Is life fair?

[Orion Alpha Ac-43]

Life is not fair, some people get everything some get nothing, people die people live.  Just deal with it.

[Tacolicious]

For such well paid people they can barely afford to feed themselves, they are often forced to work in dangerous conditions and at wages which will keep them alive, but will keep them from improving their lot in life. Considering the companies of the developed word are paying pennies on the dollar to the farmer who does the majority of the work it is not a fair situation. It is a situation which is not a response to a countries economy, but one which is designed to keep the bad times rolling.

Yes children could be prostitutes instead of factory labour, but mind you they could also be getting an education instead of sacrificing their futures to barely survive today.

[Towlie]

children are not forced into labor it outta necessity it ether get an education or put food on the table some countries thats just not a option. you cant learn if you are so sick that you cant sit upright. we got lucky and live in countries that we can make that choice.

In 1997, Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs said, "My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few."[1] Sachs and other proponents of sweatshops cite the economic theory of comparative advantage, which states that international trade will, in the long run, make most parties better off. The theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by doing something that they do "better" than industrialized nations (in this case, they charge less but do the same work). Developed countries will also be better off because their workers can shift to jobs that they do better. These are jobs that some economists say usually entail a level of education and training that is exceptionally difficult to obtain in the developing world. Thus, economists like Sachs say, developing countries get factories and jobs that they would not otherwise have had. Developed countries will be better off because of the decreased cost of producing various goods will drive down prices at home. Also, developed countries can specialize in the areas in which they do best.

When asked about the working condition in sweatshops, proponents say that although wages and working conditions may appear inferior by the standards of developed nations, they are actually improvements over what the people in developing countries had before. It is said that if jobs in such factories did not improve their workers' standard of living, those workers would not have taken the jobs when they appeared. It is also often pointed out that, unlike in the industrialized world, the sweatshops are not replacing high-paying jobs. Rather, sweatshops offer an improvement over subsistence farming and other back-breaking tasks, or even prostitution, trash picking, or starvation by unemployment.[1][2] This is the case since most under-developed countries have weak labor markets and little (if any) economic growth

The absence of the work opportunities provided by sweatshops can quickly lead to malnourishment or starvation. After the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution." UNICEF's 1997 State of the World's Children study found these alternative jobs "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production."[3]

Critics point out that sweatshop workers don't earn enough money to buy the products that they make, even though such items are often commonplace goods such as t-shirts, shoes, and toys. However, defenders of such practices respond that critics of sweatshops are comparing wages paid in one country to prices set in another. In 2003, Honduran garment factory workers were paid US$0.24 for each $50 Sean John sweatshirt, $0.15 for each long-sleeved t-shirt, and only five cents for each short-sleeved shirt – less than one-half of one percent of the retail price.[4] Although the wages paid to workers in Honduras would hardly be enough to live in the United States, it could very well be enough to live in Honduras, where prices are much lower. The $0.15 that a Honduran worker earned for the long-sleeved t-shirt was equal in purchasing power to $3.00 in the United States.

and amerca and gb both went  through a period that there was a lot of sweatshops in a period that there was a lot of development.
coca is a market traded commodity you cant just go and rip a farmer off  . and for much of the rest of the underdeveloped countries $usd3000 would buy about the nices houses in the area. the power of a dollar is way higher than more developed countries.

[Tacolicious]

Nice article, reminds me of all those "studies" funded by tobacco companies which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that smoking was not addictive and did not increase rates of lung cancer. Don't be fooled by multinational companies that just want to defend their practices to keep making maximum profit for themselves regardless of human cost.

Removing all the manufacturing jobs from the developed world not only hurts the poorer nations by destroying their (and since it's all interconnected, our) environment, forcing governments not to improve labour rights or protections with the threat of pulling out and moving to another country it also hurts the developed world as stable good paying jobs are replaced by short term, no benefit jobs or requiring expensive education and highly specialized skills in order to get stable jobs. Ultimately that system benefits a select few excessively and hurts far more people in return. So defend it all you want but you're ultimately defending the oligarchs of the world who bait people with these faulty logics and prevent any real progress for the average person.

[Towlie]

first i am gonna ignore the first part cause everything i can think of now would just turn into a personal attack and that isnt what this is about
anyway the jobs that are being sent over are 8-10 an hour if not done by machine ,not even enough to support a single person in a shit-hole rented house and unskilled labor is far from stable to have a  meaningful  and most importantly a stable job you must have skills and an education(at least a hs degree) . and over there it is helping a family that would starve without it and helping community around it by pumping money into the local economy that wouldnt be there in other ways.and if they were such bad job why would they be taken.  there nothing to force them to take them.

[Tacolicious]

Cyclic argument aside... it is a system of exploitation. Slap whatever blinders of nobility you want on it but it is an abusive and parasitic relationship.

[Towlie]

i am just saying it might be a evil and to more developed regions it seems bad but to the people that do the work its putting food on the table consistently and is helping towns survive that in other was might just die off if not for them

[Tacolicious]

and I'm just saying the same goal could be accomplished while improving the overall quality of life and ending a cycle of abuse and exploitation.

[Allama]

And I'm just saying Taco is right and there's no excuses a person can make to himself that make it stop being immoral to take advantage of people to pad his pockets.  Could he be doing something worse?  Of course.  Does that make it okay?  Absolutely not.

Also, I still maintain that there's no such thing as "fair" in the way the universe works.  You should simply take what you have and make the best of your life.  Do good where you can... for yourself, your loved ones, and anyone else you possibly can manage to help outside of that group.  That is a blessed life, no matter how much random chance seems to sway your path.

