🚀 go-pugleaf

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

>>The whole point of earning money is that you get to spend it. We get the
>>money by *trading* with them. Inasmuch as it's voluntary, trade benefits
>>both parties.

> Allegedly.  Although there's precious little evidence of it benefiting
> the average Nike sweatshop worker.
> 
> If Western companies offered Western levels of employee rights in the
> third world, I would find your point a lot more compelling.  What they
> actually do, in many cases, is exploit cheap labour.

Or indeed if western governments were prepared to allow the same sort of 
cushioning to 3rd world producers as their own producers get.  The US 
are the main villains of this piece but we're certainly not spotless: 
typically Free Trade is Very Good /if/ we can use to drive prices down, 
but if it turns out our own farmers/steelworkers etc. are going out of 
business then it magically becomes ethical to grant them subsidies and 
other protectionist practices.  And if it gets taken to the WTO then it 
gets appealed and sat on for as long as possible while people's 
livelihoods are destroyed.

As it stands, trade is widely abused by the people who have the most 
money, because they can and because it means they stay as the people 
with most money, and most power.

Pete.
-- 
Peter Clinch                    Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637   Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177              Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net p.j.clinch@dundee.ac.uk     http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/