Greed and desire for profit are two entirely different things.
No they are not.
Greed is most often defined essentially as the negative side of desiring of profit (and taking steps to get it that others would consider negative). Sometimes its even used to fully equal desire for profit, dropping the "negative" part.
And the early 20th century robber barrons were cruel to their workers.
The "robber barons" are usually looked at as being a 19th century thing than a 20th century. Also conditions for workers where worse in the 19th century, so it might help your case to focus there more than on the 20th.
Where conditons harsh (even in the early 20th, and certainly in the 19th, or in the 21st in less developed countries), sure. But the conditions where an improvement. People take jobs because the job is a better choice for them than not having the job. The job improves their life, or at least they think it will (and they are often right about that). Conditions that most modern Americans would tend to consider acceptable simply where not possible back then, we had less wealth, more primitive technology, less understanding of ways to productively and affordable allow for good conditions for workers. If you insisted on only jobs with good conditions, you would basically be insisting on far fewer formal jobs, with the others working outside the law, or in subsistence agriculture which many of the early factory workers came from. You would also be slowing, or in the extreme even preventing the generation of wealth that enabled better conditions for workers, and the competition for workers that drove the provision of better conditions.
I imagine in the future, some of today's conditions will be considered harsh or unreasonable. But they are mostly reasonable for the circumstances, just as many of the situations faced by workers in the industrial revolution where (not all of them for sure, but it wasn't just laws or unions that greatly reduced such abuse, without the economic and technological development that occurred the laws and unions trying to force conditions we think of today as good, would have likely had little effect, or if they did have an effect it would have been mostly negative, even disastrous.
We had "sweat shops" because that's what the economics of the US at that time supported. Other countries, at an earlier point in their economic development have sweat shops today for the same reason. Activism, unions, the law, can if used wisely, improve things at the margin, but they can not shift things quickly without causing more harm than good, and are not the main reason behind the shift.
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Say that we had first contact with some super (economically) advanced aliens.
…and pretty soon they set up factories here.
…and I was offered a job in one of these factories, doing software engineering.
The pay is $400k/year.
The work week is 20 hours long.
The work environment is far better than I’m used to – great internal decoration, well tended plants, a zen-like water garden near my desk, massages every other day.
…and then left-wing alien “sentient being rights activists” started protesting, because I was being forced to work for less than a quarter of the prevailing wage in Alpha Centauri, and my work hours were twice as long as the legal norms in Alpha Centauri, and I didn’t have every mandatory benefits like “other other year off”, and “free AI musical composition mentoring”.
…and then left-wing alien “sentient being rights activists” wanted to make it illegal for my employer and I to contract with each other at mutually beneficial terms.
…then I would be rip shit that some elitist who had never visited me, or knew of my actual alternatives on the ground presumed to decide that I shouldn’t have this opportunity.
Which brings me to my core point: Chinese factory conditions may not be the exact cup of tea for a San Francisco graphic designer or a Connecticut non-profit ecologist grant writer … but they’re, by definition, better than all the other alternatives available to the Chinese workers (or the factories would find it impossible to staff up).
Butt out, clueless activists.
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