[Akka-Wakka]

And I'm just saying Taco is right and there's no excuses a person can make to himself that make it stop being immoral to take advantage of people to pad his pockets.

I doubt you meant it like this, but wouldn't the above phrase imply that the whole idea of capitalism is wrong?  After all, it only works because one person pays someone else less than himself, so that he can be better off.

Anyway, I'm just being nit picky. 

[Allama]

And I'm just saying Taco is right and there's no excuses a person can make to himself that make it stop being immoral to take advantage of people to pad his pockets.

I doubt you meant it like this, but wouldn't the above phrase imply that the whole idea of capitalism is wrong?  After all, it only works because one person pays someone else less than himself, so that he can be better off.

Hmmm... If taken to an extreme: yes, it would.  Did I mean it that way at the time?  No.  Could I ever mean such a thing in the future?  Most definitely.  The only reason I don't preach the downfall of capitalist systems entirely is because I'm still working on what to replace it with as no system yet in place seems a satisfyingly improvement.

This is a general warning to certain members of the forum who know who they are: I do not want to see this to turn into a capitalism vs. communism debate under any circumstances.  I simply wanted to answer the question Akka asked.  For the love of God, don't take this farther along that road.  Hugs and kisses. 

[Towlie]

ok the the reason i think that they are a necessary evil is it is a growing pain of developing countries they pump money into the economy and that will slowly improve the poverty level (example India witch is improving) and will improve the quality of life. lets not forget that america and britain both had them at the turn of the century, at a time of the industrial revolution. do i wish there was a better way ya, but it just how it has to be. it migh suck for now but little they know it they are working to improve the quality of life for there grandchildren and down the line.

[Tacolicious]

And I'm just saying Taco is right and there's no excuses a person can make to himself that make it stop being immoral to take advantage of people to pad his pockets.  Could he be doing something worse?  Of course.  Does that make it okay?  Absolutely not.

Oh sure... if someone is being exploited it has to be by a man.... That's sexist Al' 

I would like to point out that money ignores a few principal concepts of our reality.

First, that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed whereas money can be easily created(1) and easily destroyed(2).
 
(1)Nations can print money with little or no impacts on their economy; Counterfeiters can create money which if of proper quality still works as an economic medium to impel economic momentum; Countries like the US can continue to spend recklessly while being trillions of dollars in debt.
(2)The economy can not track money in small quantities, thus if you were to burn a $20 bill at no point would the economy be able to be tallied and show that $20 now being absent from the system

Second, all things seek a state of equilibrium whereas money only works when pooled into larger concentrations; hence the old adage it takes money to make money.

Third, all tangible things can be measured relative to other things. With money it has no relative value, as such an item can be worth anywhere from $0 (free) to $inf - 0.1x10^-inf and it's only worth is the imagined worth of this non-relative medium.

So the system of paper currency does not work and I think the results of using this unbalanced system should be quite clear as under this system we have now made our ability to survive on this world questionable, a feat never before accomplished.

As for your argument towlie, I think you need to go a little more in-depth into the history of the time and the economics of today. In the British empire this reduced standard of living (as we see it today) was the cutting edge of the world at the time. Dangerous, dirty factory jobs were not so much an option as they were the best that the technology of the time was able to create. Workers were able to seek improvements by refusing to work, and by petitioning the government. Due to the challenges of circumnavigating the globe the factories could not simply uproot and move to another part of the world, they needed the workers and the factories where they were already established and thus had to yield. This is no longer true as companies can and do uproot should the workers lot improve too much, as such they are kept to a minimum standard of living to allow them to be easily exploited. Without the ability to hold the company to account the standards will not improve, if you review the history you'll see that most every improvement to worker quality of life was opposed by the companies of which this improvements were demanded. Today the burden of responsibility to hold these companies to account for their exploitation of our fellow humans and of our world falls to all of us, and by defending them with illogical arguments which glaze over the history involved you allow this cycle to continue.

I don't have the answer as to which system should replace this one (yet) although as you might have realised I've been putting some thought into it. The first thing we need to do is balance want and need within this world. Reject pointless consumption and learn to make/do things for yourself. Question, learn, grow.

Fight the good fight my brothers and sisters!

[Akka-Wakka]

Towlie:
Sure, in the Victorian times in England, child labor was rife, what with workhouses and all that.  However, I think India is a bad comparison, although I may be wrong.

Here's why: The average Victorian may have lived a life of squalor, and be expected not to complain, but the Victorians were all for the self made man, and if you could improve your situation, good on you.  Life may not have been fair, but there wasn't really any direct system making it unfair.

This is the part where I may be wrong, so correct me if that is that case, but; In the caste system in India, one is expected not to try and rise above their caste.  If you are born an untouchable, forever an untouchable you will be.  In this case, there is an active system that favors particular individuals above others, and it is based on the one thing you have no control over, who you were born as.

[Towlie]

ok i agree that was a bad example i have nothing to say to that but you do get my point
anyway this is how i see your view, you want to take away jobs in a community that there is none except prostitution (horribly exploited and dangerous) or farming ( very dangerous and back-breaking) nether pay well and these sweatshops are giving a slightly better option and better paying. the pay may seem bad to us but they are being pay fairly well in their terms. dont forget inflation does not effect every nation the same for instance, a 400,000 (about 20x20) apartment in NYC would be about 2,000 in ecuador and i would imagine that would be the same in most 3rd world countries.and let not forget there is nothing forcing them to do these jobs. they are just playing their hand the best way as they see it.