> The point is that without that sweatshops the people working there would be even worse off. Is that correct? Maybe, maybe not, but it's completely different from what you're arguing against.
The people working there are free agents. Why would they choose to work for a sweatshop if it makes them worse off than their next best alternative? (Note: I'm discussing about law-abiding businesses that pay low wages, not crime syndicates that enslave people or whatever hypothetical.)
The answer is that because having a job makes them better off. The workers typically have worse alternatives, which is why sweatshops are able to pay a low wage. The workers would otherwise be jobless or have an even lower paying job, or would be subsistence farming.
Discussions about the economics of such situations often fall prey to the weakness in reasoning that's jokingly called the "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics": https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth... - an obviously fallacious ethics where that, simply by interacting with a situation, you somehow become responsible for it.
If you take this logical fallacy into account, then more jobs and more options are always better things. People can choose what's best for them, and it's not the employer's fault if no better employment option is available. It is rather typically the case that sweatshops and globalization bring visibility to pre-existing poverty that would exist and would be even worse if not for the wages. People typically work a job because they need the money, after all. If people don't need the money, and have some better alternative, then what's stopping them from doing that instead?
(Just so we're clear: there's agreement that people working these jobs have shit options. The disagreement is about whether their employers are somehow doing an immoral thing by offering a job when they might not otherwise have one.)
> The people working there are free agents. Why would they choose to work for a sweatshop if it makes them worse off
> The workers typically have [only] worse alternatives
Well, why would anyone write nonsense, if it makes them worse off? And yet there you go.
Edit:
>If people don't need the money, and have some better alternative, then what's stopping them from doing that instead?
The sweatshop owner, their customers, the government, the economy all have an incentive. The people might be part of any of those, granted, but less likely in poor conditions.
You and Krugman are sinplistically ignoring complex macro effects, like someone sacrificing their previous home and skillset, moving to a new city for the promise of a better job, and getting stuck. Look at the laborers trapped in Qatar with no passports, or everyone involved in labor that involves human trafficking, as an extreme but not unique example.
And suffering the externalities of, for example, a polluting factory in their town.
I don't know about the details of that situation. There are certainly abusive situations in the world, and where that is the case, I would argue that those situations can best be characterized by their criminality and violation of human rights -- in the sense of those effects being the "problem" rather than economic effects. What you're describing sounds like a criminal infringement of universal human rights -- such as in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude (Article 4), that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention (Article 9), and that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and has the right to leave any country (Article 13).
One cannot analyze the economy rationally in the context of flagrant violation of the law and human rights, since economics requires property rights and trade. If a warlord invades a nearby country and his government seizes possession of all companies and their property, and puts people into slavery, then clearly that's an unethical thing, but I don't think it necessarily teaches us much about the economics of a poor but peaceful and law-abiding country in which many workers earn low wages.
Additionally, I agree that there will be macroeconomic effects, but those same effects also argue against your point on a long-term basis:
Why did they move to Qatar in the first place? Presumably because they heard there were good jobs there. What happens now that people hear that there are no good jobs there, and that Qatar engages in criminal violation of human rights? Workers will stop moving there, and will move somewhere else with better opportunity instead. Or if Qatar is still their best option, perhaps they'll risk the same outcome -- but who are you blaming in that scenario? Certainly criminals are to blame for breaking the law, or violating human rights, but I'm not sure what it tells us about law-abiding companies that pay low wages.
If the argument is that companies offering low wages causes criminality and human rights abuses, then that argument needs to be made, not merely hinted at. Rather than assuming that low-paying jobs cause crime, it seems rather simpler and more intuitive to assume that both crime and low-paying jobs exist in areas with preexisting poverty. So the question that I'm posing is, what's the best way to lift areas out of poverty? With jobs -- the best jobs that anyone is willing to offer to workers in the area, and the best jobs that the workers are qualified to work.
The people working there are free agents. Why would they choose to work for a sweatshop if it makes them worse off than their next best alternative? (Note: I'm discussing about law-abiding businesses that pay low wages, not crime syndicates that enslave people or whatever hypothetical.)
The answer is that because having a job makes them better off. The workers typically have worse alternatives, which is why sweatshops are able to pay a low wage. The workers would otherwise be jobless or have an even lower paying job, or would be subsistence farming.
Discussions about the economics of such situations often fall prey to the weakness in reasoning that's jokingly called the "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics": https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth... - an obviously fallacious ethics where that, simply by interacting with a situation, you somehow become responsible for it.
If you take this logical fallacy into account, then more jobs and more options are always better things. People can choose what's best for them, and it's not the employer's fault if no better employment option is available. It is rather typically the case that sweatshops and globalization bring visibility to pre-existing poverty that would exist and would be even worse if not for the wages. People typically work a job because they need the money, after all. If people don't need the money, and have some better alternative, then what's stopping them from doing that instead?
(Just so we're clear: there's agreement that people working these jobs have shit options. The disagreement is about whether their employers are somehow doing an immoral thing by offering a job when they might not otherwise have one.)