Yet another great example of our corporations outsourcing to take advantage of slave labour and lack of regulation.
This latest fatal accident, coming five months after a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory killed at least 112 garment workers, is likely to again raise questions about work conditions in Bangladesh: workers told Bangladeshi news outlets that supervisors had ordered them to attend work on Wednesday, even though cracks were discovered in the building on Tuesday. Bangladesh’s garment industry has grown rapidly during the last decade, particularly as rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing brands to look for lower costs elsewhere. Bangladesh has the lowest labor costs in the world, with minimum wage in the garment industry set at roughly $37 a month. Retailers and brands including Walmart, H&M, Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others have outsourced the production of billions of dollars of clothes there. But critics have blamed the Bangladeshi government, factory owners and global brands for doing too little to protect workers with safe working conditions or to pay them a livable wage. Labor unions are almost nonexistent inside garment factories, and a labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was tortured and murdered last year. His death remains unsolved.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/world/asia/bangladesh-building-collapse.html
This latest fatal accident, coming five months after a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory killed at least 112 garment workers, is likely to again raise questions about work conditions in Bangladesh: workers told Bangladeshi news outlets that supervisors had ordered them to attend work on Wednesday, even though cracks were discovered in the building on Tuesday.
Bangladesh’s garment industry has grown rapidly during the last decade, particularly as rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing brands to look for lower costs elsewhere. Bangladesh has the lowest labor costs in the world, with minimum wage in the garment industry set at roughly $37 a month. Retailers and brands including Walmart, H&M, Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others have outsourced the production of billions of dollars of clothes there.
But critics have blamed the Bangladeshi government, factory owners and global brands for doing too little to protect workers with safe working conditions or to pay them a livable wage. Labor unions are almost nonexistent inside garment factories, and a labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was tortured and murdered last year. His death remains unsolved.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/world/asia/bangladesh-building-collapse.html
Even if the peasants rally for better regulations and wages, how much you wanna bet these corps will just move their operations to the next 3rd world country.
Do the same for mine. You clearly didn't get it. And it wasn't rewritten.
AT&T was not a corporation? Phillips was not a corporation? Could have fooled me.
Seems to me I recall a lot of violent Union strikes in the 50s and 60s as well (not as violent as OWS, but jacks are not exactly a peaceful means of protest).
So what is the choice? Ok, don't invest in the country. Then what are the choices of the people?
Did you make the hard drive from iron ore? Did you make the monitor from silica?
Yes it counts.
On issues like these, the free market isn't best, due to the externality issue. Even rational libertarians agree that the government has a role in cases like these.
Another factor to consider is wealth. It's a lot easier to make moral judgements when they aren't financially painful. When others are willing to "outsource" as you mentioned- you are forced into doing it, even if you know it's a bad long-term decision, because of the tragedy of the commons principle. That is something government is meant to correct- and it is necessary for properly functioning and not degenerative markets.
That said, America due to globalization is due for regression to the mean as things globalize and homogenize (this process will take a long time, at least a century) One issue is that the impacts of globalization- the rich can reap the benefits in ways everyone else cannot, and avoid the costs. This may end up being the great danger of the 21st century, as a massively disillusioned and angry poor is a recipe for dangerous populism. (I won't be surprised if this ends up being the endgame in Greece or Spain within the next 2-3 years, something like the Golden Dawn) This is another area where you need government intervention to make the markets work for the benefit of society (and proper free-markets do benefit society) . The whole point and purpose of capitalism is to benefit society- but it's been twisted at times to where the point of society is to benefit capitalism. (when businesses find it easier to bribe politicians over competing to make better products, you have a problem)
The person barely struggling by on $8/9-hr or the person who doesn't know if their career will exist in three months (what I'm going through since the FAA thinks kitchens in Denver are more important than flight weather safety) has a harder time choosing to do the moral thing.
