Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[rong]

Isn't Renton ok with slave labour. Not if their forced physically, but he's ok with paying them next to nothing because their desperate. I think that's an integral part of capitalism.

[Renton]

Isn't Renton ok with slave labour. Not if their forced physically, but he's ok with paying them next to nothing because their desperate. I think that's an integral part of capitalism.

It's an insult to actual slaves to refer to willing participants in commerce as slaves or even as similar to slaves. The existence of choice is a pretty black-and-white distinction.

It is not an integral part of capitalism that people be paid next to nothing. Incidentally people will be paid next to nothing when there is very low demand for their productive use of time. It's obviously an unfortunate situation to be so desperate for work that you will take almost any job at any wage, but capitalism has better answers for those people than socialism does. And in any case, it is not slavery, not even close.

I really wish all socialist intellectual types would visit an actual poor country to see what actual poverty is like. I live in Cambodia, and basically all people here want to do is to incrementally improve their lives. Often this means taking a 90 dollar a month job. In fact, if a new garment factory (a.k.a. sweatshop) opens up, people line up around the block to work there. The NGO's trying to shut down the sweatshops or boycott the products are not doing these people any favors. They're just increasing the sweatshop owners' risks and costs which lead to fewer factories being built. This leads to lower wages in a country where there are ten people vying for every job opening.

The other thing is the working conditions and child labor issues, which usually go with the "modern-day slavery" hyperbole. I guarantee if you went to any sweatshop worker in Cambodia and asked him "would you rather have safer, more comfortable working environments, or more money?", that they would say they want the money. Some families here are so poor that they might not have enough money to eat, let alone to send their children to school, so it often makes perfect sense for a 13 year old to generate income for the family. There are not easy solutions to this, but allowing people to make their own choices to improve their lives is generally going to be better than moralizing and crusading.