Welcome to Vivirlatino, Gus!

Actually, this is NOT good. If your goal, as I’m sure it is, is to improve the quality of life of underdeveloped countries workers, than you should support sweatshops, not condemn them.

You don’t have to take my word for it, ask Paul Kruman himself, and ask any economist, they will all tell you the same thing.

In other words, these ’social activists’ have made things worse for underdeveloped workers, not better.

Gustavo,

Did you actually read Paul Krugman’s article? He was defending both, ’sweatshops’ that paid little and ’sweatshops’ that had ‘appalling working conditions’. In the article Paul Krugman writes, “The occasion was an op-ed piece I had written for the New York Times, in which I had pointed out that while wages and working conditions in the new export industries of the Third World are appalling, they are a big improvement over the “previous, less visible rural poverty.”"(emphasis added)

Why do you think economists are universally in agreement that sweatshops, both the ones that pay low wages and the ones with ‘appalling working conditions’ are good? The answer is simple, because the workers wouldn’t be working there if the circumstances weren’t better than their alternative situation.

Benjamin Powell, a professor of economics at San Jose State University, puts it this way:

And we admit that by Western standards, sweatshops have abhorrently low wages and poor working conditions. However, economists point out that alternatives to working in a sweatshop are often much worse: scavenging through trash, prostitution, crime, or even starvation.

Economics professor Don Boudreaux writes:

Powell’s and Skarbek’s lesson is straightforward and important. But it’s a lesson too often ignored by “activists” who would rather pose and prance as moral crusaders than analyze situations in ways that might actually help people. The lesson is summarized by what I call “The Economist’s Question: “As compared to what?”

In and of itself, situation A is neither good nor bad; it is good or bad only in comparison with it’s real alternatives. This lesson is a hard one, perhaps — it’s certainly an unromantic one — but it’s indispensable for sound analysis.

In other words, you take those sweatshops away, you punish companies for having sweatshops, and you will make those in underdeveloped countries worse off, not better.

If your goal is to improve the quality of life of those in underdeveloped countries, you should do the exact opposite of what these ’social activists’ tell you to do, you should buy more from companies that operate sweatshops, not less.

HP, I don’t even know how we got on the whole sweatshop thing this article was on immigration! lol

You could say that sweatshops (and Che, for that matter) are a bit of a sensitive spot for me. But you’re right, since this article was originally about immigration, I will bow out and let those interested in more of this discussion, to read this, where I discussed this very thing in great detail on my blog.

Again, congrats for getting on VivirLatino, you know I have to get on my high horse every now and than.