The choice is to profit and reward onesself and foreign dictators to profit off the lowered bottom line from murdering labor organizers (to prevent negotiation for better pay), inhumane conditions (since being a responsible employer costs more money than not providing basic safe work conditions), environmental irresponsibility (since its cheap to not pay for basic safeguards against harming the environment) and other despicable means or not. You've completely avoided the points.
No, you have completely missed the points. You have it easy. You can sit in your splendor and pontificate about the injustices of the world. Most of these people are looking for a way to feed their family. So again, the choice is yours. Give them a choice. or deny them any choice.
Shame on you for trying to excuse profiting off circumventing every human rights, labor and environmental regulation on the books and claiming wealthy employers have no choice but to increase their wealth at the expense of both jobs in the U.S. and intolerable conditions overseas. Its an outrageous, if unfortunately uncommon for right-wingers, deceitful excuse for reckless profit with no regard to how much harm is inflicted on others in persuing the profit. Those with the power and the means to do as it wish, whom never have to worry about food on their table, whether they will be murdered for trying to negotiate for better wages or work conditions, or whether your place of work will fall apart and kill you because your employer and nation refuse to give any regard to your life you /insist/ 'have no choice' but to make themselves richer cutting these corners. You can't figure out where the shame on you should be when you fabricate excuses for this!?
"What I do know is that given the choice of buying two shoes that are identical in every way except price and where it is made, virtually every person will choose based on price and not where it's made. It's a fact of life." Which is why we needed to stop apartheid with sanctions, and we need to impose similar standards to prohibit import into the United States any goods produced anywhere that may include forced, unpaid labor (such as laogai political prisoner camps in China; I am not as familiar with Bangladesh but I know forced, unpaid labor does exist in several third-world nations -- besides China -- and American corporations and stockholders profit off it). I am not an isolationist/nationalist; I don't care if everything sold in the U.S. is necessarily made in the U.S., but I find it intolerable that every single hard-fought U.S. law, including basic human rights laws and the Emancipation Proclamation are completely circumvented every time a CEO dumps their American workers for some overseas sweat shop with appalling conditions, unchecked murder of labor leaders and little or no labor protection laws or enforcment, some raw components processed with forced and unpaid political prison labor, environmental calamities and the like. It is absolutely inexcusable for anyone to profit off this; while little may be done directly in the internal affairs of foreign nations, the slightest amount of decency would demand we prohibit anyone in the U.S. from profiting off such. Stop the flow of money to the corrupt foreign nations, stop rewarding those running these appalling shops and the situation will change. It worked in South Africa. Rewarding those already profiting from the status quo has never changed anything.
We can't even make a conscious choice in the U.S. anymore, as mega-corporations like Wal-Mart have killed off domestic production by effectively demanding their suppliers overseas production and using that to put smaller retailers out of business whom would not import from suppliers using appalling conditions in third-world nations, and lobbied Congresspersons to kill any and all legislation that would prohibit or restrict import of goods.
There is no right to profit, certainly not a the expense of others' human rights including the right to life and a complete and total ban on slavery, the global environmental health and other serious negative externalities where some very privileged few profit at the expense of many more.
Yes, I am much better off than most folk, but there are a lot of nations I would be better off in, and I would gladly emigrate had I the means to do so legally. We are all naturally inclined to only see what's immediately around us ... how well do you know the janitorial staff at your offices or your groundskeepers? Are they just a bunch of dirty workers costing you money for their meager pay? Do you cheer when the governor of Wisconsin outlaws organized labor? Do you feel shame for the workers of Hostess whose union accepted pay cuts over the years even while the pay for the CEO increased by double digit %s? Does your personal right to profit exceed the rights of others?
I will not spare you the "shame on you" retorts for your deceitful excuses for profit off murder, appalling working conditions, pollution and other irresponsible calamities made by wealthy American "job creators" and the corrupt 3rd world tyrants they are in bed with to make each other mutually rich while stranding American workers and exploiting-to-mass-manslaughter 3rd world workers. I doubt anyone will ever change your mindset, but hopefully I make you work just a bit harder to continue to delude yourself with your excuses for supporting profit off of third world exploitation.
