easily move to the next third-world country, leaving them economically worse off than before. The problem is that the suppliers they work for are as dependent on the international companies paying them as their workers are dependent on them. Basically, either the international companies have to act against their immediate economical interests and invest money in improving the working conditions and pay at their suppliers, or the suppliers in different countries would have to "unionize", too. Alternatively, all labourers in all countries would have to unionize in the same timeframe (so the business can't just keep country-hopping) or the businesses would have to be forced to act against their own interests. I think the most realistic sequence of events is that as the national economy in each country improves their workers begin to unionize and within a few decades the conditions may have improved universally. But that won't be an easy process and will likely result in a lot more protests and violence than the alternatives. The naive ideal would be that customers force the businesses to pressure the suppliers to improve the situation, but outside a few marketing stunts I don't think that is very likely. All previous calls for boycotts have been unsuccessful and the average citizen doesn't care enough about these issues to do anything politically (aside from the obvious difficulty of out-lobbying the established lobbies). We'll see.

Kenji 12y ago

I wonder, how can we in the first world change our behaviour here to stop things like that? Does the very way we live cause this or are the causes local?

stray 12y ago
We could refuse to buy the product.
pain 12y ago
We can begin to report common commodification and objectification of human beings. We can use tools like Aether (http://www.getaether.net http://www.getaether.net) to give power to voices that may be hushed, find known unknowns in terms of pain.
niklasni1 12y ago
Local labour laws allow this. Who's to say if it's internal or external pressures that keep them like they are -- there are certainly locals who are also making money off this. As for what you can do, you can sew your own clothes.
- blfr 12y ago
  I don't think local laws matter much. Those countries are simply poor. Unless they become wealthier, more stringent laws simply won't be followed and merely result in corruption. All freedom is compound interest. Seriously. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/517051922428067840 https://twitter.com/vgr/status/517051922428067840
- angeNoble 12y ago
  And where exactly do you think the fabric would come from?
Brakenshire 12y ago
It's a combination, but we certainly play a part. If there's no pressure from developed countries, then rising wages and conditions of work in one manufacturing nation will ultimately just mean making themselves less competitive. In some ways there's a lot of potential for action on our part, because the effect on final price is so minimal through even drastic increases in worker pay. To take it to absurd levels, you could increase worker pay tenfold, and only add $1 to the cost of $14 shirt [1]. So we only have to care enough to be willing to pay a tiny amount more (12c more to double wages, or spent otherwise to drastically improve working conditions), for it to be worthwhile for companies to market themselves as being decent employers. There are various things we could do. As individuals, you could buy brands which have signed up to some sort of agreement for better treatment of workers - in the UK we have Fair Trade (the main focus is agriculture, but they do seem to do clothes as well), and also the more mainstream Ethical Trading Initiative, which some major high street shops have signed up for. As governments, I personally see no reason why we shouldn't have at least some basic worker rights built into international trade deals. It's difficult or impossible to see what things are like on the ground, but at least we could make the existence of national laws mandatory. [1] http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/what-does-that-14-shirt-really-cost/ http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/what-does-that-14-sh...

3454359009 12y ago

Kind of funny. I started in similar conditions. But I hear constantly to "check my privilege" from someone with $100K+ income, university and $500 handbag.

Omniusaspirer 12y ago
That's human nature for you. It's very difficult for most people to put themselves in the position of someone else. An example from my own life that I find striking is a janitor at the hospital where I'm employed. He grew up in Thailand in a remote farming village. While there he lived in complete poverty (bamboo house, no electricity, drinking rainwater) since he was born to a multigenerational family of rice farmers. He worked hard in school, spent time as a monk, and then eventually had an opportunity to immigrate to the US where he's been for about 10 years now. He speaks four languages and seems very intelligent in all the conversations I've had with him- it seriously pains me when I see people talk down to him. With that said; It's just ignorance- best not to dwell on it and just keep moving forward. Focus on self improvement, then when it's you with the 100k+ income try not to forget where you came from.

chippy 12y ago

In terms of a large profit making company, the company has to make ever increasing profits for the shareholders or else it becomes pretty much illegal. Thus, currently these conditions are necessary, there is nothing to stop them, because to stop them means that a corporation is not operating properly. It is necessary because to not allow it means that a corporation is behaving badly. Like it or not, and in this example most of us hate it, a corporation has to make every effort to increase profit and decrease waste. How do we change it? As consumers we make it clear to these companies that it's not on. We vote with our money. But the tried and tested solution is via our politicians. We have to make it possible for our corporations to improve the conditions of their suppliers and not incur the wrath of their shareholders. edits - wow, please read both paragraphs.

