The reason why Chinese sweatshops aren't all bad

[update Oct 2008: Since the discussion on this blog post, I've been interviewed by Truetube about Sweatshops. More info here]

I've never had much of a position on globalisation and free markets. The entrepreneur in me loves the idea of free trade, but then there's the pesky issue of human rights.

I recently picked up a copy of Pietra Rivoli's 'Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy' and it has finally given me some perspective on the issue.

The main take-home point is that both the free market proponents and the human rights activists play vital roles in improving the standard of living for poor people in developing nations like China.

Huh?

Whilst Chinese sweatshops are pretty horrible places to work, the research cited in the book shows that comparisons to Victorian sweatshops are unfounded. And the working environment is significantly better than the farms from which many of the industrial workers came from.

History shows us that low-level sweatshop working is a step on a ladder that has allowed developing countries (including the UK and United States, a few hundred years ago) to trade with the world, and gradually become more automated and skilled, and make ever increasingly valuable products. This trade raises the standard of living for ordinary people living in those countries. Free trade with the rest of the world provides a real opportunity for poor countries to develop and improve.

At the same time, the human rights activists play a massively important role. Campaigns publicising working conditions in sweatshops supplying companies like GAP; Nike and Adidas alter consumer opinion and create market pressure for improvement for worker conditions.

So we need to continue to campaign for better working conditions, but at the same time encourage free trade with these countries. Everyone wins.

Looking forward to hearing what Matt Matheson has to say about this on his return from the Amnesty International event he's attending today.

Comments

[Matthew Hill]

Everybody wins? Doubtful.

It's easy for anyone living in this country to take this kind of overview: after all, we are all millionaires compared to the earnings of sweatshop workers. Pontificating on the situation is easy when you have all the gold you can eat -- to quote Monty Python.

What about the people actually working in them? Conditions might be better than we once thought, but the income of those workers is tiny. Would you work in a sweatshop Tom?

We wouldn't need sweatshops if we didn't have such a consumer led lifestyle in the first place.

Nobody really needs most of the crap that we fill our lives with -- how much of it comes from sweatshops?

Consumer culture is way out of control and it's having a detrimental effect on all our resources, especially the people who are producing all this unnecessary guff. Shouldn't we be finding better, more sustainable ways of sourcing the things we feel we need?

I am as guilty as the next person of buying into it but I am trying to change. I would love to be able to buy a pair of shoes from a local cobbler who made them from locally sourced leather -- but those days are long gone and for shame in my opinion.

It's an idealistic and probably unrealistic view but I would love to be able to get back to smaller, self-sufficient communities.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

[Tom Nixon]

There's a lot of sense in your ideals Matt. But as you point out, the end of consumerism and a return to a bygone age of small self-sufficient communities ain't gonna happen any time soon (or at all). So in the meantime, we should help poorer countries through trade and at the same time tirelessly campaign for improved conditions.

Sustainability is also a massively important issue, but beyond the scope of this blog post :)

[Matthew Hill]

How is it beyond the scope of this post? It's intrinsically linked to very core of what you raised: the standard of living for people working in those environments could be radically improved if they were working on building their own sustainable communities, not simply working to furnish us hordes of western consumers with crappy goods that we don't really need.

Rather confused about that actually. It sounds like you're trying to stop the conversation before it's begun?

[Dominic Holmes]

Hi Tom,

I'd be interested to know how do you feel about sweatshops from a moral perspective as it's not something you mention. Just because they may raise the standard of living in some cases (however that may be defined) it is essentially still exploitation. Wouldn't it be better if these countries managed to grow internally? Well, of course that would be no good as they would probably soon dispose of the sweatshops. So sweatshops by their nature cannot be long lasting – they will just move on to another country that is sufficiently crippled by the world trade system to be desperate enough to take them. And as long as we are the benefactors of this economic system then we are hardly likely to complain (human nature being rather myopic and self serving).

Everyone wins. I would say only the people doing the exploiting win. They are the ones dictating the rules of the game. They can continue importing goods at dirt cheap prices and continue with their excessive lifestyles. How many of the people working in the better sweatshops would actually gain anything lasting?