Talk about an over-the-top response to a totally missed point of view.
If it weren't so vehement it'd be just plain silly.
Please spare us all the "shame on you" retorts particularly where they have no relevance.
Emotive rhetoric has it's place.....but that's somewhere else.
Do you live in a Neal Stephenson novel? You've managed to link Brad to Walmart (the hack story evil "mega-corporation"), Scott Walker, janitors, prison camps in China, and the Emancipation Proclamation in some sort of conspiracy to deprive the common man of his clean drinking water. Or something.
And it's all wrapped up in some sort of "I'm not to blame, but everyone else is" smug sense of self-righteousness.
I have to disagree with Jafo. This is just plain silly, vehemence or no.
Mega-corporations, prison camps, conspiracy theories...sounds like the perfect setting for GalCiv3...
Wow Chib, way to detour into crazy town.
I wonder, do you know the names of the people who programmed these forums? How about the person who designed the font that you use to type your diatribe? Do you know the name of the person who chose the colors for the forum you're using? No? Then where do you get off complaining if FB doesn't know the names of whoever cleans the Stardock building?
The problem with people like you is that you use your unearned holier-than-thou attitude to deflect from your personal hypocrisy. You sit there benefiting from mega corporations while condemning them as if your words alone are sufficient to make you the better person. They don't. They just make you a hypocrite.
Please people, no personal attacks .
All comments welcome, rebuttals need to stick to the points and not the person making them.
So says the management.
I breath toxic polluted air, I guess that means I support pollution? jeeze
Once again, a point being nullified because a person arguing against slavery is wearing a cotton shirt IS NOT VALID to me. IMHO, these points are just a deflection of the issues and do not help anything other than to point out we are all responsible and corporations just react to the demands of the people, and the 'people' don't give 2 shits how their products are made and the underlying costs that come with them..
Welcome to the ME ME ME generation
1. Outsourcing's legal.
2. It increases profits
3. stimulates the economy
4. Maximizes shareholder value
5. Keeps taxes low
6. Keeps more money in the pocket of the people who know how to grow it.
7. and creates new jobs at some ambiguous point in the future.
If you disagree you are a lazy good for nothing immigrant loving commie pinko liberal entitlement welfare queen who wants to feed off the government, feel victimized, and never take responsibility for your life.
So, do I make a good Republican?
oh wait...
That's a bit like the all-inclusive bumper sticker....
"Land rights for handicapped gay whales" ....
I don't know. Let's see:
1. Sit in the comfort of the modern world provided by free market capitalism.
2. Write sanctimonious posts, using my computer on the Internet decrying free market capitalism.
3. Feel morally superior despite the blatant hypocrisy.
So do I make a good Democrat?
Ok, take a deep breath now. I was just pulling chains.
My real view:
Corps should be able to profit any way they legally can, as long as it's not at the expense of other peoples well being.
The problem is that just because something is legal, doesn't necessarily make it ethical. And some people believe if they can get the spineless politicians to pass legislation in their favor, then anything they can get written into law is fair and equitable, no matter how one sided it may be.
So who decides if it's at someone else's expense?
Theoretically, it's the citizens via their elected officials, but IMO, corps and special interest groups have undue influence in the process.
