http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-24/australian-retailers-linked-to-sweatshop-abuse/4773738

Having read this article this morning, and being mindful of the ridiculously low prices charged for clothing and other items in some department stores, I'm troubled by the reliance Westerners have on other people's misery.

I'm particularly interested in the contrary nature of feminist principles in modern society.

Our society in the fortunate West extols the virtues of women being released from household "drudgery". Women, apparently, are no longer tied to domestic chores, and have been set free to move into the "workplace" in whatever role they wish to pursue.

No longer do women make clothes, and many spend more time watching cooking shows on TV than they do actually cooking. Things are prepacked and ready to go at supermarkets, etc, etc.

Feminist sensibilities are alive to the slightest nuance uttered in criticism of the modern Western way.

I'm wondering how the corporatised and feminised West okays a situation where third world women slave for a pittance to provide goods almost indecently inexpensive so that Western women don't have to either pay a decent price enabling them a decent wage or, perish the thought, make their own clothing.

Not only that, but much Western clothing produced in developing countries (being so cheap) is often jettisoned while it's in perfectly good condition. These clothes are then bagged up and distributed for sale in poor overseas countries like Africa, therefore destroying local garment industries - not to mention cultural dress.

How can Western feminist and corporate principles, the bedrock of modern Western society, ignore the plight of their developing world sisters in the scheme of things - a model which sees the Western feminist principle supported by the lowly paid toil of poor women?

To be fair Poirot, the feminists have no more responsibility than anyone else in the west really. They could acknowledge how women have benefited from labour saving goods, or in true feminist spirit, they could just say it's all the fault men.

I'm in constant state of amazement at how cheap everything is, especially at Bunnings. Low prices are just the beginning!

I look at a ladder for $7.56, and think how can they even transport it for that price. Yes I know about loss leading...

One does long for things to be more expensive with some way of guaranteeing longevity of the product, as who really likes going shopping and choosing between 25 brands of toaster? The trouble is there is just no way of knowing whether you are paying for quality or the perception of quality.

When you pay more, are you paying for a brand, or for decent working conditions, or for quality. Unlikely. So you might as well just choose the cheapest + 2. Not the bottom brand, a few rungs up, not the ridiculously expensive one.

It's got to the state one would have to do a 300 page thesis with a year of research to be sure that the exact toaster you bought conforms to your expectations on quality and worker conditions and environmental principals and all the while looking nice next to the organic bread maker! Who has the time?

I feel (so it must be valid, I'm just learning feeling is more important than knowing) that these issues can only be addressed at a macro level, as there is too much waste in micro-level and putting the onus on the consumer.

Raising awareness is the end game, and now, we are aware, like we were about the cows in Malaysia, we can feel smug that 'we know', and it's the corporate neo-con military industrial complex and now feminism's fault!

I suppose the feminist can content themselves that they are less guilty than men. Like any social problem or historical wrong, women can safely say they were just hapless victims of the Patriarchy

You raise an interesting and important question, Poirot. More importantly, you shed light in a significant problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, though.

After reading your post and the article, I did a quick survey of what I am wearing. Shorts from China; a t-shirt from Bangladesh; a jumper from China and a watch from Switzerland. I didn't check my underpants, but will assume they were also made with cheap labour somewhere in Asia.

None of the clothes I am wearing are astoundingly cheap, which means that the chain of companies that span the gap from the sweatshop to my wardrobe is making a killing on them. I don't know where I can get quality Australian-made clothing for a comparable price, though. I'll admit that I don't actively search for Australian-made clothes very often, but when I do it is very hard to find. Specialist items made by the likes of RM Williams, Driza-Bone, etc. may be exceptions - I'm not sure - but they don't really fit into my everyday clothing options.

Assuming, then, that our clothes will continue to be sourced from Asian sweatshops, what do we do to improve conditions for those who make them? Regulate the mark-ups permitted on goods imported and distributed in Australia? This would either drive our businesses completely under or have some success. If a 50% markup is permitted, then a shirt made for $0.20 could sell for $0.30. In order to make a profit, the companies would have to pay more for the goods (pay $10.00 for a shirt and sell it for $15.00), which sends money back down the supply chain. But does the money get to the workers in that case, or just fatten the business owners?

I know it's a naive idea, but I can't think of much better.

'Not only that, but much Western clothing produced in developing countries (being so cheap) is often jettisoned while it's in perfectly good condition. '

Now, who is at fault.

One would think the person who buys the clothes. But you'd be wrong Poirot!

You might think it's the fashion industry promoting the every changing fashion, or the women buying into it or the women's magazines. Nope, still wrong.

You might think it's a general problem that people actually have so much expendable income they can just discard useful items. But you'd be wrong!

The real reason, just ask a feminist, is the 'Male Gaze'. It goes like this.

1. Men are attracted to women....
Bingo! Men's fault

2. Men like attractive women.
3. Women like to attract men.
4. Women like the ritual of making themselves more attractive
5. Women buy into the whole fashion world, buying magazines full of adverts about clothes and make-up
6. Women who haven't the money to buy 'designer' clothes (apparently cheap clothes have no design, they just fall together), pay for cheap imitation designer clothes made in sweat shops.
7. Men look on bemused at why their wife has a new outfit ever other week, when they buy clothes once every few years and wear their undies until they literally fall apart.
8. Meanwhile women in the third world are exploited by the demand for cheap clothes.

So, I think we have proved, that if men stopped being attracted to women, there would be no sweat shops. Additionally then women wouldn't starve themselves to become the super-models they aspire to be as a result of them putting clothes at the center of their universe. This is all men's fault, even if the men don't even notice the changing fashions and have a hard time describing clothes in any other terms beside primary colours.

It's the male gaze that is the trouble I tell ya!

Well, you're right, Houellie...I realise I seem to be laying laying the entire responsibility at the feet of feminists - and the responsibility rests with all of us.