You say you are interested in hearing what Matt Mattheson has to say yet it feels to me like you have not fully taken on boards Matt Hills's points when he responded and yet you boldly assert your original thinking in response, even when, you say there is sense in Matt's ideals!

When you say that the 'the end of consumerism and a return to a bygone age of small self-sufficient communities ain't gonna happen any time soon (or at all)' you sound very certain. Indeed, I look forward to taking a turn in your time machine. I would certainly hope that people realise the bullshit that consumerism is and turn away. Although a return to completely self-sufficient communities is unlikely on a large scale, maybe you would agree that it is generally better to source produce locally, which I think is really the point that Matt is getting at.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Tom Nixon]

Thanks for your comments guys, you've given me a lot to think about, which was exactly the point of the exercise.

I think the arguments for free trade are strong, but as you've both pointed out, trade and consumerism are inextricably linked. I watched the excellent storyofstuff presentation that Matt pointed us to. I felt similar emotions watching that as I did when I first saw An Inconvenient Truth. Hazel and I have been talking about it all weekend (in-between shopping trips, oh the irony)

Dom, I hope my moral viewpoint on exploitation would be obvious from my comments about the need for us to campaign tirelessly for better working conditions.

The big problem is that as a species, we're living beyond our means, and there's no trade system that can save us from that, so sustainability is a much more fundamental issue.

Do you have any suggested further reading?

[Matthew Hill]

My overall concern with Tom's original post was that it seemed to ignore both the ethical aspect of sweatshop exploitation and the very real issue that sweatshop labour precludes local workers from investing in their own sustainable communities.

I do think there is something to be said for the concept of sweatshops. I don't just mean in the common understanding of vast clothing factories, but as a term meaning 'low cost labour'. The UK, USA and other major economies all went through long periods of sweatshop labour to get up the economic ladder. So I do understand what Tom is saying here.

The problem is that, by and large, sweatshop labour produces goods that we could easily do without. (OK, maybe not EASILY given our current reliance on lifestyle goods). To reduce our reliance on sweatshop produced goods, we need to completely undo our thinking about buying goods from the highstreet and radically adjust our perceptions about what we are actually buying. Does this ipod enrich my life? Does this ipod enrich the lives of others around me? Has the production of this ipod had a positive effect for everyone involved in it's production? OK, so that's a bit naive -- after all, nothing is 100% positive -- but you get what I mean.

We've got to a point where we only think of going to the high street to buy our clothes, our shoes and trainers, our entertainment and technology, and pretty much most other things we now rely on. But if we had a local alternative, wouldn't most of us choose to go there? As I noted before, a cobbler making shoes sourced from leather reared on a local farm is a great example. Totally unrealistic currently, but a great example none the less. Wouldn't it be wonderful to buy those shoes, knowing that they were hand crafted with love and care, from locally sourced goods? How great to know that they will probably last longer than the shoes you would have bought from Sole Trader that are designer labelled and artifically engineered to wear out after six months, forcing you to buy an even more expensive pair next time.

I don't currently have answers but I know that we collectively need to shift our attitudes from consuming to conserving. I'm getting interested in this and am starting to look into better ways of living that eschew the consumer lifestyle. I have nothing to report here yet, but give me some time and I will do so.

In the meantime, given that Sweatshops continue to produce the bulk of crap that we buy, if we find it difficult to simply stop that lifestyle, we should at least make an effort to buy from 'sweatshop free' manufacturers. Arkadash, a Manchester company who sell on sweatshop free clothes have a great list of links to their suppliers which is a great place to start:

http://www.arkadash.co.uk/our_suppliers.php

[Matthew Hill]

I should clarify that when I say "Tom's original post seemed to ignore... the ethical aspect of sweatshop exploitation" I meant exactly what Dom pointed out: we didn't get Tom's PERSONAL ethical view on the matter. Clearly the post discusses an ethical perspective. Sorry, I didn't make that clear.