DanBC 12y ago
I guess you're getting downvoted for repeating the myth that corporations must maximise profit.
- chippy 12y ago
  Yes, fair enough, learnt something new today. I was wrong about it being legal in law not to maximize profits. There is still an obligation of directors to maximise value if that is what the shareholders want (and most of the time, all shareholders want a corporation to increase profit). But it's not illegal for a director to be negligent in the goal of the shareholders. They might lose their job or get a civil lawsuit, at the worst, I guess.
vetler 12y ago
> In terms of a large profit making company, the company has to make ever increasing profits for the shareholders or else it becomes pretty much illegal. Thus, currently these conditions are necessary, there is nothing to stop them, because to stop them means that a corporation is not operating properly. This is just bullshit, for lack of a better word. First of all, increasing profits does not force anyone to do horrible things. Second of all, that a company has to maximize profits all the time, is a myth: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/8146/230 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/8146/230

bruna597 12y ago

Something that bothers me is the fact that even though they have cried on the show and said that they were going to do something to help, if you search for them on the internet, its clear that they aren't doing anything about it! Even the girl who has a fashion blog, she is still writing about the trademarks that use this kind of abusive job to make their clothes...

perdunov 12y ago
This is probably the normal animal/human reaction: to react only when something is hurting you right now. If you take the pain away, the motivation vapors. This is one of the design flaws of the human mind inherited from animals that causes procrastination and lack of willpower.
- rjaco31 12y ago
  > procrastination and lack of willpower. Well, it's one way to look at it. The other is to consider that the human mind is extremely adaptive and optimize the energy cost given the context.
- colmvp 12y ago
  > to react only when something is hurting you right now. If you take the pain away, the motivation vapors. I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer believes he's going to die after eating the poisonous part of fugu. He changes his habits to embrace the remaining part of his life. After it's miraculously revealed that he'll survive, he professes to continue with the ideal of seizing life. This was an instructional scare to never take your life or those around you for granted. Yet, the final shot of the episode is him sitting on the couch watching TV like a drone.
  - monk_e_boy 12y ago
    From a personal perspective, I find being athiest really makes me prioritise things. This is it. Today is today. I washed my hands and murdered lots of little bugs n stuff. That may be me one day. See a near car crash, think about what to do to make today significant. Not sure what point I was trying to make really. Some days being a TV drone is OK, some days I'm tired. I don't want to spend every day tired, so I chill out today to make tomorow more epic. Hm.

pweissbrod 12y ago

any link for those of us that refuse to install adobe flash?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

RaffRaff 12y ago

That's why I keep clear of "ecommerce import from China" businesses. I just cant do it knowing people suffer while I profit

pagnotta 12y ago
They will suffer more without the job. You think not buying from them will help them...how?
- kylebrown 12y ago
  Buying fair trade supports an alternative over the status quo.
sleepyhead 12y ago
I don't think there is much difference between those and big brands. Same with clothes. There is no difference between a super low cost brand, H&M and Versace. Or actually there is, the designer brands have often proven to be manufactured in even worse conditions.

auganov 12y ago

Am I a bad person for thinking it was going to be a post about a techie fed up with working at a software consultancy?

markyc 12y ago
that's why i opened the comments section
arethuza 12y ago
I thought exactly the same - especially when I saw the ".no" domain - sweatshops and Norway aren't think I normally associate!
ersii 12y ago
Well, I certainly don't think you're a bad person for that - considering this forum is generally focused towards the technical angle of things. For some reason, I thought I was clicking through to another Five Eyes/NSA, GCHQ, CSE programme. I guess it's since it was a single word in all capital letters and aftenposten.no previously reported on the "Oslo mobile/GSM surveillance" thing.
- jmccree 12y ago
  Glad I wasn't the only one to think this was going to be about an NSA program and outrage they would name something SWEATSHOP.
  - pluma 12y ago
    I thought their convention for arbitrary project names was always using two words with no intentional revelance to the actual scope of the project (with projects like Prism being the exception). Then again, some of their names are so blatantly fitting (and offensive) that that claim doesn't seem very believable in the first place.
robodale 12y ago
That's what I thought as well.

