Walmart is so evil satan just shakes his head in disgust

[snoopy369]

The bigger issue of 'sweatshops' is that if there weren't a monetary incentive (cheaper labor) to be had, why would these companies have factories in these countries? The answer is, they wouldn't... so these people would starve to death instead of being able to live and work.

I'm all for paying people enough to live on, and I think that conditions should have some minimal standard - not '40 hour week with 2 weeks vacation" as we do here, or '25 hour week with 6 months' vacation' as they do in Europe , but something reasonable, like "conditions that are not going to cause grave bodily harm" and "be able to live on earnings hourly such that there is still enough time for sleep at night and maybe a day off here and there". But the money issue is just silly. Of course they're underpaying them by our standard; the amount a dollar buys in many developing countries is insane (not to mention a Euro or a Pound...) $0.05 cents an hour is actually not that bad in some places...

[Nugog]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Because Wal-Mart workers work against their will in bonded slavery and would much rather be unemployed/subsistence farmers/fast-food workers

Because consumers are forced to buy what they sell

Because we'd all be better off paying higher prices at inefficient local retailers, and because we're forced to shop at Wal-Mart even if we value the existence of local retailers

People can exercise their right as a consumer – want the cheap stuff – go to the international chains – want to “feel good” about your consumerism – go to local stores.

Wal-Mart and other internationals use leverage their size to get the best price – to make the most profits for their shareholders. They are a business – this is what they are supposed to do. The shareholders could say – “Hey make less money for us but have purchasing policies that make us feel better”, but I don’t see that happening.

It is also not Wal-Mart’s fault that the best prices they get are from developing nations – or that manufacturers have moved to developing nations to grow their own profit margins – all driven by the incessant need of consumers to pay less and less for products with no care for how they were made and/or the quality of the product.

And on the people who actually work in these factories to make a living to try and feed their families – and maybe improve their lot in life – how dare they – they make us feel bad about ourselves……………

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Nugog

Wal-Mart and other internationals use leverage their size to get the best price – to make the most profits for their shareholders. They are a business – this is what they are supposed to do. The shareholders could say – “Hey make less money for us but have purchasing policies that make us feel better”, but I don’t see that happening.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but how far are you willing to take it? If someone in some African craphole literally set up a slave shop to make clothes for Walmart and undercut even Chinese or Indian factories, would Walmart have an obligation to buy from them until their shareholders explicitly told them to stop?

[Flubber]

While I might bemoan the loss of the indiviudality and diversity that can come from local stores, I think it is wrong to be blaming Walmart for their demise.. even though their presence often kills such local stores. It is the behavior of the population in frequenting these stores that have led to their success and frankly all Walmart has done is been the most economically successful of the wave of where retail has headed.

As for Walmart and sweatshops, what retailer out there does NOT try to get lower prices from its manufacturers for any given product? It would be very unusual. Walmart was merely the most successful in translating its buying power into influence on prices.

I don't really like that retail districts across North America have lost their uniqueness-- The bland uniformity of many new retail areas is pretty boring actually--But the smaller local stores haven't disappeared in any city of any size. There may be fewer of them but there remains a market for the true boutique operations. Their stuff is often pricy or "upscale" but it still exists

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


alot of it has to do with, you know, child labor. Which competes with local adult labor, and also lessens human capital build up. Thats why we all banned it here, along time ago. The idea being that banning it ACCELERATES the rate at which adults get to work 12 hour shifts without air conditioning, but at slightly higher wages, and without the neg impacts on human capital.

The idea that kids should go to school to accumulate knowledge instead of to the factory to work is a bit sophisticated and didn't have much to do with bans on child labour historically, unlike competing with grownups and mercy, which did.

I do oppose child labour on grounds that kids can hardly consent (I hope Ozzy doesn't read this) so it becomes forced labour, which is bad.

I agree with LordShiva that sweatshops (ni which conditions are poor, but employement voluntary) are better than nothing.

I'd love to see a breakdown on which demographics in the West oppose sweatshops the most. I am betting on something like this:

80% - vegetarians
20% - labourers worried about competition and outsourcing

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The bigger issue of 'sweatshops' is that if there weren't a monetary incentive (cheaper labor) to be had, why would these companies have factories in these countries? The answer is, they wouldn't... so these people would starve to death instead of being able to live and work.

I'm all for paying people enough to live on, and I think that conditions should have some minimal standard - not '40 hour week with 2 weeks vacation" as we do here, or '25 hour week with 6 months' vacation' as they do in Europe , but something reasonable, like "conditions that are not going to cause grave bodily harm" and "be able to live on earnings hourly such that there is still enough time for sleep at night and maybe a day off here and there". But the money issue is just silly. Of course they're underpaying them by our standard; the amount a dollar buys in many developing countries is insane (not to mention a Euro or a Pound...) $0.05 cents an hour is actually not that bad in some places...

So before globalization, the admittidly smaller-then-today population of Asia were all starving to death?

Somehow people lived on that continent before...

Hmmm... *rubs chins as he thinks*

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I'd love to see a breakdown on which demographics in the West oppose sweatshops the most. I am betting on something like this:

80% - vegetarians
20% - labourers worried about competition and outsourcing

I'm neither, but I'm concerned about sweatshops. (Then again, I'm also someone who opposes illegal immigration but who doesn't hate "brown people")

[Vesayen]

Not only am I not a vegetarian, I mock vegetarians for moral inconsistancy, not wanting animal suffering while ignoring human suffering, the problem with most of them.

