Sweatshop Wages and Third-World Workers: Are the Wages Worth the Sweat? 

Neither are those who want to get you murdered by rightwing death squads so that your country has no organized labor that can secure a decent standard of living for you and your fellow workers.

@@poppychimera1726 The only thing that organized labor achieves is drive away companies from your country.

That why workers of the world need to unite then there will be no where to run and no where to hide

​@@poppychimera1726 Bullshit. Secure a standard of living? You mean sending my grandfather to the street? You mean sending people back to poverty so others could have a better living? What kind of mind must you have in order to think that sacrificing the few for the many is a great thing?

Organized labor killed manufacturing.

Why should you have control of production in the first place? You have no god given right to a profit. The profit system goes into bigger and bigger crisis because it only works during primitive accumulation. You control the government and you start doing stupid things like going to war for profits. You spent 4 trillion dollars on war and then you say the Chinese are taking you profits and we need to compete. You want us to fight them because your a bunch of idiots who go around the world destroying things in the name of Democracy. That's why everyone hates you. Your no different than King Charles who was launched wars and was destroying England for taxes while you destroy the world for profits.

What they do move production from higher wage areas to lower wage areas. Then they bring the product back and sell it in the high wage area for the same price as when they were making it high wage area. That's because to make profits they have to constantly drive down the price of labor because their system has the problem of the natural tendency of the rate of profit to decline overtime.

No, sheer speculation, the central banking system, and globalization of the economy is what makes this usury possible and actually incentivizes it.

@@Jordan-mn2ty So what's your solution?

profit are usually invest in capital either human or machine like better condition or better machine or better job education(for the right interest rate) lead to increase productivity and higher wage. For too low interest rate it would be too dangerous as malinvestment usually occur and they won't focus on their main business, for solution to interest rate i really dont know, i dont have the power go ask government and banks.

@@tomservo75 the market is the solution. Why must a solution come from the state? The government is inherently inefficient, corrupt, & their very existence is dependent upon diverting resources away from the (productive) private sector. They're not the solution. They're the problem.

@@generalsalami8875 Of course. I don't remember what I was thinking, that comment was over a year ago, but if it comes off as saying that I said otherwise, then I was being sarcastic.

Excellent response. "The man who wants you fired is not your friend!"

If you donate money to someone in a poor country, all you are doing is making them dependent on you. You basically become a welfare provider. Also, it’s not possible for all the poor people in the world to immigrate to rich countries, because that would only strain the resources of the rich countries while depriving the poor countries of needed human capital. The best thing to do is teach people in poor countries how to create their own wealth where they are, thus enriching the poor countries.

1st world countries dont pay fair wages eiither

@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent To me, fair is 100K/yr.

I agree only with #1.

It's not that they're not bad. They are bad comparing to our standards. They are amazing for their standards. In one way the sweatshop owners by acting on their own self interest are helping these poor people.

they are not preferable. they are the growing pains of a developing country. as he said, we want them to exist as temporary as possible.

@@frankienbloo1723 they are preferable by those people relative to their other current day options. They are not preferable to other people somewhere else, with better options.

They are the growing pains to a developing nation. Necessary, unavoidable, & healthy for theor future.

I know this is a old comment as I see it has a date of 5 years ago. You may have got your answer elsewhere by now or had a completely different way of thinking approach you and now the question doesn't apply. You may even have more questions. Point is, if you had watched the video thoroughly you would have heard him say the sweat shops are often times the best in their individual area. We can't compare them to us, just as we can't compare the present to the past and expect the past to have a different outcome. First world people have convinced themselves this is a apples to apples issue when its clearly a apples to oranges issue. Is it better that the sweat shop worker had to work out in the field like a pack mule or doing a easier job which takes far fewer calories out of them and gives them higher wages? Should this be hard to figure out? Again I will ask, are higher wages and better conditions better for the sweatshop worker than lower wages and worse conditions? I'm not going to patronize you on the issue. You can figure it out. The only thing which stops someone from understanding the math presented here is ideologies.

