Exploitation—Part IV (c), Exploiting Exploitation−The Path To Prosperity

In “Exploitation Part IV (a), Exploiting Exploitation−The Cause” I claimed that the torment and higher costs that modern anti-sweatshop activists visited on rich country sweatshop owners inflicted net harm on the desperate people in poor countries. Those activists picked on rich country companies (as if those companies were causing the depicted people to be poor). In order to avoid being counterproductive, the activists needed to understand why Indonesians were poor and what would actually have enabled Indonesia to become a sustainably richer country. Lacking that understanding, it would have been happenstance had they actually helped the poor and it is no surprise that the activists advocated policies that were counterproductive.

To sort out what was counterproductive about the activists’ policies, one must understand what enables poor countries to become sustainably richer countries. Perhaps the easiest way to planning a path from poverty to prosperity is to identify what prosperous countries have that poor countries do not and then figure out what would enable a country to have those things. To cram into one sentence a summary of hundreds of books on this topic[i], to be rich, a country must have a culture with a relatively high reverence for and quantum of the rule of law, equal protection under the law, property rights, literacy, free markets, mutual trust among members of society, reasonable levels of taxation, and, perhaps above all, an ethic that confers dignity on people engaged in business (e.g., inventors, developers, manufacturers, service providers, traders, and entrepreneurs—even to those who honestly try but fail[ii]), as well as institutions that establish and preserve those things. In such cultures, humans can create wealth and thrive—which improves their own lives by producing things needed or wanted by others.

Note that having wealth (“capital”) is not on the list of prerequisites. With the above list of essential ingredients in place, humans can and do create wealth. History is replete with examples of poor countries with little or essentially no natural resources or much wealth becoming astoundingly wealthy. Hong Kong and Japan are great examples of this phenomenon. Conversely, history is even more replete with countries with great natural resources or wealth either failing to exploit their natural resources or squandering their wealth due to a lack of prerequisites for a sustainable prosperous culture/economy. Middle Easterners and the natives in the Western Hemisphere before the 17th century are examples of people making very little of their vast resources. Spain after the plunder of South America and Venezuela today are prime examples of countries squandering vast resources. Rome had an exceptional (for its time) amount the prerequisites as it rose to power, and returned to the norm when it abandoned too many of the prerequisites. [This blog is my small contribution to the effort to prevent America from suffering the same fate.]

Note also that benevolence is not a prerequisite.  As Adam Smith taught us so long ago, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” This is relevant because demanding that Nike spend more on employees than the market required to entice people to sign up for the work is a demand that Nike be benevolent. A plan that relies on the benevolence of others is unnecessary and unsustainable (it cannot sustain itself if the benefactor when the benefactor is no longer willing or able to be beneficent). Had a rich country given Indonesians billions of dollars in “aid” before Indonesia developed the culture and institutions to put the money to productive uses, before long all of that wealth that was not grabbed and stored in foreign bank accounts of politicians and other robbers, would have wound up in a sewer system or latrine, i.e., it would have created nothing but a short-lived bubble of prosperity followed by devastating loss of both wealth and hope.

To his great credit, Jeffrey Sachs has devoted his life to trying to figure out how to enable poor peoples to become rich. “He is known as one of the world’s leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty.”[iii] I doubt anyone has conducted more experiments to find how to prime the pump of prosperity for poor people. In the process, he has improved the lives of people in many ways. He literally wrote the book on “The End of Poverty.” On the other hand, neither he nor anyone else has figured out how to use foreign aid to kick-start a sustainable prosperous economy in places that do not have the prerequisites for prosperity.[iv]

Note also that since the beginning of the War On Poverty in 1965, the U.S. federal government has spent $22 Trillion on welfare programs. That $22 Trillion of beneficence has not caused the poor in America to thrive and become prosperous. In short, benevolence is a band-aid, it does not create prosperous people. [v] Nevertheless, if a pot into which all of the wealth of the world was deposited for the purpose of equal distribution to all the people of the world, many people in America’s bottom 20th percentile would put more money in the pot than they would be distributed from it. What poor countries need most is more prosperity. More cash won’t cut it.

