Again, with this week discussing economics I would like to discuss another issue: Sweatshops.
Now a sweatshop, as defined by wikipedia, is: a working environment with conditions that are considered by many people of industrialized nations to be difficult or dangerous, usually where the workers have few opportunities to address their situation. This can include exposure to harmful materials, hazardous situations, extreme temperatures, or abuse from employers. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for little pay, regardless of any laws mandating overtime pay.
Now with that said, there are arguments for and against sweatshops. First those who believe sweatshops are actually good. These individuals say that it is actually better to have sweatshops (say in other countries like China) because it offers abject individuals jobs, instead of these individuals turning to other areas to make money (selling drugs, prostitution). Next, there are those who do not support sweatshops. These individuals say it is fundamentally wrong to have an individual work in such terrible conditions for such little pay. In other words, working in a sweatshop is a menial existence with no growth; you are simply a cog in a large machine.
Now I personally am against the idea of sweatshops even though all my clothes probably come from them. I can understand how individuals say that it is better to work in a sweatshop than to participate in other, dangerous ways of making money; however, it still doesn't seem right to me that individuals have to work in sweatshops.
Do you think there should be any universal laws that deal with such economic inquiry? If such laws were available, would they even be enforceable? Could it work?
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I forgot to add the natural law part to this: is it a "natural" disposition that sweatshops are wrong?
ReplyDeleteI think that maybe you could argue that there is a universal natural law of "fairness", or something like that. Everyone deserves fairness (at least at the hands of other humans, hurricanes and earthquakes are never fair). In this case, I don't think sweatshops are fair to the workers. For all the money that companies make off of the hard work and long hours workers put in, very little goes to the workers. I do not think this is fair. It's a stretch, but I think some law of fairness could be used here.
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