My point was, though, to ask how can feminists ignore (as you put it in another thread) "the source" of their own freedom - and that it comes from the exploitation of "other" women - and men?

On the subject of Western attitudes in general, particularly pertaining to another big Western market - third world-sourced electronics, this satirical skit from the team at Saturday Night Live puts things in perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDKfGEw4aU

(Really worth a watch, Houellie. SNL - brilliantly using humour as a vehicle for socio-economic commentary...which often gets the message across best)

Poirot you forget one thing, most of those sweet shop workers do have a choice, they could stay down on the farm. Most of them do have a short holiday back home, & choose to come back, so the sweet shop must be better than the farm.

Their conditions in many instances do bare some similarity to that experienced by European workers during the early stage of our own industrial revolution. Not great, but better than what they had.

I used to get stuff made in Taiwan, the new sweet shop country, after Japan had advanced past that stage. In only a decade their labor became too expensive, & too much of it had moved to administrative tasks. They were still supplying us, but were having the product made in China.

It will take longer in China, where some farmers are still living in caves, but it will happen, & happen all the sooner with industrialization. A generation or perhaps 2 will pay the price for a better richer future for all of them. Us denying them the work would be bad news for most of them.

Thanks for the thread Poirot, it is one I would like to see talked about in every western country.
I however want to look from the other sides point of view.
Yes we should be ashamed about the way these folk live and work, and should support them.
But we should avoid at all costs, taking the work away from them.
How? if we paid just 50 cents more on every item,after being assured it would be paid to the worker?
I see no other way we can help without us who can afford it paying more.

Otokonoko I'm afraid you are showing your naivety.

I did once put on post here the cost of doing business in Oz, & won't give the full story again. I will give a quick idea.

On an item landed from China for $2.00 it goes something like this.

Cost of display packaging $2.00

Cost of warehousing, packing, invoicing, carrying credit, & administrative overheads $2.50

Cost of marketing $2.00

Average cost of freight to retailers Oz wide, $9.00

Add customs costs, insurance & a few incidentals, & by the time it has reached your retailer it owes you about $19.00.

Allow say $4.00 profit margin $23.00

The retailer requires 50% mark up when he might have the stock for months, so retail price would be $34.50 for that $2.00 item.

At these margins many importers, wholesalers & retailers are going broke. A company needs to be super efficient to stay afloat in face of competition, & increasing overheads. If you had staff working at academic or bureaucrat speeds you would have to at least double those costs.

Thanks for the post Poirot. I to don't know how feminist or men help the millions being used as slaves. At the heart of it is that most of us don't think much about where our cheap clothing comes from. The abhorent cultural practices and inbuilt greed in human nature leads to this abuse. I am not convinced any of us would be much different to the abusers if grown up in such corrupt socities.

Poirot, there is no feminist conscience, there's just women who've fallen for a con job.

Don't disparage them, pity them, because their world is going to collapse around them all too soon and I doubt that they'll find much sympathy from the men they trampled in their rush to get on the gravy train.

Dear Poirot,

There is great diversity in the economic and
social conditions and cultural traditions
in Third World countries. We in the West have
to be careful not to impose our values onto
these women. We need to not only listen, but
also hear things from their point of view.
I guess what I am trying to say is the West
needs to ask what sort of support is needed,
however it also needs to let them lead their
own battles.

It may be hard for us to understand that they will
not seek to achieve their "liberation," by
denigrating their religion or culture or by forcing
upon their communities inappropriate priorities
and demands. However I feel sure that with the
right kind of support, they will do it their way.
They need to do it their way.

We don't want to try to inflict on them what is
"foreign" and "offensive" (i.e. values from a First
World perspective).

Anyway, here's a link that may be of interest:

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_11_02_06_cohen.pdf

Has any feminist ever given up chocolate? OK, that is too savage, too impossible. Like cutting out Big Brand bags and shoes (Hey, it isn'y only cheap clobber that is made in sweatshops). Eeeeek, Nooooo! No way!

Hmmmm, what about giving up one bar of chocolate then?

No need, apparently it is important to put multiculturalism first. Besides, the children can work it out their way. There ARE priorities in political correctness you know.

Chocolate
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dark-side-chocolate/

Yo, Lexi,

I'm trying to understand how it is that we can source our goods from companies that provide conditions for their workers that we wouldn't permit in any shape or form in our own society.

I'm thinking that's very wrong.

So it's not so much about them "leading" themselves out of these travails, but of us ceasing to exploit them in this way.

How can it be right to have our companies source goods from these people when they are treated in ways that emulate the worst horrors of our own industrial revolution.....so that we can walk into places like Kmart and buy at rock bottom prices. I mean to say, clothes are cheaper in some department stores now than they were thirty years ago.

So I read stories of eight year-old children in Pakistan working with toxic chemicals and dust to make balloons for eight year-old Western kids to pat around at parties.

I read stories of villages full of grandparents raising children who only get to see their parents once a year - that's whole villages housing only children and old people.

I read stories of Foxxcon putting up nets around its buildings to stop people jumping off the roof to commit suicide.

And all of this is so we can buy stuff at rock-bottom prices, use it, discard it and buy some more...even some charities have become corporatised because these days there's so much profit to be made from good quality rarely used cast-offs.

Lexi,

We exploit them - and we pretend we're doing them a favour.

Lexi,

I'll just add that it's a "first world perspective" that delivers them into these factories in the first place.

A first world perspective that wants lots and lots of "stuff"...and it wants it very cheaply.

I can understand a developing country engaging in manufacture, making the things it needs and exporting the rest.

Globalisation, however, delivers the precise arrangements for the exploitation of people in developing economies.

And most of us couldn't give a hoot, because we get lots of stuff, and we get it cheap.

Thanks for your feedback, Hasbeen. Like I said - I know it's naive! I'm very publicly exposing my economic ignorance here, but I certainly don't pretend to be an expert.

