Walmart is so evil satan just shakes his head in disgust

[DinoDoc]

I just want to pipe up and say most if not all the people I worked with at Wal-Mart made more than minimum wage.

[Patroklos]

ut am I not, as the WalMart CEO, morally obligated to provide better than sweatshop conditions to the workers upon whose efforts I'm building my vast fortune?

No.

The cheap labor in China allows this shift. WalMart's domination of the market has the net effect of eliminating US companies and manufacturing jobs (which have decent pay/benefits) while creating poorly paying/no benefits jobs in China.

You have identified the problem, artificially high pay and benefits.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
But am I not, as the WalMart CEO, morally obligated to provide better than sweatshop conditions to the workers upon whose efforts I'm building my vast fortune? (I'm about to contradict this direct association with Walmart --> worker, but the general principle holds).

I'd be as happy as anyone (well, except teh workers, I guess) if he did, but why should he be morally obligated beyond keeping his side of a mutually-beneficial deal (especially if it threatens teh worker-Walmart-consumer's win-win-win situation)?

I've argued with Westerners about teh sweatshop issue quite a bit, and while I don't mean to say that most activists' don't really care about teh plight of third-world peasants, I think there really is a strong overtone of protectionism in their stand. Pretty much every developed nation underwent phases of industrialisation characterised by crappy work conditions that helped build teh foundations of their economies and of their healthy labour movements. Without having seen teh kind of crushing poverty that people in teh rural third-world can live under, where 12-hour shifts without air-conditioning are considered a good deal, it's unfair for them to condemn teh practice and to demand "fair trade" (WhateverTF that is).

[Kontiki]

So to you, the correct wage is slave labor?

Edit: Crosspost.

[Patroklos]

So to you, the correct wage is slave labor?

Assumong this is to me, the correct wage is whatever the market will support.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva


I'd be as happy as anyone (well, except teh workers, I guess) if he did, but why should he be morally obligated beyond keeping his side of a mutually-beneficial deal (especially if it threatens teh worker-Walmart-consumer's win-win-win situation)?

I've argued with Westerners about teh sweatshop issue quite a bit, and while I don't mean to say that most activists' don't really care about teh plight of third-world peasants, I think there really is a strong overtone of protectionism in their stand. Pretty much every developed nation underwent phases of industrialisation characterised by crappy work conditions that helped build teh foundations of their economies and of their healthy labour movements. Without having seen teh kind of crushing poverty that people in teh rural third-world can live under, where 12-hour shifts without air-conditioning are considered a good deal, it's unfair for them to condemn teh practice and to demand "fair trade" (WhateverTF that is).

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.

[uberloz]

Is Wal-Mart being slammed here for paying competitive wages in the countries where they manufacture their goods?

Why are the governments of those countries being left off the hook?

It isn't Wal-Marts fault those countries suck.

The following is hypothetical and only semi serious so would the lefties here please try to keep your panties from wadding up?

If Wal-Mart starting paying their overseas workers wages that were fully or even only half of what they paid their U.S. workers wouldn't those governments throw Wal-Mart out of the country as a subversive element?

Wouldn't every business in that country be immediately expected to match Wal-Mart and pay wages that high?

And when every other business didn't match what Wal-Mart was paying what happens then?

Wouldn't there be worker revolutions in those countries?

And when those revolutions were over, those workers with their new governments would still be left with the reality that the economy in their countries still sucked!

End of hypothetical.

I'm going to turtle up now and watch the poop fly.

[LordShiva]

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.

I haven't heard of any substantiated claims that Wal-Mart relies on child labour. Whenever a story comes out of child labour supplying multinationals, there's a huge (justified) outcry.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva I think there really is a strong overtone of protectionism in their stand.

yeah, cause theres never been protectionism in India, no.