@Triple fife forcing higher wages/benefits just diverts resources away from production (thereby hurting the consumer) & the producer (which hurts the incentives to supply). By hurting them they then hurt themselves, as everyone is a consumer. Not everyone is or should be a worker. They should be paid their market value. Unions, especially through state protectionism, hurt real wages & productivity. That's what's needed above all for an economy to grow. Societies must go through this painful period. In america for example it was the industrial revolution (a period we also saw immense growth in). And the thing is, they're doing waay better than they historically were before liberalization. Our standards should be relative & realistic. Stop reaching for the stars. Those interventionist policies ruin countries, especially in all these african nations where it's been tried for a century. Don't ruin their streak.

@@generalsalami8875 You should change your name to General Baloney.

@@kimobrien. not an argument.

Real unions don't get protection from the capitalist state. Rather the are the natural outgrowth of the organization of the working class which seeks to better its position in the capitalist labor market. The origin of the profit is the unpaid labor of the workers. The problem for the capitalist is the natural tendency for the price in the market to sink towards the cost of production. To boost profits he must therefore seek the maximum exploitation of the workers and to replace skilled labor with unskilled labor and machines. To get the longest hours at the lowest wages and the fastest pace. The long term problem of making profits from industrial production is that they decline because markets are not infinite and once the market is full the profits stop flowing and an economic collapse occurs. This is the true cause of depression/recession over production for markets that are brimming with commodities but no buyers. .

That may work in an individual case, but not in the aggregate. In the aggregate the idealistic intern will make their decision in the context of other employers offering idealistic interns a particular range of wages. Interns also have an incentive to maximize the return on their labor. It has a floor if other employers are offering interns with his/her qualifications more than half your wage.

But Americans benefit from this transfer, they get access to cheaper goods created by labor in other states AND they get to free up their time to participate in more productive jobs. The claim that moving jobs abroad is hurting Americans in general is horrible fallacy. You can create a tariff or subsidy that would keep clothing industry in US. But then, you'd either have to rise price or taxes. I don't think that neither higher prices nor higher taxes are good thing for Americans.

no that means americans have to compete with slave wage labor abroad

@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent No they don't. They shift to different, higher productivity and thus higher earning, jobs.

there all sweatshops in the 3rd world

@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent the competition only exists assuming people would buy the products at far higher prices. In Australia our minimum wage works out to roughly $15USD, as opposed to less than 50c an hour in a 3rd world country. We may be willing to pay $5 for an item made overseas in a sweatshop that we certainly wouldn't pay $40 for if it was made in Australia. Given that you have the reserve currency and are able to run a trade deficit where other countries supply you with goods at the cost of land, labour and the pollution that goes with it, and the only cost to you is worthless pieces of paper that you can endlessly print, you're certainly getting the better end of the deal

This shows that the bosses always seek to pay the lowest wage and not a quote "fair wage". The only way to change that is with unions and strikes.

@@kimobrien. I don't understand. What is a "fair wage"?

@@scramptha5949 You tell me? Obviously an "unfair wage" is one which can not keep the laborer at work. So he demands "fair wages." The worker finds himself in a class struggle with the capitalist because the two have diametrically opposed class interests. If wages are to rise then profits must decline and if profits are to rise the wages must go down. If productivity goes up without a new market than profits at first rise but since the higher paid skilled labor is replaced with unskilled labor and machines than the rate of profit must also go down as prices sink towards the cost of production while capital value goes up. Unless production is halted. This is why capitalism is constantly in and out of crisis. Once the markets are brimming with unsold products production is halted to defend profit rates despite the need for production and the inability of the workers to buy back all that can be produced. .

@@kimobrien. Ok so you are saying that the sweat shops being described in this lecture are paying fair wages? Also you are describing a false dichotomy, It isn't "workers" vs "capitalists". The "workers" are also "capitalists", they have a service to sell just like the factory owners, they are attempting to maximize profits just like the businessman, they do not have "diametrically opposed class interests". Both parties are attempting to sell as little as possible for as much as possible, this has nothing to do with capitalism, this is just the natural incentive of the universe. That incentive exists no matter the economic system that the government decides to employ.