Ultimately, though, a solution to the problem identified by Poirot needs to achieve three aims:

1) We in the West must continue to have access to affordable clothing
2) The workers who make those items of clothing must be able to earn a sustainable income
3) The conditions in which those workers make those items of clothing must be safe and, once again, sustainable (which is likely to increase the cost of production)

I don't know how to achieve them simultaneously. Logic says that if we want to bring the bottom up without pushing the top further up, the cuts have to come from the middle. No business likes to lose its share of the profit, though, and that's understandable. I really have no idea how to keep everyone happy!

Poirot,, I can understand why you are so concerned, but it is too late because the horse has already bolted.

Western countries, and others, are not going to give up their 'cheap' goods and throw-away lifestyle, and developing countries are not going to give up their jobs in manufacturing and exports of cheap (and not so cheap) products.

Any change in conditions etc within those factories and companies in developing countries will have to come from within, just like it did for Western countries during the industrial revolution.
And I believe it has already started, given that communication and movement of peoples between countries is so much more prolific today.

The women ( and men) working in those 'sweat shops' will almost certainly have some idea about how they should be treated, but it will take time to make this happen.

Poirot,

<How can Western ... corporate princip[als] ...ignore the plight of their developing world sisters>>

Heck! we all know that they are robber barons and couldn't give a rats @** about anything other than their profits --you told us that, remember?

<How can Western feminist(S)...ignore the plight of their developing world sisters >>

Very easily, have a look at the Q&A session involving Germain Greer and see how craftily she tippy-toed around offering any criticism of the oppression of women in the Middle East.

But quite apart from all that, what is the solution?

What is YOUR solution, Poirot?

Or, is this another one of those issues where you are going to sit on the verandah and whine (wine?) about everyone else?

There is a process at work here, and it (roughly) goes like this.

We buy stuff. We look for a balance between price and quality. If we can only afford low quality, that's fine. If we can afford high quality, that's fine too.

Incidentally, it doesn't much matter whether we are talking t-shirts or mobile phones, the principle is the same.

Businesspeople (yep, those nasty folk) work on the basis of providing goods and services that meet that demand, in its various manifestations. And at some point, they realize that their customers are not going to buy and Australian-made computer, or an Australian-made shoe, or an Australian-made t-shirt, because we cannot produce the appropriate quality at an appropriate cost.

So those nasty businesspeople get on a plane, and find somewhere that will meet the demand, at the price that will enable them to sell their product in Australia.

Now, here's the catch.

If they demand that those manufacturers meet Australian conditions, salaries, perks etc., nothing will happen. No t-shirts will be produced. The workers will stay on their farms, and not be attracted to the cities by the higher wages (and those dreadful working conditions), and everyone will be happy.

Won't they?

Europe went through this thing called the Industrial Revolution, a couple of hundred years ago. Wouldn't we all be so much better off, if they hadn't built all those dark, satanic mills, and the folk had stayed on their farms instead?

Wouldn't we?

SPQR,

I don't have a solution.

My main point was to examine the hypocrisy of first world women enjoying an emancipated lifestyle riding on the back of exploitation of third world women.

To me it raised questions about feminist ideology - in that women are only emancipated here because women are indentured elsewhere.

Imagine if the flow of goods suddenly ceased? We'd be hopeless...Some women might have to wear last years fashions : )

Anyway, I don't expect anything will change unless it has to. Humans are hypocrites...and none of us lives next door to a sweat shop.

Out of sight - out of mind.

As you were.....

Pericles,

I get that you're saying that it's all a "process".

First we get the exploitation and the unbelievable cruelty - and then the spring flowers grow.

So Westerners who remember the stories of how men and women were treated during the industrial revolution - kids in factories and mines who were stunted, locked in , beaten, starved etc (all true).....can think it will all be hunky-dory somewhere down the track.

So if you sat down a Westerner and explained the intricacies of these cruelties that are supposedly relegated to the annals of history, they would be shaking their heads, aghast and wondering how people could be treated like that -"back then".

But those very same people will happily walk into a shop and buy the stuff they need - made by people "now" who are being treated in the same manner.

So you're saying that knowledge and disgust of past practices has no impact on our principles these days - if it's not waved under our nose then it's not worth a moment's consideration.

Strange species, humans

What is the solution Poirot.

It's the same reason people eat meat but couldn't shoot a cow, and people for some reason seem to care when 100 people die in their own country but not 10000 people die in another country.

'But those very same people will happily walk into a shop and buy the stuff they need - made by people "now" who are being treated in the same manner.'

As I said, it's impossible to make ethical buying choices, as the information is too hard to collate given how many buying choices one is making, and given that the end result is probably that the factory worker you're trying to help will end up with no job; if by some fluke enough people cared enough to turn their shopping trips into an exercise in research of ethical goods production.

But, as you say, the phenomena could be recognized a bit more by people, but what practical effect does it really serve, apart from 'raising awareness', given we cant really control much more than the odd ban on nestle or whatever.

'So you're saying that knowledge and disgust of past practices has no impact on our principles these days - if it's not waved under our nose then it's not worth a moment's consideration.'

These sporadic outbursts of outrage and indignation and bad press blow over, as nobody really has the energy to apply that blow torch to everything they buy.

I think a more prevalent issue of hypocrisy is feminisms ideal of cheap childcare, which screws childcare workers, who are predominantly women, which in itself is not unrelated to the feminist characterization of all men as potential pedophiles. There's a sea of contradiction in most ideologies.

Like I said on another thread, I think there were other ways to gain women financial independence than making women do domestic work for strangers rather than their own families, and have families with 2 wage slaves and outsourcing the parenting.

Good topic Poirot. We have become a greed society no longer content to save up for the things we can now buy on credit or more cheaply thanks to exploitative conditions in the developing world.

I try to have faith that this is short term and the eventual raising of the developing world's economies will even out the playing field, reduce populations through greater prosperity and education...but something about it does not feel right and some of the effects are cruel.

