You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

IBdaMann wrote:

jwoodward48 wrote: Have you ever talked to a worker?

I talk to workers all the time.

jwoodward48 wrote: Do you think that they would stay in sweatshops if they had an actual way of providing for themselves elsewhere?

Irrelevant. Do they voluntarily show up for work every day. They are completely free to stay home, or do you not understand that?

They are all free to choose, go to work under the given conditions or go do anything else they want. They choose to go to work.

Yet you demonize the employer. I can just imagine your utopia in which stormtroopers burst into businesses and force the employees to go home and the business to shut down for the benefit of the workers who are now liberated from their paychecks. And society benefits as well because of the now missing goods and services.

jwoodward48 wrote: That's no choice. They have no other option, save "scavenge in the streets" or "die".

So how is that the employer's fault? If the worker doesn't like the job s/he can leave. It's an entirely real choice despite your insistence that it is not.

I am trying to imagine your utopia of a ruined economy that leaves the people poor and starving ... and then going around closing the only businesses that remain for offering jobs. That's great. Don't blame the government that makes the people destitute; blame the businesses that are trying to keep the economy on life support.

jwoodward48 wrote:
Okay, fine. It adds value to society by hurting part of society and helping other parts.

You still need to show this. You need to show how merely offering someone a job and allowing said person the choice of freely accepting or not accepting the job, should be made a criminal act.

This is the bottom line.

jwoodward48 wrote: The fact that American companies can do this in other countries.

Wait, we now have a new problem. If those businesses are operating within the law in those countries then they aren't sweatshops. Part of your definition is that they are breaking laws.

jwoodward48 wrote: Depends on context. Which serious crime, which person, and how did they obstruct justice?

Thank you. In your mind it's OK if the FBI lets people walk as long as they are the right people. Can you imagine what I'm thinking of your Utopia at the moment?


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Into the Night wrote:
I also talk to workers. Every day. I hire them. I fire them. I expect them to do their jobs. I expect them to be competent in the jobs they do. For certain workers with no training at all, I will train them in that competency. If it takes, kumbayah, we can make money together. If not, too bad for the worker. They will have to try again with somebody else.

The 'workers' you see on the street are not workers. They are drug addicts, mentally ill that the State has abandoned illegally, and gang members. I will have none of them in my business. Other than the mentally ill, they chose the life they lead. The mentally ill is the State's problem. They are a good example of just how inhumane governments can be.

No one is forced into a low paying job. All have the choice of getting training for a better job. My company offers such training while you work. You can earn AND learn. I am not unique in offering such programs.