Though he has not found the magic bullet, Jeffery Sachs has learned something very important about the role of sweatshops in getting a country on the path to prosperity. He puts it thus: “[S]weatshops are the first rung on the ladder out of extreme poverty.”[vi]

In fact, all rich countries went through a sweatshop phase in the process of becoming rich. As bad as the working and living conditions of poor workers in poor countries appeared to be in the videos, those living and working conditions are comparable to the preindustrial working and living conditions of poor people in all of the countries that are rich today. For example, the absence of indoor plumbing and air conditioning and the presence of horse dung in the paths to the public outdoor latrines were a common feature of New York City factories in 1900[vii]—which was well into the industrial revolution, i.e., well along the path to prosperity. Much worse working conditions and child labor in factories were commonplace at the beginning of the industrial revolution of the 1700s.[viii] There is no magic wand to be waved over impoverished countries to create enough productivity and wealth to support rich-county working conditions. They must go through the processes of creating a productive and sustainable economy first. (As will be explained in future posts, trying to jump-start the process with benevolence actually slows the process.)

For example, as I explained in “Wealth” about America:

“Factory labor was dehumanizing, sometimes led to child labor, and caused many to leave their “idyllic” farm lives. Despite these negative results, people took factory jobs because they could live a better life than would have been possible with their alternatives. One should realize that having young children working on farms was already necessary for survival. At first, there was nothing unnatural about children working as they had always done. Child labor only became dispensable after the factory machines (made possible and available by capitalism) improved the productivity of ordinary workers so they could produce enough to provide for their families. Even then, there was not enough productivity to dispense with all child labor. The first child labor laws restricted the employment of children younger than 9 years old, and the next wave of laws only required employers to provide a certain amount of education to young workers. It took more than 100 years for capitalism to produce sufficient productivity per worker so the legal age of an adult could be set at 18.”

For a country to dispense with child labor, it must be rich enough to do so. Quixotic do-gooding, such as Keady and Kretzu’s, hinders a country’s ability to become rich enough to dispense with child labor.

A common reason impoverished countries are impoverished is that economic conditions in those countries are not conducive to wealth creation, i.e., the odds that a new business would make enough profit to be worth the necessary effort, money and time are too low to induce enough people to attempt new businesses. Consequently, poor business environments generate neither the financial or human capital necessary to have a self-sustaining prosperous society. To create the necessary economic conditions for sustained prosperity, the odds of profitability of doing business in a poor country needs to increase. The greater the prospects for profit, the more and faster a country will move along the path to prosperity.

Those economic conditions that inhibit profitability can exist for a wide variety of reasons. Regardless of the reasons, however, no foreign company can substantially alter the economic conditions of another country. Under the right conditions, however, they can help countries get started on the right path. In particular, if (1) the foreign company is large and wealthy enough to take on distant, complicated, problematic,[ix] and risky operations in a foreign land, (2) opening a factory in a foreign land is profitable enough to deal with all issues of building and running a factory there, then the job opportunities its factory makes available to poor people in that country will increase the workers’ financial and human capital (wellbeing)—all of which increase their productivity—and will put the country in a better position to improve its economy.

A hallmark of poor people in poor countries is that they have few, if any skills when hired, know nothing about how to become a productive (valuable) employee, and have no way to gain that human capital. Working in a sweatshop starts the process of building those skills. Building and operating factories in poor countries necessarily provides to poor people (1) brick and mortar capital, (2) employment income that will (a) improve the standard of living of the employee, and (b) be traded with local businesses, thereby improving the lives of the owners and employees of those other businesses, and (3) education (human capital) to workers (a) who learn skills and/or what causes workers to be rewarded or punished for various behaviors, and (b) for some, how to run a business.

As I hope is now obvious, “Sweatshops themselves are part of the very process of development that will lead to their own elimination.”[x]

To those who are more interested in actually helping poor people than enhancing their self-esteem, the more poor countries can receive the benefits of sweatshops, the better for the poor.

[i]       The seminal book was Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.” My favorite book on the subject is Diedre McCloskey’s “Bourgeois Dignity.”

[ii]       See “The EU Is Not Entrepreneur Heaven — But It Could Be:”

“The “fail fast, fail often” mentality is at the center of the entrepreneurial approach in the U.S., and investors regard a track record of failures as a sign of boldness, intelligence, and ambition.

Not so much in the EU: While in Germany, for example, a failed entrepreneur, manager or professional is at best regarded with contempt, there are countries like Italy where a personal bankruptcy essentially means that you will not be able to build any other business for the rest of your whole life — and in some cases not even own anything at all, like a car, a house or an armchair.”