foobar2020 12y ago

I really don't understand this problem. Why does everybody think people in Asia are forced to do this kind of work? These people would be incredibly poor if not for western companies. Actually most of them would die being children as a result of their poverty: malnutrition, accidents, preventable diseases such as polio or measles. Go now and check what was China's annual GDP per capita in Mao Zedong times. Just see it. Apparently a lot of people need this kind of basic history education. Yaron Brook has more knowledge on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwb8m_ZbU-U&feature=youtu.be&t=33m33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwb8m_ZbU-U&feature=youtu.be...

mixedbit 12y ago
These people are exploited by being paid a minimal wage, because they have no other way to survive, but to take sweatshop jobs. The Grapes of Wrath illustrates this mechanism well.
- foobar2020 12y ago
  That is right, and what is the alternative? Suppose China had never opened their borders to foreign investments. What would these people do? I think I know the answer, just look at the following life expectancy graph: http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2008_L0_M.htm http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2008_L0_M.htm
  - mixedbit 12y ago
    The alternative is to fairly share profits with the people that make goods. This could be enforced by the legal system, as it was successfully done when slavery was banned.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      Average wages in China have tripled over 8 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages Whatever they are doing, they should keep it up.

pablovidal85 12y ago

We are the puppet people, put it on our TV, it's true. Sorry but the people that really care about these problems are anywhere but crying on TV.

dandare 12y ago

And the solution to the problem of poverty in undeveloped nations is.... ? (hint: it's not aid or communism)

ptaipale 12y ago
Agreed. Trade. First they sew your T-shirts. Then they assemble your smartphones. Then they design your smartphones. Eventually, they will also design your T-shirts, other fashion and music. This is what the U.S. did a hundred years ago, what Japan did 50 years ago, what China has done in recent years, and it's also what other formerly poor nations are going to do, if they are ever going to be formerly poor nations. That also doesn't happen without some hickups in the nations that were formerly quite rich. Think of Argentina, for instance.
the_af 12y ago
1- Why not communism? Does the average worker in a communist country live worse than a sweatshop worker? 2- Why not aid? Bill Gates, someone who I'm not particularly fond of, claims it works: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579324530112590864 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023041494045793245... Note I'm not necessarily advocating either of the above options. I'm just surprised at how persistent this belief in the properties of Free Trade is.
sleepyhead 12y ago
It is trade and private companies but just because that is the case here does not mean it should be greatly improved.

cpursley 12y ago

Idk, still beats wallowing around in the mud waiting for UN handouts. Europe and developed Asia have all been through this stage of development. It's what it takes to modernize. * I'm not arguing for abuse or child labor of course. There are limits.

simondelacourt 12y ago
I don't think this is a stage of development. It is a business concept. To keep some rich we need a poor majority. It is not that complicated. We like 6 new fashion collections a year, we like the primark for selling it for virtually no money, we like big brands advertising. We just dig cheap crappy fashion, and more over we dig not paying the full price. I always find it interesting if people attribute poverty to a stage of development. That just does not work. It is not something you go through, and in the end we all come out richer. It is far more part of the system, it is not a country being going through infancy or puberty waiting to mature. We benefit so much from their poverty.
- cpursley 12y ago
  What's the alternative for us and them?

nkoren 12y ago

I'm an American with a left-wing upbringing and still broadly left-wing politics. When I graduated from architecture school in 2001, I wanted some international experience, so I moved to India. What I saw there utterly transformed my preconceptions of sweatshops -- because I saw it before the sweatshops began opening. One of the projects I was helping to design was a "science city" tech campus. The workers lived in an encampment next to the construction site. They worked from dawn until dusk for 6.5 days per week -- half a day off on Sunday -- every day of the month except for the new moon. Children as young as 6 were working -- moving and sorting materials, but quite dangerous inasmuch as it was on a live construction site. The standard wage was roughly $3 per MONTH (although food and very nominal shelter -- really more like "camping space" -- were provided for free). These were not outrageously abusive labour practices -- they were absolutely bog-standard practice of local industry, preferable to many of the alternatives for these people. Seeing this situation with my own eyes, I realised that if these people had the option to work in one of those $1/day sweatshops I'd heard anti-globalisation activists go on about -- in line with my own sympathies -- it would be an absolute DREAM. Since then, I've been rabidly pro-globalisation. These days, I get incensed when I see people going on about the horrors of globalisation, with absolutely ZERO understanding of the counter-factual. Utter ignorance of how bad it would be otherwise. The one case where I'll allow that sweatshops are problematic is when their owners become so powerful that they corrupt the local politics and take steps to ensure that that the population cannot develop its economy any further. This has happened in some places, creating locked-in populations for whom the sweatshop is not the bottom rung of the ladder, but the top. That's an actual problem, where it has happened -- but in most of the world (eg. India, China, most of the rest of East Asia), that's NOT the story that's played out, and sweatshops have been a vital (but temporary) step in economic development.