@@scramptha5949 Well I guess you've never been a workers which is why you don't understand the difference. The bosses seek to pay the lowest wages and work us the longest hours at the fastest pace to maximize profits. Idiots like Warren Buffet demand profits from a chair where the brag about paying lower tax rates than their secretary while demanding trains run faster with more cars and fewer workers witch results in derailments as a cost of doing business. The bosses run industry into the ground to maximize shareholder value and then demand a bailout. This is why the workers must demand that private property be abolished.

He didn't have to create it? There will always be capitalist around to play be the rules. We should bow to him? He didn't make a single thing by himself. He's not entitled to as much as he can possibly rake off the top. He's a manager. Workers created the goods...it was a cooperative effort.

@@georgeroberts613 Ok sure. Then if the workers have ownership of the profits they have ownership of the losses too.

@@georgeroberts613 Then build a factory and split shares evenly among the employees. Watch how long it lasts.

​@@rondoclark45 Hey Ron. Successful co-ops are around. But special interests work against those as well as unions, though not as much or as fiercely, which gave us our middle class back after the industrial revolution empowered capitalists to rape the working man. In truth, as Lincoln observed, "There would be no wealth without the worker...and hence, he deserves a seat at the table." Economic slavery is little better than physical slavery. The working man must have more than just enough to barely survive, he must have a little extra to make life worth while. There must be a level of compromise for a realistic economic "ecosystem", or it all falls down regardless. Since consumerism is 70% of the economy, shipping our jobs overseas is automatically a downward spiral for the country they ignore as it's not their problem, money can move at the push of a button these days. So much for patriotism at the elite level. ............. Adam Smith the 'right' quotes from the 1700s. They lied about what he said when briefly mentioning "the invisible hand" once and "free markets" twice in passing in The Wealth Of Nations. He said in a previous book, Moral Sentiment, that you should never leave two banker (special interests) along together in the same room lest they conspire and collude. He hated big banks and insider trading. He was for lots of small banks that did the primary job of backing the small businessman and entrepreneur. Wages at the time were supposed to be 'temporary', not the mainstay of the majority of the population, as after the industrial revolution. .............. The "invisible hand" of self-interest he hoped would keep markets fair and level. He thought "patriotism" would keep big players from "offshoring" contributing to "the invisible hand" for self-regulating markets based on the idea that businessmen and investors were always rational and self interest would equal common interest. Wrong. It's now being identified by research that business deals, etc., have strong emotional responses inducing a natural drug high from endorphins and are especially significant for the overly authoritarian personality. Elitism ignoring those at the lower end of the scale is cancerous to humanity as a whole and it's survival. ............ In short, we need go-getters, but they need to be on a leash...lest they try to take it all. You can't put the whole of humanity under the whims of authoritarian one-trick ponies and expect mankind not to be herded and squeezed for profit first and last ending in a "Parker Brothers Monopoly" game pyramid scheme rife with bubble and bust scenarios and everything going to the top .01%. Of course, they will pay their shills and wannabees well, pretend they're in the "club". Think "Hunger Games"...then you get close. ................ Germany had one simple helpful solution: They made their corporate boards of directors half from the workers. No more of this 'good ol boy' network of CEOs scratching each others backs and kiting paystubs. And this nonsense of making CEO pay increases with stock options. This was a temorarily ex bankers idea in the Clinton administration to get around congressional efforts to limit their pay...and it's been madness. It turned into a free for all of corporate blood letting where CEOs have to increase their quarterly reports or die. Then they turn around and kite their stocks options to sell them off at a huge profit increase that then falls back screwing the average stockholder. Recently, the 08 bailout money, etc., went to buy back their own stocks...a well known bullshit idea in the business world benefiting an elite few. No "investment" in the company there. They were supposed to share that windfall with the workers and invest in the company...uhhu. ........... Backing the '08 bad investments instead of the banks themselves where the money dould be mulitplied in new loans was another dissaster Obama was talked into from the "trickle down" community that permeated DC completely, thanks in no small part to the Koch bros. efforts for decades to make supply side economics the only game in town. They spent hundreds of millions pushing that and lobbying for tax breaks and rule changes....it's netted them tens of billions. They were doing free week long vacations at five star resorts for 'certain people'...and all you had to do was attend a "seminar" on supply side economics for an hour a day. This has been "Neo-liberalism" in takeover form...anti-liberalism in short. "Individual freedom" which equates to their freedom to turn you into a slave by buying the ground out from under you...just cause they can. Democracy means the people banding together to have power. Money has power whether we do or not. WE either maintain control over big money and special interests, or they will control us. For nature abhors a vacuum.

