

Ask HN: Is is possible live ethically by not supporting sweatshops - quietthrow

Is is possible to buy a phone that is not manufactured in a sweatshop ? is it possible to buy clothes that are not manufactured in a sweatshop ? Would like to hear if the community has any folks that were able to successfully bypass the current system and still maintain a standard of living that one could without bypassing sweatshops.<p>Also, How did things get so bad ? would like to hear a economist&#x27;s perspective. Since I feel its partly responsible for the current state of affairs.
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pathy
> How did things get so bad ?

I would probably say that it is better than it has ever been. Looking back in
history, child labour was very high until the early/mid 20th century.

According to Wikipedia [0]: The incidence of child labour in the world
decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank.

So we are probably overall better off than before. Sweatshops of varying
degrees are unpleasant by Western standards, but they do provide a better
(slightly at least) than working on a poor farm. They, if I am correct, appear
to be quite effective in quickly increasing the living standards in countries.
People do flock to these jobs for a reason - they are (a lot) better than the
alternatives.

However, I don't know if it is avoidable to use 'sweatshops'. American Apparel
are made, mostly, in American factories if I recall correctly?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour)

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VandyILL
For the phone issue, a company (somewhere in Northern Europe if I remember
right) built an android phone using materials entirely from non-conflict areas
etc. Not a sweatshop issue, but I would bet a company that is trying to take
on that element of the manufacturing process would not opt for a bottom of the
line sweatshop.

On another note, many of the issues I have faced while working on my JD have
involved looking at supply chains while tackling issues like climate change &
corporate social responsibility. There's a lot of research being put into
things to track where products are coming from & new standards in things like
requests for proposals requiring suppliers to be socially & environmentally
responsible. Still, not every business participates in this practice.
Partially because of the cost & also because it's hard to demonstrate this
type of responsiblity to the consumer. Oddly, there's other companies like Red
Lobster which buys 100% of its seafood from sustainable fisheries, but you'll
never see a single hint of this in their stores & advertising.

Relating to the concept above, I am working on an idea for a virtual
complementary currency that is used to both finance socially responsible
companies & steer money through supply chains etc. to other responsible
companies. That was a long winded explanation, but just think "Bitcoin meets
responsible investing." Another way to imagine it would be to think about
trading Certificates of Deposit when buying / selling goods instead of trading
cash. The receiver gets something of value, but the fact that it's in a CD
means that they cannot break the investment you created without incurring a
penalty.

The part that relates to supply chains / sweat shops is that to exchange the
currency for its cash value there is a hefty exit fee. This prevents companies
you do business with from immediately liquidating the currency and ending the
socially responsible investments you committed the currency to. It also opens
the opportunity to vary the exit fee depending on how responsible a company
is. Thus, you could leave something like an 8% exit fee (like an exit load on
a mutual fund) on all businesses, including sweatshops in other countries. But
if you find a sweatshop that is treating employees better etc. you could
reduce or eliminate the exit fee. Doing this would cause the responsible
sweatshops to value the currency more & make it more likely that businesses
who accept the currency will seek out these suppliers in their supply chains.
So I could go on, but basically the idea is to create entitlements (in the
legal sense) through private contracts that cause the currency you spend to
flow to more ethical businesses.

I've slowly started exposing my idea to friends to get more input and hoping
to turn it into a company. Most of my discussions have been on the investment
side of the currency & not the Coasean approach to ethical supply chains. Im
also looking to do possibly do an independent study during my final semester
of law school this fall that would look into all the legal aspects of
securities/banking/financial regulation involving an alternate currency where
the deposits finance socially responsible / clean energy companies. There's a
ton of ways to do it, but each comes with a different set of legal burdens.

I'm also slowly starting to network through friends to find a possible co-
founder for a company based on this idea with the hope of applying to
Y-combinator this winter. (I have dabbled w/ programming for fun, but haven't
built anything too complex. I also realized that I mostly just liked learning
the syntax & solving puzzles so my latest efforts have just been solving
Project Euler stuff w/ Haskell for fun but with no intention of using the
language in the real world).

For anyone wondering where the companies' profit would come from, it would
come from exchanges on the system. Unlike bitcoin's P2P system, this would be
a centrally managed currency. This means that the payment systems would also
be managed by the company. They would take a small fee for each payment made
with the currency system. However, since all payments would have to happen
through the company's system, the company could charge a lower rate than
square & other competitors (because the company gets to take a fee off of all
future transactions instead of just the individual transaction & then passing
the cash off to a private individual who is free to use whatever
payment/banking system they want.)

Sorry if this was a a bit rambling / not too clear. Didn't want to spend too
much time writing this before work.

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larsonf
This is going to sound a bit glib, but the problem sort of fixes itself.

Look at China. "Sweatshop" sort of manufacturing has largely left. Now the
country has more Rolls Royces and Bentleys sold there vs _any other_ sans the
US. Where did those shops go? Well, places like indonesia. But, guess what,
those manufacturing outfits have since left and gone to Bangladesh.

The money goes where people will do work for less. Nobody can stop this. But
where it _does_ go, it leaves a wake of prosperity. Maybe not for the people
themselves--the kids doing the sweating--but for their kids--or really, their
neighbors' kids.

Over the last 30 years, 1 _billion_ \-- with a 'b'\-- people have come out of
extreme poverty as defined by international standards. Why? Because people in
some countries stopped wanting to do horrible work and others would. And then
when those countries stopped wanting to do it, others would.

Guess who is next? Myanmar.

And round and round and round it goes.

This kind of thinking only works if you are ok with generational problem-
solving. If not a single person, ever, no matter what, cannot be allowed to
_not_ live according to elite Western Standards--then, yeah, it's a problem.
Otherwise, international capital flows do the work no single entity or popular
movement could ever do:give money to those who actually want it most.

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terrykohla
You don't want to support sweatshops? That is great! That means you're
starting to understand how things work and where they come from.

Keep doing your research and you'll soon find that economically speaking,
eliminating what you call sweatshops is like trying to eliminate gravity.

Everybody needs to eat and if they refuse to live a dishonest criminal life,
they'll take a job no matter how little it pays and that opens up new business
oportunity. It's the law of the market and it won't change if you or a little
group tries to buy locally because not everyone can afford (even if they are
aware) to buy more expensive local products. This is why Wal-Mart has been
unstoppable.

Most electronics (computer/cell ph) now a days are manufactured in what you'd
call a sweatshop.

How did things get so bad ?

It all depends on the information you consume, bad news vs good news. The
opportunities we have now a days are overwhelming, things have never been
better (or worse).

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gesman
Sweatshop is more of a political term. Reality is that when kid in poor
country has a choice between no job and total misery and some job and some
money - he chooses later. No one is killing people for not taking a job.

You, of course have a choice of not buying stuff made in "sweatshop" and
rather buying stuff made in a company where very young worker is happy to make
some money to bring to his family.

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notahacker
Define "sweatshop"