A peer-reviewed paper is set to appear in the Journal of Business ethics which proposes the theory that psychopaths on Wall Street have had a critical role in the global financial crisis. Psychopathy is defined as the inability to empathize with the feelings of others. A theoretical paper, to be published in the Journal of Business ethics, will analyze the global financial crisis through the lens of the psychopath. The paper is titled “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis,” and it is written by Clive R. Boddy. Boddy describes psychopaths as “the 1% of people who have no conscience or empathy and who do not care for anyone other than themselves.” An echo of the Occupy’s nemesis the 1%? Perhaps. Of course, this theory is not new—many have theorized a connection between the modern psychological sickness, including Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri in their seminal work “Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.” (Note that schizophrenia and psychopathy are not the same, of course.) Boddy, of course, notes the current tradition in this theory in his paper. I wrote of this connection in “World Wealth Report: Rich Getting Richer,” in which I stated, “Is it not psychopathic, and more particularly sociopathic, that the world’s rich seem to have no problem that they are drawing more water from the well than the rest of us, even as the rich men of the US congressional and executive branches ask for austerity both here and abroad?” Robert Jay Lifton has spent the better part of the last 60 years defining and cataloguing Psycho-History, so why not open studies into something like Psycho-Capitalism? Or, rather, Psycho-Corporatism? Brett Easton Ellis all but theorized the same thing in “American Psycho” with Patrick Bateman—it certainly needs a greater degree of theoretical work from academics and philosophers and should be made public. Boddy uses terms such as “dark leadership,” “dark manager” and “imposters as leaders,” noting that business (and government) have more and more been elevating individuals to positions of power who cannot be said to care for the entire organizations that oversee and represent them. That Boddy is willing to use the term “corporate psychopath” in a peer-reviewed theoretical paper is bold. Boddy deserves to be heard outside the realm of theory, though. His theoretical proposal, which is in fact the argument of all who aren’t dark leaders, should be part of the national discourse. http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/163736/the-corporate-psychopaths-theory-of-the-global-financial-crisis/
A peer-reviewed paper is set to appear in the Journal of Business ethics which proposes the theory that psychopaths on Wall Street have had a critical role in the global financial crisis.
Psychopathy is defined as the inability to empathize with the feelings of others. A theoretical paper, to be published in the Journal of Business ethics, will analyze the global financial crisis through the lens of the psychopath. The paper is titled “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis,” and it is written by Clive R. Boddy.
Boddy describes psychopaths as “the 1% of people who have no conscience or empathy and who do not care for anyone other than themselves.” An echo of the Occupy’s nemesis the 1%? Perhaps.
Of course, this theory is not new—many have theorized a connection between the modern psychological sickness, including Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri in their seminal work “Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.” (Note that schizophrenia and psychopathy are not the same, of course.) Boddy, of course, notes the current tradition in this theory in his paper. I wrote of this connection in “World Wealth Report: Rich Getting Richer,” in which I stated, “Is it not psychopathic, and more particularly sociopathic, that the world’s rich seem to have no problem that they are drawing more water from the well than the rest of us, even as the rich men of the US congressional and executive branches ask for austerity both here and abroad?”
Robert Jay Lifton has spent the better part of the last 60 years defining and cataloguing Psycho-History, so why not open studies into something like Psycho-Capitalism? Or, rather, Psycho-Corporatism? Brett Easton Ellis all but theorized the same thing in “American Psycho” with Patrick Bateman—it certainly needs a greater degree of theoretical work from academics and philosophers and should be made public.
Boddy uses terms such as “dark leadership,” “dark manager” and “imposters as leaders,” noting that business (and government) have more and more been elevating individuals to positions of power who cannot be said to care for the entire organizations that oversee and represent them.
That Boddy is willing to use the term “corporate psychopath” in a peer-reviewed theoretical paper is bold. Boddy deserves to be heard outside the realm of theory, though. His theoretical proposal, which is in fact the argument of all who aren’t dark leaders, should be part of the national discourse.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/163736/the-corporate-psychopaths-theory-of-the-global-financial-crisis/
The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis. Clive R. Boddy. PDF
There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people responsible for the financial crisis have anti-social personality disorder. I work with psychopaths(anti-socials), they seem perfectly normal and even charming but they are capable of doing anything to get what they want without remorse or guilt. They tend to blame their victims for their stupidity for being tricked or abused. As I read more and more about the businessmen during the financial crisis, I could see strong parallels with their perception of the world with anti-socials.
We don't actually call people "Psychopaths or Sociopaths" in mental health any more, they are anti-socials.
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