I mean...that's true with lots or few employers, it doesn't matter. When Rockefeller rose to prominence with Standard Oil, there were dozens of small to mid size oil companies. Yet wages and conditions in that industry improved as Standard Oil consolidated it and continued to improve moving forward despite the industry being comprised of a handful of large companies rather than a larger number of small ones. And all of this before Standard Oil was broken up. And a number of other industries have similar and reverse stories. Employers will pay wages somewhere between what workers will accept and what they can afford while making rational sense. That's always true, be the company large or small. The reality is, in developing countries both of those numbers are often very, very low. So whether it's a big multinational or a local operation, wages will be low. Because for small local companies, they cannot afford more. Larger multinationals can, but it quickly makes no sense. Why pay, say, a worker in The Congo $5 an hour to do the work while also shouldering infrastructure expenses to store, secure, and transport the goods and export them while dealing with uncertainty in the region, bureaucratic slowdown, corruption, and so on when you could pay more in upfront wages in the US, Europe, or more developed Asian countries but not have all those other costs. The opportunity cost of hiring the worker has to be considered. This keeps wages low because the labor being so cheap is the only reason they shoulder those additional costs and - even more importantly - risks. As Ben explains, you just gotta grow out of it. And this happens in economies with big and small companies, with and without unions, etc. It's part of the evolution of an economy. South Korea, for ecample, is absolutely dominated by mega corporations and has modest unionization rates and yet has developed into a wealthy country with low poverty and very high standards of living. It's growth with fundamental freedoms with regards to property rights, labor rights, etc that gets you past the sweatshop phase.

yes. If someone is not physically threatening your harm you aren't forced in the traditional sense. forced to make a decision based on your circumstances is different. the first points to corruption. the later points to economic development (sometimes, often even caused by corruption).

@@GIboy1990 But if it your only option or your less worst option, are you really free choosing? If I make you chose between a bad option and a worst option, do you chose the bad option, so do you freely chose that option? There options are, working under the sun a sweatshop or starving ...

There is a limited supply of jobs. That's true of America and it's true of any other country one might care to cite. In a lot of countries, particularly those in Third World classification, the supply of labor far outstrips the demand, and so competition for those jobs is intense while wages will have the tendency to be lower than can be found elsewhere. No surprises there. Other factors such as governmental influences, educational levels of workers, availability of raw materials, etc. can and do cause variations, but the rule still holds. When there are fewer capable workers than may be employed, wages will tend upwards but will never exceed the margin between the cost of creating the goods or services, and what the market value those goods or services is. The employer is then responsible for making astute decisions when setting prices which are acceptable to buyers/users while ensuring retention of competent employees and resulting with enough profit to make his or her business worthwhile. That is the trick that makes the whole circle where all three points are better off. Labor, consumer, and business.

There is a limited supply of jobs. That's true of America and it's true of any other country one might care to cite. In a lot of countries, particularly those in Third World classification, the supply of labor far outstrips the demand, and so competition for those jobs is intense while wages will have the tendency to be lower than can be found elsewhere. No surprises there. Other factors such as governmental influences, educational levels of workers, availability of raw materials, etc. can and do cause variations, but the rule still holds. When there are fewer capable workers than may be employed, wages will tend upwards but will never exceed the margin between the cost of creating the goods or services, and what the market value those goods or services is. The employer is then responsible for making astute decisions when setting prices which are acceptable to buyers/users while ensuring retention of competent employees and resulting with enough profit to make his or her business worthwhile. That is the trick that makes the whole circle where all three points are better off. Labor, consumer, and business.

its the opposite here, when a multinational company comes, they're even worse and lower the standards because they get managed by locals here. You can blame the law that requires partial local ownership.

Oh damn that was a good suggestion

plus pinching the value of the worker every hour

The funny thing about socialists is that no one is stopping them from pooling and redistributing their money.

Ron, they want to redistribute our money not theirs...