[iii]     See Jeffery Sachs Wikipedia page.

[iv]     See William Easterly’s “The Elusive Quest for Growth” and “Jeffrey Sachs on the Millennium Villages Project.”

[v]      See “The War on Poverty After 50 Years.”

[vi]      See “Meet the Old Sweatshops, Same as the New.”

[vii]     See “Life in New York City before indoor toilets.”

[viii]    See “The conditions in these early sweatshops were worse than those in many Third World sweatshops today. In some factories, workers toiled for sixteen hours a day, six days per week. Attendance at traditional festival days was curtailed because factories would fine workers for absences. The working conditions were unhealthy and dangerous. Dust from textile fibers was inhaled in poorly ventilated rooms, and workers were maimed by fast-moving machinery (Stearns 2007, 35). Child labor was common.2 Factories employed orphan children from London and other major cities in exchange for providing them room and board.”  Also see, “Meet the Old Sweatshops, Same as the New,” Page 110, VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2014.


[x]    See “Meet the Old Sweatshops, Same as the New,” Page 120, VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2014.

Exploitation—Part IV (b), Exploiting Exploitation−The “Arguments”


Let’s review the activists’ tactics/“arguments” (described in “Exploitation Part IV (a), Exploiting Exploitation−The Cause”).

(1) Publish videos of working conditions in the rich companies’ sweatshops. As viewed through Western lenses, the conditions living and working conditions presented in “Behind the Swoosh” were invidious. The video was quite useful in raising awareness of the importance of improving the lives of desperately poor people around the world. Note, however, that the working conditions of a sweatshop are poor is a fact. The closest it comes to being an argument would be that it implies that something should be done by someone. However, showing that fact makes no case about what should be done or by whom.

Yet, the activists seem to think that they have made an argument that because Nike owns the sweatshop and the working conditions are, by Western standards, unacceptably low, that Nike should improve working conditions. Because achieving that result would be in the best interest of Jim Keady, Leslie Kretzu, and other activists—because that result was their goal (another unstated goal appears to have been achieving the joy of defaming big companies)—they likely found the “argument” to be compelling (as did lots of people who were just as uninformed as the activists). Sadly, however, their “argument” omitted all the fact necessary to an understanding of what would help the poor people of the world (the goal that they claimed to be pursuing). An “argument” founded on a tiny fraction of the relevant facts, however, is not an argument.

When it comes to helping those desperately poor people, what was shown made matters worse and had action been taken in response to what the video did not show would have actually helped the desperately poor people of the world.

Most important, while succumbing to the activists’ tactics resulted in improvements in the working conditions and pay (lives) of the relatively few poor Indonesians who won the job lottery of being employed by Nike, the “success” for those few Indonesians resulted in the unnecessary continuation of misery for millions of other desperately poor people in Indonesia—and hundreds of millions elsewhere. Moreover, the least skilled of the Nike employees at the time of the video (perhaps even some shown in the videos) would have lost their jobs to higher skilled Indonesians enticed away from their former job to enjoy the higher pay and better working conditions at Nike.

The videos did not reveal those negative consequences. The fact that the activists filmed and published their videos while oblivious to the consequences of their actions should have brought them infamy. Sadly (especially for the poor of the world), due to the equal obliviousness of the general public in America, they were esteemed instead.

Another instance of Keady or Kretzu serving their own interests at the expense of the poor was that they advocated for things that Keady and Kretzu thought would be best for the Nike workers rather than what Nike workers thought would have been best for the Nike workers. Had Keady and Kretzu asked sweatshop workers whether they would have preferred better working conditions or more pay with the same (or even somewhat worse working conditions), the vast majority would have said “more pay.” Why? As the videos showed, the poor Indonesians were continually malnourished and hungry. The reason poor Indonesians would choose more pay over better working conditions is simple: No one can nourish her starving family with better working conditions. So, even had the activists’ “arguments” actually been arguments, those arguments would not have been tilted in favor of the activists’ interests rather than the best interests of the poor they sought to help.

(2) Show how little the workers were paid. Showing a factoid out of context can cause emotional, knee-jerk reactions, but it is often of little help in understanding a problem—which is essential to effectively addressing the problem. For example, showing a clueless mother the advantages to herself and her children if they were to successfully rob a bank might induce her to give that plan a go. Obviously, the fact that the factoid is true, does not mean that there were no other facts that should be considered before executing the plan. Such is the nature of the “logic” underlying the activists’ plan to improve working conditions and pay.

