Comments on: Solidarity: for all or none at all; Colonialism: still here

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:50:14 +0000

This article by Rick Falkvinge (founder of the Pirate Party) seems related:
http://torrentfreak.com/drm-needs-to-be-banned-because-its-toxic-111016/
In some cases, we expect legislators to ban toxic practices that are good business practices (etc.) – why doesn’t that include basic conditions for overseas employees?

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:57:36 +0000

In reply to Mattan Mamane.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply.
I understand your argument, and believe it has some merit, but I think you take it to a conclusion that is too extreme and not necessary.
First of all, you assume that global fair trade would necessarily mean paying workers in the third world much, much more. But perhaps it should only include controls for working conditions, some limit to the length of the work day, and maybe some basic standard of wages. None of these have to match the situation in the west.
Second, you assume that the only reason first-world corporations have workers in the third world is the cheap labor. What about natural resources? What about being able to grow crops like coffee? There are all kinds of reasons developed countries are involved in developing economies, and not all of them require that workers in the third world work at unacceptable conditions in order to benefit their society in the long term.
Finally, you assume that it’s better to give three poor people enough money to feed their families than to give one poor person three times that amount. By economic reasoning, that’s wrong. If you give every worker significantly more money but employ less workers, you could benefit their community more, since the well-paid worker could afford to consume more within the community, making local businesses more viable, or alternatively the worker could save up and start a business of their own eventually. This empowers the community much more than having three people spending just enough to scrape by.
It would be perfectly fine if the developed world employed less people in the third world if their conditions were more humane and their pay enough to help them or their communities towards self-sufficiency. And western investment would not, as you suggest, cease entirely, since there are good economic reasons other than cheap, abusable labor, for them to be there.

And perhaps more importantly: it’s wrong to assume that everyone born in say, Nepal, is worse off for it. There are hundreds of thousands of communities around the world that practice traditional ways of life and have nothing to gain by westernization in the short run. If western businesses are drawing people away from traditional farming, it’s not a choice of being dirt poor and jobless versus working in a sweatshop and being just barely poor – it’s a choice between living outside global modern systems in comfort and living within them in poverty.
Yes, this is not always the case. Yes, there are some serious human rights issues in traditional communities as well. But simply destroying different cultures and replacing them with one which will abuse them in the short term but may give their grandchildren true freedom is not exactly a fair trade, if you’ll excuse my pun.

It’s easy to assume that the western way of life is an improvement upon all others. In some ways, it is. But to act on this assumption and destroy things on the way is simply a continuation of colonialism, and that’s not acceptable. To me at any rate.

By: Mattan Mamane

Mattan Mamane — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:41:59 +0000

Well the first and most major fallacy you made was the assumption that fair trade improves the life of people in the third world.
People of the third world are not salve by coercion, but by a lack of choice. The have to work 10 hours a day not because Nike employers are sitting behind them with whips, but because the alternative – quitting – would mean no food and much worse conditions. It’s very sad and tragic, but some people are born in shitty places.
The first thing that would happen if all of the developed world passed fair trade laws, is that all third world economies will die. They would cease to exist, causing starvation, poverty and death to millions. China has gone from 38 – 46 million deaths from famine under communist rule to a blooming economy thanks to “sweatshops” – and it also directly translate to better life for the poor: hundreds of millions have risen out of poverty in China since 1978 (when the economical reforms started). Fair trade laws would mean Nike would not benefit from operating in China any more – Think of the costs of operating half the world across! Nike would pull out a long with many more foreign companies and the Chinese economy will lose it’s momentum, hurting millions of people.
Economies are not static, as the third world countries’ economy evolves, the cheap workforce would grow smaller (more educated people, more new domestic businesses, more competition between employers etc.) and living and working conditions would improve – it happened in China, it’s happening all across the third world countries who were smart enough to use the momentum (which there are not many of, unfortunately.)
Does that mean fair trade is bad? of course not, but it can’t work with an artificial law. A law would not make you “trade fairly” (a term I hate, I don’t think the current trade is unfair) with the third world, it will make you not trade with it AT ALL, because it will have nothing to offer you. Right now, fair trade is a luxury for people who can and want to pay more for it, it helps bring better conditions to the third world at the pace the market is setting – And by market I mean the people, you and me, the employers at Nike and, most importantly, the Chinese workers.