That's an interesting story about you wife Neo, I like that! :)
The whole "exploitation" rigamorole is criminal. The development cycle of the Third World after colonial rule is tragic, but hardly exploitation. I made a quick sketch of the situation elsewhere: Message 8842189
Similiarly is the outrage expressed when "sweatshops" in US territories or otherwise overseas are uncovered, such as the infamous Vietnamese Nike and Marianna Islands factories. One hears the same kind of "exploitation" crying about Mexican migrant labor. What people fail to understand is that the extremely low wages (relative to US and Western wages) is the equivelant of many years or months worth of wages in their home country, which these people are more than happy to work for. When the shops in the "sweatshops" of imported Chinese labor working 12, 15 hour days, 7 days a week for months on end were discovered, there was an outrage. But these Chinese laborors insisted that they didnt *want* a 40 hour week, they came there to work for 2 years and go back to China with the equivelant of 10 years wages for their families. I wish I still had that article so I could cite it, but I think it illustrates the issue of "exploitation" well. |