A very important fact omitted from the video is the fact that every one of the depicted workers was much better off than they would have been absent the Nike job—despite the poor working conditions and pay. Everyone who accepted Nike’s job offer was fully aware of the pay and working conditions being offered and, not only did workers voluntarily agree to the deal, they felt lucky that they were near enough to the front of the long line[i] of job applicants that they, unlike the woeful applicants remaining in the line when the window closed, got a job before all the positions were filled. Such pertinent information could not be included in the videos because it would have been too much of a buzzkill to their demonization of Nike.

Another important factor misleadingly omitted from the video is the reason workers were paid so little in Indonesia at the time. The primary reason workers in poor countries are paid so little is that the number of low-skilled workers greatly exceeded the number of low-skilled jobs (i.e., the supply of low-skilled workers greatly exceeded the demand for low-skilled workers). As I explained in “Tax Cuts and Employee Compensation,” the best approach to increase wages at any pay level is to increase the number of jobs at that level of pay. In short, workers’ pay at any pay level rises when qualified workers for a job are scarce and such jobs are plentiful.[ii] The ripple effect of more people having jobs, more money, and prosperity helps everyone, not just the Nike workers. Slowing the pace of job growth has precisely the opposite effects, which are bad for everyone.

Keady or Kretzu were obviously oblivious to the fact that as the cost of labor increases, the demand for labor decreases. Consequently, Keady or Kretzu were illogically advocating policies that would reduce the number of jobs, thereby putting downward pressure on pay for low-skilled workers in Indonesia (with the possible exception of those lucky few who landed a job at a sweatshop owned by a rich country company).

(3) Show how little the pay will buy. How little can be bought with sweatshop pay says nothing about the pay that would best serve the interest of all the poor people in a country. Consequently, showing how little can be purchased is not an argument as to what sweatshops should pay. They made no logical economic argument that paying the people they filmed more would be in the best interest of poor Indonesians as a whole. With what the activists chose to show, the only honest and logical argument the activists could have attempted would have been that arbitrarily paying Nike’s sweatshop workers above-market wages and working conditions created enough good to offset the extension of misery that would be inflicted on the millions of other poor people in the country as a result. An honest and logical argument, however, was likely impossible. Apparently more important to the activists, attempting an honest and logical argument would have undermined their efforts to gin up the emotional fever for their ill-founded cause.

(4) Show the workers’ destitution. Showing destitution provides no hint as to how best to alleviate destitution or who should pay the cost of such alleviation. Is anything more illogical than activists insisting that people or companies that are actually helping the poor should be condemned for not helping them even more?[iii] To be logically consistent, shouldn’t activists be patrolling the streets of big cities screaming at people who put only $5 in a homeless person’s tin cup because the homeless person really needs $10K to get back on his feet?

(5) Reveal the high-profit Western sweatshop owners made each year. The wealth of an employer has nothing to do with either what employees should be paid or what pay is in the best interest of the poor people of the world. Neither does reporting the wealth of an employer reveal anything about whether the profit made from its poor country operations is inappropriately high, nor whether its operations are exploitative. It especially does not show how much less poor country workers would be paid by poorer domestic sweatshop owners (or how many fewer of such owners there would be if the income from foreign owners were not rippling through the economy) if rich companies were to abandon their operations in poor countries because of the derision and infamy that activists heap upon them. That activists routinely pick on companies that are making job opportunities available to people who would not otherwise have a job is illogical and exasperating.

As can be seen from the above, “Behind the Swoosh” and the other anti-sweatshop activists’ tactics approached 100% emotional appeal and 0% logical soundness.

As we shall see in the following post, if the anti-activists would have paid attention to sound economic reasoning instead of their emotions (or what was in their personal best interest), they would have gotten out of the way of rich businesses that were helping poor countries take a shorter and sustainable trip to prosperity. Instead, the activists have exploited the public’s economic illiteracy to make matters worse for the people they believed they were helping.



[ii]     See “The world economy as we know it is about to be turned on its head.”

[iii]    The companies listed in “The 20 Companies With The Most Low-Wage Workers” (which hire about 2 million minimum wage workers) are hounded the most.



















[i]       See “Anti-sweatshop movement.”


[iii]      See “Two Cheers for Sweatshops.”



[vi]      See “The Marginal Product of Labor.”