The Greens are asking for governments to make new guidelines around sweatshops and ill-treatment of workers an issue for trade negotiations. This might be a good start but like many people, I don't know the long term answer. My feelings tend to sit around more protectionist policies (regulated to ensure monopolies don't fester) as nations tend to do better when they can supply their own food on their own terms. The spin off effects locally appear to be more positive than when much of what is produced is shipped offshore. The irony in this is as far as food is concerned the only benefactors are the middlemen. Consumers often pay the same for food produced here in Australia as overseas. Farmers in Australia are also realising poorer prices for goods but still have to live in the same economy as those who think they are benefitting from cheaper food. Clothing is a little different for other reasons.

It is not an easy problem to solve, any solutions will bring out the ire of those who are making money out of the status quo and who have the biggest lobby groups.

Houellie,

Totally with you, particularly in reference to your last two paragraphs.

I'm not saying there is a solution - at least not one that anybody wishes to broach. Nor am I saying that somehow Poirot lives outside the paradigm she is describing. My house has just as much cheap imported crap as the next one, although I try and limit my throw-away mentality.

As I said earlier, my main point was that we can congratulate ourselves for women's empowerment in our society (although, as you point out, much of it is not empowerment at all - just a different way and more choice in how one slugs it out)......but our good fortune is entirely dependent on the exploitation of women (and men and children) in less developed societies.

I'm not trying to solve it here, just ruminating on the fact.

It's nothing to do with feminist conscience, Poirot...

But it is to do with human consciousness. Or rather, our brains' ability to only fully concentrate on one thing at a time (claims of multi-tasking ability by people not characterised as 'estrogen deficient' notwithstanding).

We spend most of our time mostly unaware of most things happening to most other people in the world.

To do otherwise is to risk madness at the unremitting impossibilty of coping with all those travails on billions of people's behalf.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to care where we can.

But each of us tends to start with those closest to us emotionally, physically and geographically.

Humans have usually been hunter/gatherers. Some just now do this on the rubbish tips of Manila or Sao Paulo.

Usually it is their choice... Madonna can only adopt so many third world children.

WmTrevor,

Obviously it's overwhelmingly a human issue.

But, as I've mentioned, how can feminists, who would trumpet progress in our society, ignore the system (and its cruelties) which facilitates the liberties and choices Western women enjoy?

Equally as obvious is the fact that we can't be mindful of everyone in this world and their conditions as we go about our daily life.

But when a whole paradigm is constructed on the bedrock of "other people" being exploited - for our benefit.

Well.......?

Dear Poirot,

I don't mean to infer that these women are
not being exploited. Of course they are.
Or that nothing should be done by us.

I recently watched on TV the plight of women
in Bangladesh and the factories and sweat shops
there, the appaling working conditions that these women
have to put up with for the measley sums they're
being paid. And this is being done by well known
and "respected" companies out in the West.

However these women can't worry about other
matters when their children are dying from
thirst, hunger or war. They take whatever is
available in order to try to survive. So it's
a complex situation.

In the Bangladesh story - at least one outcome
was achieved by human rights organisations demanding the
improvement of working conditions in these factories.
And having the improvements passed into legislation. That is
a step in the right direction. Of course enforcing this
legislation is a difficult task. However, we in the
West can apply pressure
and publicity to these multinational organisations in the West,
letting people know just where their products are
being made and under what conditions. Apart from doing
that I don't know what else can be done.

Realistically, we know that the motives
of these companies are purely selfish - to exploit
cheap labour and resources on an international
scale for the benefit of a handful of stockholders
in wealthy countries.

These huge organisations have developed more quickly
than have the means of applying social control over
them. Dedicated to the pursuit of profit and subject
to the authority of no one nation, run by a tiny elite
of managers and directors, they represent a disturbing
and growing concentration of global power and influence.
Not sure how much influence we can exert on them in the
West. But as you rightly point out - we are obligated
ethically to at least try.

"Well.......?"

Yes, thank you, Poirot, and relaxed and comfortable. But not, I don't think, so self-satisfied as to be beyond redemption.

"But when a whole paradigm is constructed on the bedrock of "other people" being exploited - for our benefit."

The bedrock of Ancient Greek democracy and the traditions underpinning Western civilisation was that 90% of the population was literally and figuratively enslaved so that 10% could prosper, ruminate and philosophise... so, nothing new about the human paradigm of personal benefit.

Remember, in the 'good old days' it used to be permissible to kill slaves as long as they were your own. So some conditions have certainly improved.

Unless you are a slave owner.

I didn't ask anyone to leave the subsistance existence of their village or rural community for the favelas or slums of a city, to toil in conditions I would regard as exploitative. But I would hope they have the freedom of choice to return if such an existence is intolerable.

Whenever Mum cooked something inedible (her egg and asparagus cassorole was infamous) and six children would refuse to eat it all up and she would rebuke with "There are millions of children in Africa who'd be grateful for that" our teenager-mentality response was to challenge her to name any two or three.

These days you could probably Google those names... makes a difference of perception.

But even after eating our food those 'millions of children' hadn't, and were still hungry. But Mum stopped complaining.

WmTrevor,

Yep, one would think that the shanty towns and favelas are filled with people who made their way to the city outskirts out of choice.

Some do, of course, and many are born into these settlements, but for others.....

I suppose technically it is "a choice" to relocate when your home environment is appropriated by those with bigger fish to fry.

http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/10104422/Liberia-and-the-vanishing-rainforest.html

Often it's enacted by a government at the behest of structural adjustments dictated by the West's doormen the IMF or the World Bank et al.

It's one thing not take any blame for the poor and subsistence circumstances of people in third world countries.

It's entirely another to exacerbate them for our own "wasteful" lifestyle.

Just sayin', of course....