Look, Im not sure protectionism is an unnatural reaction. Patty may think that the market bearing wage is not only Pareto-efficient, but is profoundly just. Not everyone does. Recall Pareto assumed you could transfer surplus from those groups who benefited from a policy to those who were harmed. Id love to see absolute free trade, and then redistribution within the US from the winners to the losers. But its a huge struggle, youre called a class warrior, etc. Given the political resistance to redistribution here, maybe protectionism is an understandable, if not desirable, reaction to our income equity issues.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
yeah, cause theres never been protectionism in India, no.

What does that have to do with anything?

I post on an Indian forum occasionally (WTF is an Indian forum?), where I'm known, variously, as "neoliberal scum," "imperialist agent," and "pawn of [teh] Washington consensus."

[DirtyMartini]

Shiva,

Good post. I have not seen the conditions to which I'm referring, perhaps I am guilty of buying what the media sells me.

However, I do think that personally, I would have a problem knowing that I was enriching myself using the logic that slightly less starving > starving. I would like to think that any person employed by my company should have working conditions that I could at least remotely fathom working under myself. That seems fair.

Patroklus,

Yes, unrestrained capitalism has its benefits. But I also believe in the value of local communities and local economies. WalMart eliminates American manufacturing jobs and replaces them with foreign manufacturing jobs and retail jobs at WalMart. It elminates local diversity. So, I do think there are other considerations besides --American manufacuring jobs/benefits are too high.

edit: clarity, not sure it helped

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva


What does that have to do with anything?

I post on an Indian forum occasionally (WTF is an Indian forum?), where I'm known, variously, as "neoliberal scum," "imperialist agent," and "pawn of [teh] Washington consensus."

I wasnt thinking of current debates in India, so much as the history of India as a closed economy, prior to 1991 or so.

I mean I read your reference (perhaps wrongly) as a "you mean westerners pretend to care, but your concern about sweatshops disguises your own self-interest, you racist non-neo liberals, you" or something like that.

Again, I think that the US has remained as commited to an open economy as we have, under the conditions of social and economic turbulence of the last few decades, which may have helped US measured GDP, but have seen tremendous economic and status pressures on large sectors of US society, is really pretty amazing.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Again, I think that the US has remained as commited to an open economy as we have, under the conditions of social and economic turbulence of the last few decades, which may have helped US measured GDP, but have seen tremendous economic and status pressures on large sectors of US society, is really pretty amazing.

Indeed

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by LordShiva

I've argued with Westerners about teh sweatshop issue quite a bit, and while I don't mean to say that most activists' don't really care about teh plight of third-world peasants, I think there really is a strong overtone of protectionism in their stand. Pretty much every developed nation underwent phases of industrialisation characterised by crappy work conditions that helped build teh foundations of their economies and of their healthy labour movements. Without having seen teh kind of crushing poverty that people in teh rural third-world can live under, where 12-hour shifts without air-conditioning are considered a good deal, it's unfair for them to condemn teh practice and to demand "fair trade" (WhateverTF that is).

I've actually had the same argument myself, taking the same side as you. However, there are two key things to keep in mind as it relates to the "this is how it's been done in the past" part. First, was it necessary to go that route then? and second, given how different the world is today, is it necessary now? I'm not suggesting I have a definitive answer one way or the other, but keep in mind that when most of the west was fumbling towards modernity, there wasn't easy global transportation and a pool of hundreds of millions of (relatively) affluent consumers eager to buy what you made.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I've actually had the same argument myself, taking the same side as you. However, there are two key things to keep in mind as it relates to the "this is how it's been done in the past" part. First, was it necessary to go that route then? and second, given how different the world is today, is it necessary now? I'm not suggesting I have a definitive answer one way or the other, but keep in mind that when most of the west was fumbling towards modernity, there wasn't easy global transportation and a pool of hundreds of millions of (relatively) affluent consumers eager to buy what you made.

The answer to sweatshops seems to be international labor and environmental standards that are actually enforced. That's a pipe dream, though.