The Devil's Bargain: Sweatshops and the American Scheme

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



John W. Whitehead
The Devil's Bargain: Sweatshops and the American Scheme
Posted January 2, 2008 | 05:04 PM (EST)



"They hit you...They hit you in the head...To make you work faster."
--Nicaraguan Factory Worker


The so-called season of giving is officially behind us. Even in these sluggish economic times, Americans still managed to spend more than $50 billion in gift-giving. Now that all the gifts have been opened, all that is left is for us to enjoy them.

Yet I can't help but wonder whether our pleasure would be dimmed were we to truly understand what is involved in bringing these gifts--at the bargain prices Americans love--to our homes?

Writing for the Texas Observer, Josh Rosenblatt notes in "Buy Some Stuff, Enslave Somebody" that "the expanding global economy demands that corporations seek out the cheapest possible labor to maximize profit, and stimulate growth and innovation. With free trade has come an explosion of global inequality that has left more than 2.8 billion people living on less than $2 a day."

This inequality makes it possible for Americans to buy more and more while paying less and less. But as the National Labor Committee (NLC), an organization that investigates and exposes human and labor rights abuses committed by U.S. companies producing goods in the developing world, points out, "The people who stitch together our jeans and assemble our CD-players are mostly young women in Central America, Mexico, Bangladesh, China and other poor nations, many working 12 to 14-hour days for pennies an hour."

Some in the business world insist that the business sector's efforts to tap into the vast pool of willing and cheap labor in poorer countries are all about free market economics. However, critics such as the NLC consider the resulting dehumanization of this new global workforce to be the overwhelming moral crisis of the 21st century. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/the-devils-bargain-swea_b_79341.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. When you can, buy local

I sew my own clothes. Wish the cloth I get were made in America. Anyone here spin and weave? Maybe we could get together.

[melody]

4. You ought to check with the local craftshops. A friend of mine found a source for local cloth in LA

If you can find it here, you can find it anywhere. lol

[PDJane]

2. It is a moral crisis...among other things.

Great wealth creates massive inequities, and the US was founded on such inquities.

The income tax act has been massaged and manipulated until it now favours only the very, very rich. The movement of the common good away from the labourer to the capital owners has taken the world back to empire. This has been aided by the privatization of the Federal Reserve, and the movement of power into the corporate élite.

Yes, everyone here knows this. So why hasn't the situtation been fixed?

Because the money supply and the cost of housing now act as a check on the aspirations of labour, that's why.

[melody]

3. The US was not founded on those inequities. It was intended by some of the founders to correct them

What has happened now is a multi-national shame that should be shared by all the participating countries, not
merely the ones we dislike.

[PDJane]

6. What else was slavery but massive inequity?

The US was founded on genocide and slavery, and it continues on the path that was set.

So was Canada. We haven't come to terms with our colonial past, either. We haven't, however, embraced empire. At least, not yet. Give us time.

The British empire ended because the Brits decided that (well, at least until the neo-empire builders rose again) empire abroad was not worth the loss of freedom at home, and empire, of whatever stripe, invariably leads to debt, unequal taxation, standing armies, and the suppression of a working class, whether through outright slavery or wage slavery.

[melody]

8. A lot of hyperbole on few facts

Had John Adams had his way, African slaves would have been freed upon our independence from Great Britain. Many
of the founders agreed with him. It was a sadly necessary "Parliamentary procedure" to rescue independence that
led to the exclusion of emancipation from the Declaration.

As for genocide, the initial "genocide" of the colonies (I should point out I'm 1/4 Cherokee which a great many
people from the US south are) was a British policy, not an American one. The genocide of colonialism is a sin shared
by all the colonizing communities. Europeans (including European-North Americans) share the responsibility equally.

Canada has a form of disingenuous empire in that they benefit from their "awful" neighbors while being able to turn their nose
up at the ugliness of reality. My point is, if you're pointing fingers, the fingers needed to be pointed at all Europeans
all over the globe. We've all done it, not just the awful Americans.

[marmar]

10. Fine, but John Adams didn't have his way.....

... what he wanted (supposedly) to happen and what happened are two different things.

[melody]

11. No, if we're talking about the creating of the nation, we must look at the wishes of the creators

John Adams and Ben Franklin (Franklin, according to some historians, WAS an escaped Scots-Irish slave, by the way),
fought tooth and nail (as did many people of the era) to end slavery altogether. It was given us by our forefathers.
Therefore, it's not a uniquely American institution so if we're going to blame anyone, we must blame all Europeans
who've colonized.

[marmar]

13. I get your point, but to say the country wasn't founded in inequity because of the "wishes" ....

of SOME of its creators is whitewashing history, IMO. It's fine to romanticize the ideal of America, but it's a disservice to ignore the reality.

[melody]

14. To say it was only or even mainly founded on it is untrue

It's a part of our history, but it's a part of the history of all European colonies.

[marmar]

7. On the backs of African slaves and the blood of Native Americans....

I'd call that being founded on inequities.

[melody]

9. Emotionally jonesing on unfairly depicted history does no one any service

Beyond that, I'd ask you to see my other reply.

[Fierce]

5. People, spend a day and read your labels.

On everything. Your car parts. Your clothes. The products you put into and on your body. Your kid's school supplies. Your work supplies.

Unless you spend your time doing this anyway (like me), you'll probably be surprised and appalled. Every time you buy something, think of the people who worked on it -- and who may have been hit on the head to work faster, or sexually assaulted, or fired for getting pregnant, or paid a pittance and then told to pay for supplies or company housing, or who had just quit school to "work."

[Romulox]

12. If you support "free trade", you support exploitation. This means YOU, Hillary supporters! nt

[slipslidingaway]

15. K&R n/t