The agenda is to bring about a form of world socialism [employment equality] by creating employment in third world countries and dismissing highly payee first world employees and so create equal work and pay opportunities. The world will become a happy medium with equal employment and unemployment worldwide managed by highly paid bureaucrats. Australia is going down the path of becoming the worldwide mean. It means open borders and level playing field in manufacturing, and the social mean in gender status.

The western world likes a bargin and third world can now afford those same bargains, even if they cannot afford enough food. Poverty is commonplace in African nations but almost all have the latest in mobile phones. They live in mud huts and entertain themselves with the latest TV's.

Not exactly, Poirot.

>>I get that you're saying that it's all a "process". First we get the exploitation and the unbelievable cruelty - and then the spring flowers grow.<<

I was framing it more as "first you have demand, then you have supply".

If you wish to flagellate yourself over the fact that you have created that demand, that is your prerogative. But different parts of the world have developed at different rates, and the nature of commerce is that it is largely synchronized with that development.

>>Westerners who remember the stories of how men and women were treated during the industrial revolution - kids in factories and mines who were stunted, locked in , beaten, starved etc (all true).....can think it will all be hunky-dory somewhere down the track<<

Not for them, of course. But their great-great-grandchildren certainly benefited from their - entirely voluntary - choices. Which, I suspect, was in the minds of those satanic-mill factory folk all along. And, quite likely, is currently in the minds of Bangladeshi women making similar decisions today.

Human beings have always been quite keen on finding a way of life "better" than the one they have. It is not really up to you to make the decision as to what exactly is "better" for them.

The underlying irony is, of course, that these people rely heavily upon our prosperity, to help them create theirs.

Will it be better for them, do you think, when we can't afford their products? Which could happen, if our economy slows at the same time as we are exhorting them to raise their prices.

Well, well, Josephus...that's about as simplistic as they come.

Here's an example of people who received a house and electricity and TV. They didn't ask to be relocated from their land on the Mekong and put to work in factories (if they're lucky), but that's progress.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6344

Read the first few paragraphs about how life was before. It probably involved a lot of hard yakka, but sustenance seems as if it was plentiful. We have this vision that all people in developing nations must be destitute before "development - not so.

(Btw, 90 percent of the electricity generated by the damming this part of the river is sold to a neighbouring country)

Interestingly this is what industrialisation looks like on the Yangtze.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-04/07/content_28468610.htm

Still, no worries, all the people who depended on the fisheries can go and work in one of dem factories and come home once a year to see their families.

http://www.documentary.org/magazine/made-china-last-train-home-documents-life-migrant-worker

I realise I'm waffling in the wind here, and this is the way it is.

However, we keep telling ourselves how "enlightened" we are these days.

?

I think it's wrong that all these very poor ladies in 3rd world countrys have to work very hard for a very low money when lots of western men make great money by putting special well known lables on the very cheap cloths and sell them at a very high price in the Western Countrys.

Where I was born I remember all the ladies in out town worked very very hard not for profit but for the government, with the smallist wage paid to them and coupons and vochers and other government permits. We had a small garden in the yard at the back of our house and growed vegetables which helped a lot with our food but in winter with snow and ice and stuff you could not grow anything at all. Here in this country we don't have to work at all and yet we still have much food.

Making woman work very hard for little wages is wrong and like making them into slaves for a few rich western country mens benefit!

Hasbeen, you commented back a couple of pages, that China will take
a generation or two to reach a higher standard of living for all.

Big problem there, that will require their economy to grow by say,
six or eight times its present size.

Do you really think that China, India and a number of other Asian
countries can reach western standards of living ?

It is just not possible.
Then what about Africa ? They will not want to be left out.
There is not the energy rate of supply to do that size job.

There will be an evening out of standards in the whole world and that
is only possible if our standard starts falling towards that of the third world.
There is one alternative, a very large reduction in world population.

No Bazz I do not, & I doubt some of them, in some areas will be out of poverty in 50 years. I do expect their own internal economy will do much for them in the near future.

In the same vane I think much of China will have a standard of living risen to equal most what most western countries standard has fallen to within not much more than a couple of decades.

The quality of the governments will decide which countries do well, & which don't. This means many Mediterranean, African & Asian countries will go nowhere but down.

It is pretty obvious that states with too much welfare are only surviving if they have a special advantage, such as hydrocarbons, minerals, or a special geographic position & brilliant government.

How do you reckon we are going to go. Do you think our special advantage can overcome our handout mentality, & lousy government?

I was thinking about misanthrope's post.

Clearly in the garment industry the majority of workers are women, I don't know who's making the money (or who benefits from it).

I came across a couple of interesting articles which might be of interest for this discussion when trying to get some sense of the gender focus in misanthropes post

- http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/garment-workers
- http://www.actu.org.au/Media/Speechesandopinion/Whydowestandforsweatshoplabour.aspx

Also an interesting paper discussing some of the issues around migrant workers in China that I've only skimmed so far. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---integration/documents/publication/wcms_097744.pdf

R0bert

Thanks RObert.

Pericles,

The resources of how many Earths would be required for the entire world's population to emulate the wasteful extravagance of the West?

(I believe the answer to that is about 3 1/2)

It's extraordinary that we excuse our exploitation of these people on the grounds that we are supposedly helping them prepare the way for a life of excess as experienced in the West.

Lexi,

My point being that it is "us" who depend on these practices for a continuum of our present lifestyle. We sanction (or at least turn a blind eye to) this type of corporate slavery because we're the one's who benefit. It's not happening in front of us, so it's easy to dismiss it or to contort it into some kind of feel good platitude about "lifting them out of poverty".

Baaaaah.

Careful there Poirot, you're starting to rant.

All this time you have resisted, & we have only suspected you may be a radical rat bag deep green feminist twit. Referring to rat bag publications can only deepen that suspicion.

Thanks, Hasbeen.

I always find it useful to be given rancorous criticism by the more odious of OLO's contributors.

It let's me know I'm on the right track.

