Posted by Bob Janova at 9:45am May 28 '10... you are painting the rosiest picture you can of the situation. I mean, you even say you can see that it is 'blatant exploitation' but it's still 'win-win' â how does someone who is being exploited 'win'?
The mistake you are making (well, the main one) is thinking that a higher GDP is more happiness. When you're lured into a job with misleading information, end up in company housing with practically forced free overtime, low wages and no realistic escape, you might be earning 25c a day instead of a nominal 0 but I would say things are not 'better' than they were as a subsistence farmer.
And if their previous job was superior to that offered by Nike they'd obviously not choose to voluntarily work the construction site.
That's not as obvious as you think it is. It's easy to portray something as a better deal than it actually is until it's too late. Even in the West with our strict rules on false advertising, we're still dealing with the financial fall-out of people taking mortgages that they 'obviously' would choose not to take if they had any financial sense.
I don't buy your Africa-Asia comparison. Asia has several ancient civilisations, older even than the Western one (India, China and Japan at least), whereas Africa doesn't seem to have had any 'advanced' civilisation (or if it did, colonisation killed it off). Asia already had a middle class and it's hardly surprising that it's 'advanced' faster.
The basic problem I have with it is an ethical one. In our own countries we make laws defining the rights that workers should have, not just because making laws is fun but because we think that working men (and women) are entitled to those things. We should be supporting those rights in other countries, not having 'our' companies go over there and exploit the lack of them.
Multinational corporations going into a poor country and setting up shop there always involves taking 95% of the wealth that 'creates' out of the country and entrenching the division between 'poor' and 'rich' countries, and any benefits often completely bypass the local population.
The mistake you are making (well, the main one) is thinking that a higher GDP is more happiness. When you're lured into a job with misleading information, end up in company housing with practically forced free overtime, low wages and no realistic escape, you might be earning 25c a day instead of a nominal 0 but I would say things are not 'better' than they were as a subsistence farmer.
And if their previous job was superior to that offered by Nike they'd obviously not choose to voluntarily work the construction site.
That's not as obvious as you think it is. It's easy to portray something as a better deal than it actually is until it's too late. Even in the West with our strict rules on false advertising, we're still dealing with the financial fall-out of people taking mortgages that they 'obviously' would choose not to take if they had any financial sense.
I don't buy your Africa-Asia comparison. Asia has several ancient civilisations, older even than the Western one (India, China and Japan at least), whereas Africa doesn't seem to have had any 'advanced' civilisation (or if it did, colonisation killed it off). Asia already had a middle class and it's hardly surprising that it's 'advanced' faster.
The basic problem I have with it is an ethical one. In our own countries we make laws defining the rights that workers should have, not just because making laws is fun but because we think that working men (and women) are entitled to those things. We should be supporting those rights in other countries, not having 'our' companies go over there and exploit the lack of them.
Multinational corporations going into a poor country and setting up shop there always involves taking 95% of the wealth that 'creates' out of the country and entrenching the division between 'poor' and 'rich' countries, and any benefits often completely bypass the local population.
As you say ... - Bob Janova