I oppose sweatshops because I feel for my fellow man, even if my fellow man is a small yellow person.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Kontiki


I don't necessarily disagree with this, but how far are you willing to take it? If someone in some African craphole literally set up a slave shop to make clothes for Walmart and undercut even Chinese or Indian factories, would Walmart have an obligation to buy from them until their shareholders explicitly told them to stop?

Using your example - no because it involved slavery.

However if it was a company that used voluntary employee's - and the local economy allowed the company to produce the goods at a cheaper rate than the "Chinese or Indian" factories - then why not?

Many of the international companies that operate in "developing" nations get accused of slave labour etc - yet they pay more than the local companies.

Yes - there are some horror stories out there - but many of the good guys don't get mentioned.

The company I work for operates in 103 countries and territories - and in many of the developing nations we pay considerably more than local competitors. In China we pay almost 50% more than local companies, Indonesia it is close to 80% more, and in the poorer African nations it is something like close to 200% more.

You only have to look at the variances of incomes between "western" or "developed" nations to know that the argument of underpaying from one country to the next is flawed. It does not take into account living expenses, taxes - and what those taxes actually provide.

Here in NZ our taxes are higher than in the US - but we have pretty good free hospitals, free education and a reasonably generous welfare system.

There are many more factors to consider than purely what hourly rate the individual gets paid.

But yes - there are some very sad stories out there - and slave/child labour still exists - regretably.

But - does the average consumer really care?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kontiki


I don't necessarily disagree with this, but how far are you willing to take it? If someone in some African craphole literally set up a slave shop to make clothes for Walmart and undercut even Chinese or Indian factories, would Walmart have an obligation to buy from them until their shareholders explicitly told them to stop?

Management at a Walmart or any other company have the obligation to do any legal thing that their shareholders direct. The reality is that most shareholders do have a social conscience such that most companies have many policies respecting corporate actions that do not bring increased profitability.

For example, its own shareholders forced an oil and gas company out of Sudan. The company had done nothing illegal if IIRC but the shareholders did not want to be associated with the government. They sold their interest to a state-owned entity.( I don't remember if it was India or China)

While profitability is still the key driver for most companies, I don't think they are profit at all costs. Most western companies have policies that largely reflect the attitudes of the populations from which their shareholders come

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Nugog


Using your example - no because it involved slavery.

However if it was a company that used voluntary employee's - and the local economy allowed the company to produce the goods at a cheaper rate than the "Chinese or Indian" factories - then why not?

Many of the international companies that operate in "developing" nations get accused of slave labour etc - yet they pay more than the local companies.

Yes - there are some horror stories out there - but many of the good guys don't get mentioned.

The company I work for operates in 103 countries and territories - and in many of the developing nations we pay considerably more than local competitors. In China we pay almost 50% more than local companies, Indonesia it is close to 80% more, and in the poorer African nations it is something like close to 200% more.

But why not pay them $10 an hour? (I'm plucking this figure from thin air, assuming that, while it would cut into profit margins, it wouldn't cut into them so far as to make the business unprofitable.) That way the corporation makes a profit and the locals get a great deal of money that they can use to improve the living conditions in their own country. Saying "We pay $.08 an hour, but the factory down the road pays $.04" isn't a convincing argument to me.

For example-

Nike shouldn't make $90 profit per pair of shoes if it means that they're paying practically nothing in absolute terms, keeping developing countries relatively poor by keeping a disproportionate amount of their wealth from the country and for themselves, and meanwhile undercutting western labor in ways with which western labor cannot compete if Nike could make $30 profit per pair by paying those third worlders an actual, absolutely respectable wage that allows them to actuall reinvest in their country rather than eek out a level of survival marginally better than their friends down the street. I know that companies themselves will ever do anything to purposefully cut their own profit margins for the greater good (in all honesty,why should they? It's not their job and, if they did, some competitor wouldn't and it would kill the good samaritan corporation) , so, unfortunately, it looks like some government would have to step in in order for this to ever happen

(I don't buy the "making shareholders happy", or at least not in the U.S.- the general shareholder is an afterthought. The main concern is to keep stock values high for themselves. If you really believe that the Corporate Officers and the Boards of large corporations care about the average stockholder, then look to the golden parachute scandals. The every day shareholder gets screwed by such deals. If the "think of the poor shareholders" argument doesn't prevent such golden parachutes, why should it be listened to as a legitimate argument against helping third world countries.)

[Kuciwalker]

Saying "We pay $.08 an hour, but the factory down the road pays $.04" isn't a convincing argument to me.

Would you criticize these companies if they just didn't buy labor from developing countries in the first place?

Case A: company does not hire laborers at all from poor country. Poor country is no better off than before. No one complains about the evil company.

Case B: company hires laborers from poor country for a little bit more than the local wages. Poor country is a little bit better off than before. Everyone constantly whines about the evil company.

Does that make sense to you? By doing some good, they become evil?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Wycoff
Nike shouldn't make $90 profit per pair of shoes if it means that they're paying practically nothing in absolute terms, keeping developing countries relatively poor by keeping a disproportionate amount of their wealth from the country and for themselves, and meanwhile undercutting western labor in ways with which western labor cannot compete if Nike could make $30 profit per pair by paying those third worlders an actual, absolutely respectable wage that allows them to actuall reinvest in their country rather than eek out a level of survival marginally better than their friends down the street.

Reebok can show up in that country and pay a little more than Nike and hire all teh expert shoemakers away

But then Puma shows up and pays a little more than Reebok does

[Dinner]

Companies should be liable for on the job injuries. Period.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm thinking colliding with a semi-trailer truck probably wasn't an "on the job" injury.

Though I don't know the size of your Wal-Marts over there in California .