Cheers : )

Hasben,
I don't think anyone knows how well, relative to the rest of the world,
we will do in an era of zero growth and expensive fuels.
One thing will be certain and that is all countries will be much more
reliant on their own efforts for manufacturing most products.

No longer will you buy; I was going to say furniture but that is largely local made now;
the more common items that are now imported but from the local maker in
your own town or nearest city.

Our biggest problem will be the widespread suburbs. Public transport
will need to be expanded dramatically, but we may not be able to afford it.
Look how much effort, political and financial is being required to
build just one suburban rail line in NW Sydney !

These are problems for the next say, 20 years, but in the longer term
we will be a much more agricultural society, looking more like the
end of the 19th century than the 21st century.

Just as I thought, same old same old…

So let’s see, the rest of the world tells Bangladesh that it will not buy its sweatshop goods (forgetting that similar can be found in the poorer suburbs of Oz).

I can envisage three likely scenarios :

a) Bangladeshi is unable or unwilling to comply, industries close hundreds of thousands loose their livelihood, thousands commit suicide , and thousands more are killed in the resulting civil unrest.

Up pops Poirot on a new thread telling us how bad we were to boycott Bangladeshi goods (as she does now at every opportunity with the Iraqi boycotts).

b) Bangladesh agrees to change but tells us it needs huge infusions of aid . Aid is poured in (Oz ditches Gonski, the NBN, and halves all MPs pay to meet its side of the plan), but much of it ends up lining the pockets of the Bangladeshi uppers classes --who if they are anything like their Indian counterparts, are hugely more ostentatious than the OZ upper classes and more numerous than all of Oz’s social classes combined.

Up pops Poirot on a new thread telling us how foolhardy we were to simply hand-out aid.

c) We transfer the aid to Bangladesh through a strictly controlled UN program.However, when UN inspectors are sent in to monitor compliance Bangladeshi authorities give them the run around . The UN issues an ultimatum but Bangladesh responds that it has no business interfering in Bangladeshi internal affairs . A UN lead multinational force is sent enforce compliance .

Up pops Poirot on a new thread (if Arjay doesn't beat her to it) telling us how she has read in Naomi Klein’s latest blog that the intervention is all part of a Western plot to seize the resources of Bangladesh , namely, its highly lucrative sweatshops.

We just cant win!

SPQR,

"We just can't win!"

No, the problem is that you just can't reason.

The Iraqi sanctions weren't put in place to stop corporate slavery. They were put in place to cripple a nation and its people so the US and its allies could bomb the sh!t out it with as little opposition as possible.

In fact, what the US and its allies managed to do in Iraq was to sanction and bomb an advanced middle-eastern country back into the dark ages.

(Shouldn't you be practicing those dance steps with LEGO, and not wasting your time spouting fiction on threads like this?)

Women in third world countries are majority controlled by Islamic Governments as is the United Nations, so women will always be not more than slaves in these countries.

Talking of “spouting fiction”
Your expertise in hyperbole must put you in the running for the Booker:
<< the US and its allies managed to do in Iraq was to sanction and bomb an advanced middle-eastern country back into the dark ages>>
Though, I guess you’d be ruled ineligible by the fact that most of your lines are lifted ( plagiarized) from Naomi’s blogs
Have you spoken to any Kurds about their new “dark age” –No, I guess not!

And on the issue of reason .How is it that you are seemingly unmoved by Saddams tyrannical rule yet hyperventilate about sweatshop in Bangladesh--or more tellingly, are silent about the slavery Josephus alludes to below,eh?

(And please don’t come back with that old line about him being an American ally –that does not answer the question

That's fairly low, SPQR.

Ahem, I have no need to plagiarize, dearie.....or do ya tink I'm a tad thicker than I make out?

And I will come back with that line about him being an American ally - because that's what he was when it suited the US.

I note the US was good chums with Saddam while he was belting the daylights out of the Iranians...even when they knew he was spraying gas about quite liberally in their direction.

So tell me how totally destroying Iraqi infrastructure was a good thing. Tell me how totally destabilising their relatively advanced society has been helpful to Iraqis?

And if it was all about relieving Iraqis of Saddam's tyrannical rule, it makes one wonder why the US hasn't popped over to Zimbabwe to relieve them in the same fashion of Mugabe.

Could it be that there's nothing there that the US wishes to have influence over?

Surely not?

Dear Poirot,

Most of the stuff in the shops is now
made overseas - so choices are limited.
I try to buy local produce when it comes
to food and "Australian made," where
possible.
I don't intentionally "turn a blind eye."
And I think most people don't.
We all try to do the best with what's
available. I remember a while back trying
to find an "Australian made," teddy bear
for my grandson with no success whatsoever.
All of the "soft toys" were made in China.
Much to my frustration. I finally settled
for one I found in a local market that was
hand-made by a local lady.

You can't fight multinational corporations.
They are joining nation-states as the
major actors on the international stage,
for they inevitably develop world-wide
interests and the "foreign policies," that go
with them. And if products can be manufactured
more cheaply overseas than locally, the
multinationals may close down their local
plants and open ones in Asia, and import the
finished item back to this country.

The only path open to us is to try to convince
our elected Reps in Parliament to pass legislation
that places import duties on goods that compete
with our local industries. I believee it worked
in the past but somewhere along the line our governments
have decided in the interest of trade to reduce or
remove import duties on most products. Take essentials
like food and clothing. Local stuff always costs more.

As for the plight of the people in "sweat shops?"
Sweat shops will continue in these countries. Reform
must come from within in order to succeed. Certainly
putting pressure and publicity on the appaling conditions
will help. Especially when well-known companies have the
spotlight directed on them.

Well, yes, Lexi.

I realise that the system is so entrenched that it's usually not possible to find much ordinary everyday produce that is made in Australia.

We luxuriate in so much, and it's all brought to us on the backs of lowly paid workers in developing countries. so now countries like the US and Australia have very small manufacturing sectors and the reason for that is that profit and growth are everything in a consumer society.