daktanis 12y ago
Its a similar story to the industrial revolution in America, a countries people will go through hardship to reach prosperity. Hardships and a revolution or two...
- cynicalkane 12y ago

macarthy12 12y ago

Honestly I would imagine those 3 Millennials having an issue with most hard work. I live in Asia, I look though a different lens, - Imagine being loaded on to a truck and brought to factory everyday -- You mean a free ride to work? - Imagine your kids roaming the factory floor -- No child care costs? - Imagine having to working 12 hours a day -- I can pay for my kids to go to school ? - Imagine being stuck in a factory all day -- not under the sun planting rice/corn etc.. Obviously there are a lot of macro and micro-economic factors at work, I just saw a truck delivering a automated t-shirt embroidering machine, so that economic switch has tilted, but do you think the talk will be, "we are free!" or "where did the work go?"

sleepyhead 12y ago
That is such bullshit. I lived in Phnom Penh. That "free ride" you refer to is the most dangerous part of their day. There are lot of accidents with these trucks. Your other points reek of privilege and lack of actual understanding of how these people live their lives.
- eitally 12y ago
  I believe you, but it's also true that in many parts of the world, those "trucks" are actually air conditioned buses. <source: I work for a global manufacturing company with 14,000 people in China, 2,000 in India, 12,000 in Mexico, 10,000 in EU, and 15,000 around the rest of the world.>
  - sleepyhead 12y ago
    You have to go in a tourist bus to get an a/c bus in Cambodia. The trucks for these workers have full natural a/c and traffic pollution nicely blended in. Also note that these workers are mostly from rural areas. Where educational level is very low.
pluma 12y ago
The caveat is that the health and safety conditions are atrocious and the income barely pays for the cost of living so it's unlikely your children will have any better status than you (i.e. they'll likely have to drop out of school early to help sustain the family just like yourself). But I agree about the perspective. Doing the same task every working hour for years isn't inherently a bad thing. That describes a lot of jobs and some would actually find that kind of job perfectly acceptable. The problem is only when this is the only job available to you and the money it makes is so low you're effectively locked into it and the working conditions are so bad you have a good chance of death or injury and there's really no hope you can improve your situation (or that of your children) of your own accord. Like Sisyphus, it's not the job itself, it's the hopelessness of ever succeeding. You're locked into perpetuating your status quo.

Sakes 12y ago

This is emotionally confusing for me. It seems like the general consensus on HN is that this is a necessary evil. I can get on board with that, but it still feels wrong. I guess the only way to think about it is progress is progress, so if sweatshops are an improvement for these people, then there is good in it for them... for now... We have seen China over a few decades transition from textiles, to tech manufacturing, and now developing IP products and services. Is this the norm? Or the exception? I just have questions at this point, but I guess for the time being... back to work.

the_af 12y ago
> It seems like the general consensus on HN is that this is a necessary evil The general consensus on HN seems to be that it's a "necessary evil" as long as it conveniently happens to other people, and allows us to buy cheap gadgets and T-shirts. You're right to feel it's wrong.
danielweber 12y ago
Why, then, the outrage of my correspondents? Why does the image of an Indonesian sewing sneakers for 60 cents an hour evoke so much more feeling than the image of another Indonesian earning the equivalent of 30 cents an hour trying to feed his family on a tiny plot of land--or of a Filipino scavenging on a garbage heap? The main answer, I think, is a sort of fastidiousness. Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit--and this makes us feel unclean. --Paul Krugman

vdaniuk 12y ago

I am depressed that significant part of collective intelligence of the most intelligent and influential tech communities on the internet is advocating for sweatshops because the alternative is worse. False dichotomy, if I ever seen one.

