EWOT Seven

The Importance of Cheap Labor

During this week, I’ve heard a lot of people arguing that Apple Inc., forming sweatshop in East Asia, is a horrible slaveholder who thwarted the growth of economy in developing countries and exploited the workers in those countries, causing the ill-being of the cheap laborers. Hearing so, I couldn’t help myself thinking about this argument. Is the rich country really getting better-off whilst the poor ones getter poor? Of course no, we all know that trade is not zero sum.

First, is the sweatshop really “exploiting” the workers? Why does this statement sound so familiar? Yes, that’s how people react to the introduction of machine during the industrial revolution. “Factories exploit workers with tough works, low wages, and terrible environment” as argued by some people. Yes, these are all true. But are famine, tough work, and terrible environment new? No! Even during the pre-industrial revolution period, farmers work tough works with sweat on their back, earn even lower income and suffer from the transforming climate of nature. The real comparison we need to do is to compare the cheap labor with their counterparts in the past! By doing so, we can easily realize they’re far better-off now.

Second, are these workers insane? If working in the sweatshop really makes them so worse-off, why don’t they just quit? Some may argue that：”they don’t have alternative choices, if they quit, they’ll just die.” Yes! That’s how I’ll response to the statement itself: If they work in these factories, they’ll not die! Those workers are not insane; they know what’s best for them. Nobody made the choice out of their own free will!