Nice way to whittle away our humanity and our creativity. Of course the paradigm is too opaque for us to glean that we are poorer for that.

I tend to agree with Bazz that in the end, we'll be forced to rely on our creativity in a more localised manner sometime not too far down the track...and we'll find it as difficult as a princess who suddenly finds herself out in the fields among the peasants with no skills or character to guide her in her endeavours.

Don't you find it spooky that if the electricity fails, us moderns are plunged back into the dark ages?

It's a very thin membrane that separates us from such a state.

I'm finding the heat that Poirot has drawn on this topic interesting.

As I've read it Poiro admits she does not have neat answers to the issue, she asks initially about the relationship between aspects of feminist conscience and the impacts on third world women of the way our society has gone (poorly paraphrased on my part I suspect).

It seems like a valid discussion.

Stepping back a bit from the feminist conscience bit to the broader issue there seem to be a limited number of broad stances we can take.

- don't care about conditions in third world countries its good here
- care but see it as an unavoidable step along the way to a developed/industrialised society that should eventually self repair
- care but feel a lack of control over the supply chain
- mostly bothered by the impact on local manufacturing

I think I sit somewhere between the last two. I'd lke to be able to have some confidence that if I spent more buying a more expensive item that it meant that workers at the other end of the chain had reasonable conditions.

I'm also bothered by concerns about what we could produce in this county if push came to shove, eg a sustained war that cut us off from shipping for long enough for it to matter as an example.

R0bert

Dear Poirot,

A fundamental insight of sociology is that once
people no longer take their world for granted,
but instead understand the social authorship of
their lives and futures, they can become an
irrestible force in history.

If we can divert unprecedented energy and resources
to the real problems that face us, including poverty,
disease, overpopulation, injustice, oppression,
and the devastation of our natural environment - we just
might be able to enhance the life on this planet.

I feel optimisitc about the future. There will always be
doomsayers - but I believe that there will be subsequent
technological and other factors that will help us to make
the right decisions. If data on agricultural production
a century ago had been used to project trends into the
1980s, they would have pointed to global mass starvation.
But the "green revolution" (the introduction of new hybrid
species of high-yield grain) and highly mechanised agricultural
techniques have greatly increased food production
in a way that could not have been anticipated.

Back in 1850, Cities such as New York were faced with a
"horse crisis." The number of horses was increasing
exponentially and the streets were piled with horse dung.
A simple projection would have indicated thatt the streets
of New York would eventually be impassable and the city
uninhabitable, but this prediction would not take account
of several intervening factors, most notably the
replacement of horses by automobiles.

Of course we have to change our lifestyles. The planet
has a finite amount of resources and it can only
tolerate a limited amount of pollution. If world
population continues to grow rapidly, if industrialisation
spreads around the world, and if pollution and
resource depletion continues at an increasing rate -
massive social changes will await us all.

To put this in perspective, Bangladesh has a population of 150 million, according to their bureau of statistics in 2005-06 only 350,000 people were employed in manufacturing, 149,000 of them women, so obviously nothing "we" do will make any difference to the lives of Bangladeshis overall. If we cut consumption of sweatshop products there will be no effect other than to put a small number of workers out of a job.

Lexi,

The "Green Revolution" is not sustainable.

Tell me what happens when there's no longer enough ground water?...already happening.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html

Tell me what happens when the soil is degraded and poisoned by overuse of pesticides and fertiliser?

Tell me what happens when Western corporations try and patent strains of rice that have been used and shared amongst the native population for thousands of years.?

Tell me what happens when Seed companies develop new rice strains and push them onto peasant farmers, whereby the second generation of seeds are sterile and can't be saved and shared?

Tell me how can these peasant farmers afford to pay through the nose for new seeds each season?

Tell me what happens when farming is converted to monoculture and peasants go into debt for buy all the paraphernalia (fertiliser, pesticides and seed) needed to farm this way?

Tell me how it is that over 200,000 peasant farmers have committed suicide in India because of debt racked up this way to Western corporations. Their favoured method is to drink the pesticides which have poisoned their soil and groundwater.

Tell me what happens when much ancient knowledge of local bio-diversity is loss to a monoculture system and to the peasants themselves?

Although, I agree that much of this was "not anticipated".

Jay the nmbers I'm finding for Bangladesh's germent idustry is more like 3.6 million directly employed in the garment industry.
http://asiafoundation.org/media/view/slideshow/66/bangladeshs-garment-workers as one source, wikipedia puts the number higher at close to 4 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_textile_industry

The proportion of female workers in the industry seems to be listed at between 85% and 90% in most sources.

Another group which have been mentioned in the thread are the rural/urban migrant workers in China. Figures I'm seeing for them suggest about 130 million (or more) out of a population of around 1.35 billion. Not a trivial sized group.

R0bert

<< The "Green Revolution" is not sustainable>>
To adapt Bill Clinton’s quip : “It's population levels, stupid"

Soil degradation [Western corporations fault!]
Sweatshops in Bangladesh [Western consumers fault!]
Children dying of preventable diseases in Africa [ Western medicines fault!]

Poirot’s warped mindset [the Western Australian Education systems fault!]

At 1968 population levels the Green revolution was sustainable
At 2013 population levels, it's questionable.

Egypt –with a population of 1-2 million --used to be the breadbasket of the Roman Empire
Today –with a population of 83.7 million -- it is near enough to a basket case.

Dead right SPQR, Egypt grew its population from 40 to 80 million on the
subsidised food made possible by oil exports.
When peak Egyptian oil occurred in 2000 and then on the downslope they
reached the point where they started importing oil and the funds for
subsidies dried up they started to riot and finally changed their government.

Now as a result they have both fuel and food shortages.

Does that ring a warning bell for the rest of us ?