kylebrown 12y ago
The current system is not the best of all possible worlds. There are better alternatives (eg. fair trade), ignoring them is just laziness.

nhangen 12y ago

It's funny to me that the same HN continually bashing Google for being evil, Uber for being sexist, and startups in general for treating workers like slaves, is the same HN that generalizes and rationalizes this type of behavior. We complain that minimum wage workers here aren't paid enough in the US, and yet we're OK with people making $3/day, pushed to their limit by a boss that might as well be a warden. This may not be slavery, but it is indentured servitude. And I say this as someone lacking a single liberal bone in my body.

deleted 12y ago
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wyager 12y ago
How is this indentured servitude? Indentured servitude is when you contract out your labor in advance, without the ability to void the contract without legal repercussions (usually imprisonment). Being stuck in a job due to circumstances may be unfortunate, but it's not indenture. You should have seen these areas before the sweatshops. Conditions were substantially worse, but because most westerners historically either didn't care or were unaware, it's easy to get the false impression that these workers are worse off than they were before the sweatshops. In reality the sweatshops are a huge improvement. Consider that, for the most part, jobs that existed in impoverished countries pre-industrialization still exist, yet most workers choose the sweatshops when given the chance.

beseth 12y ago

Here is the answer of an capitalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZSnUBzzH5_4#t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZS...

beseth 12y ago

Here is the answer of a capitalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZSnUBzzH5_4#t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZS...

known 12y ago

Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero-sum WITHOUT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

tim333 12y ago
Actually I think you'll find Globalisation is not zero sum. It hasn't made ordinary people much better off in the west but has transformed living standards in places like Asia.

sleepyhead 12y ago

I lived in Phnom Penh where this was filmed. The trucks carrying workers at the end of the day is a normal sight in the outskirts of the city. The average pay for this type of job is about $100 depending on how much extra overtime you put in. How to fix it? I have some ideas but that would be on a much smaller scale. Basically a more direct model. The fashion industry needs to be disrupted and consumers must get more information about how brands produce clothes. The problem today is that the government in Cambodia is extremely corrupt. They can't be relied on to improve conditions or put up the minimum wage (well they have a little bit but it is still under what can be considered a liveable wage). The big brands however point the finger at the government (H&M, Nike, Puma all put out press releases that blame laws and government practices). They say it is the job of government to improve. They sit in their nice offices in New York and Stockholm, in cities that were built over a long time with a long history of democracy and with a society that was built bit for bit. That took a long time. It is incomparable to the state of Cambodia (which started on a blank slate 30 years ago or so). Thus the government there is not qualified to make the required changes. The brands however are. They are in countries with good laws and fairly decent labour practices. They should take responsibility. They should not hide behind their suppliers. They can easily define contracts that require suppliers to have better minimum standards and wages for workers. It would not mean much difference in profits for these companies. A lady makes a shirt and earns $3/day, does it really matter if she is paid $5/day? Would the $50 shirt cost much more at the store? Nope. I think the most pragmatic solution is that developed countries introduce taxes for clothes that are not ethically produced. That $15 t-shirt from H&M should be $17 and with $2 clearly labeled as non-ethical tax on the price tag. Also I see some commentators here saying it's much better to work in a factory than to work on the rice fields. 20 years ago you could earn enough as a small farmer. Today that is not the case. Also the rising cost in Cambodia and elsewhere makes the small pay even more a problem than before. The workers earn $100. Rent is easily $30. I used to eat lunch at the market every day in Phnom Penh. It was about $1.50 for noodle soup. You can get a cheaper meal (I'm white and I added some better quality meat). But add that up. And consider you need to buy a towel. That's easily $4. A new pan? $5 for a cheaper one. I lived in Phnom Penh in 2012 and then in 2014. Even I as a foreigner noticed the inflation.

unimportant 12y ago

Sweatshops themselves aren't the problem, but rather the fact that the game is rigged against the average person. They could just farm self sustainably, however they lack the knowledge and large landowners own the land. They also tend to have too many kids as well. You can choose between being a peasant that is given some land to work as farmland in exchange for a shack to dwell in and some very basic food or be slightly less worse off in a sweatshop. You get fucked either way and there is no way out as education is a joke in cambodia and the like and there is no industry to employ any higher educated people to begin with.