>>Tell me what happens when Western corporations try and patent strains of rice that have been used and shared amongst the native population for thousands of years.?<<

Hard-working mad evil (sorry, Western) scientists get the intellectual property that is due to them for all the hard spent hours in the lab.

I'd love it if we had a societal system where scientists worked pro bono for the good of mankind but that isn't how it works. They're stuck in the same rat-race as everyone else and they need to earn a living. I think they do more to earn it than most. Since the Enlightenment quantity of life has gone up in spades. It seems to be a matter of opinion as to whether quality of life has increased but I'll tell you one thing: I'm really glad I'm old enough to be weighing up thorny issues like this instead of dying as an infant - which would have been very likely without the efforts of scientists. If the patent system is the only mechanism by which innovators have the chance to gain fair recompense for improving all our lives is it really a bad thing? Can you think of a better system which still fits within the capitalist paradigm and provides fair recompense to innovators whilst improving the fortunes of all mankind? I can't but I'm not a very creative thinker. Maybe you can.

>>Tell me what happens when Seed companies develop new rice strains and push them onto peasant farmers, whereby the second generation of seeds are sterile and can't be saved and shared?<<

Piracy, theft, and brilliant biological innovations. And a step up in attempts to control the flow of biological innovations by the seed companies, followed by better piracy, theft etc... an agricultural arms race betwixt the agricultural corporations and the farmers, producing better results for all mankind.

TBC

I have no interest in watching sport but I love it because sports means drug cheats and drug cheats means better synthetic chemistry and that means better analytical chemistry to spot the cheats and that means better synthetic chemistry to avoid the new analytical techniques and so on forever. At some point some muscle-bound nobody wins a gold medal but the real winner at the end of the day is chemistry (yay chemistry!).

Arms races - military, agricultural, chemical, whatever - may or may not be good for the particular parties involved but they are ALWAYS good for science and improvements in the enabling sciences are ALWAYS good for the masses.

>>Tell me how can these peasant farmers afford to pay through the nose for new seeds each season?<<

I doubt they can. A clever man will find alternate means to get what he needs even if they aren't strictly legal.

>>Tell me what happens when farming is converted to monoculture and peasants go into debt for buy all the paraphernalia (fertiliser, pesticides and seed) needed to farm this way?<<

They owe somebody a debt. They can either repay it or default. Either choice has consequences; it's just a matter of which consequences they wish to experience.

>>Tell me how it is that over 200,000 peasant farmers have committed suicide in India because of debt racked up this way to Western corporations.<<

TBC

Tell me the context: what sort of sample space are we examining? 200,000 peasant farmers dead out of how many peasant farmers over all? How easy is it to assign causation in the case of suicide? How many of those peasant farmers were undiagnosed/improperly diagnosed schizophrenics? Schizophrenics kill themselves at a tragic and staggering rate. Other mental health victims such as those with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder are also over-represented in suicide statistics. How many of your peasant farmers were fully compos mentis when they topped themselves and acting in a reasonable response to unreasonable mental pressures, and how many were just mentally ill and not picked up by India's non-existent mental health programs for peasant farmers?

>>Their favoured method is to drink the pesticides which have poisoned their soil and groundwater.<<

Americans prefer to shoot themselves. For some reason Australians prefer strangulation. When I was in my scary place I thought exsanguination would be the way to go... people who want to kill themselves are generally more concerned with the result than the method and will choose what seems expedient and accessible. If you're American it is often a gun. I understand the circulatory system and had access to sharp knives, while most people understand the respiratory system and have access to ceiling fans. Suicides aren't trying to make a political statement: they just want to kill themselves and organochlorine (or whatever) poisoning will achieve that quite efficiently.

>>Tell me what happens when much ancient knowledge of local bio-diversity is loss to a monoculture system and to the peasants themselves?<<

'Ancient knowledge' (read: superstition, half-baked beliefs and old wives tales) is replaced with verifiable scientific knowledge. Not sure why this is a bad thing. If there is any grain of truth in the ancient knowledge it will be picked up by the scientific method, and the superstitions and false beliefs will fall by the wayside. Where's the problem?

Cheers,

Tony

Tony Lavis,

You've spent quite a bit of time above shrugging your shoulders at the problems now facing peasant farmers and their land.

Yes, I'm sure those suicides must have come from every other cause except being drawn into a situation where the farmer has to go into debt to buy water pumps, machinery, fertilizer, pesticide and seed - all an ongoing expense which traditional farming practices didn't require.

Ancient knowledge was knowledge of local plant species and knowledge of the cycle of life which brings forth the harvest. Apparently, the way you put it, thousands of years of Indian agriculture was all due to superstition and old wives tales.....if it's not done on industrial scale, then it's not worth anything, eh?

My point being that these are "peasant" farmers in a developing country who over the years have been encouraged by the powers that be to pay through the nose for Western products to farm their land.

There is now a big movement to save and revive traditional knowledge and seed sharing - to share them - to farm organically as they did for thousands of years, because the land can't take too much more.

Tony Lavis, you obviously have little idea of the problems facing India's peasant farmers , or the state of the land and groundwater reserves - and nor are you interested, except for taking a shallow swipe which doesn't do much more than show how ignorant you are on the subject in general.

America has just suspended trade privileges until Bangladeshi working conditions improve: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23086366

While the US is not a shining light on worker conditions, this move might encourage others to follow to stamp out the exploitation of workers in the Third World.

It is too easy and unfair just to blame those countries where exploitation takes place, it is the primarily Western and Chinese businesses that place undue pressure on these industries to furnish them with cheap products. Cheap to the buyer not to the consumer necessarily, especially now with some 'designer' labels now using these factories.

The trouble with the open slather Free Trade Agreements is failure to address issues around treatment of workers. Even private agreements between various business groups that include stipulations are usually ignored. When audits take place the foreigners are presented with a sanitised version and do not get to see the 'shadow factories' in the hinterland as was revealed in the case of China a couple of years ago