Shaun Livingston To Become A URFA

[dms269]

I forget how Shaun Livingston ties into this.

[conleyorbust]

I simply think that for something to be exploitative it has to involve being unfair. And when someone is better off and they would be unquestionably worse off without the offer you are making them then I don't at all see it as exploitative. You are giving them a better choice than what they had before.

But yeah COB. If a company is actively going to the government to PREVENT other opportunities then it absolutely is exploitation. Maybe you see a pattern here... more opportunities is not exploitation, fewer opportunities is exploitation. You guys want to restrict what jobs people are allowed to accept- that is far more harmful to me.

Do me a favor and point out where I gave ANY sort of prescriptive reccomendation. I'm fairly sure that when I said this:

have no problem with going to a developing (Third World, whatever someone wants to call it) country because the wages are lower.

... I made it clear that I don't look at this issue in black and white. My main point was that you don't actually know the definition of exploit which can be summed up succinctly as "to use".

Beyond that, read a book or so. If a company is willing to go to a cheap-labor company and provide substandard conditions, which most are, you can be damn sure that they are going to go to the government and tell them that if any wage, safety, or environmental laws are put in place that affect that company, they are getting the hell out and taking their kickback money with them. Common practice my man.

In my mind, if you are willing to provide wages that don't ensure food and if you are willing to put those underpaid employees in unsafe conditions, than actively pushing to keep those conditions the norm doesn't make you any worse. It is exploitation either way, that is within the commonly accepted definition of the word. Again, you make think that exploitation isn't necessarilly a "wrong" act because at the end of the day people are getting made a product is being pushed, I just disagree that the conditions have to be the way they are.

Its not absolute, or it shouldn't be anyway, that you either should or shouldn't be able to search for lower wages and if you should be able to than its no-holds-barred. There should be ways to utilize those lower wages and make sure people remain safe and healthy. Happens in some places, doesn't in others (like in the Maquiladoras along the border where union organizers are murdered, it doesn't).

Beyond that, we are tilting the argument in your favor by assuming that people have perfect information. Assuming that a wage bringer isn't lying to people, manipulating people, etc. Are the kids that sell drugs better off because they have an opportunity that they otherwise wouldn't have had? No, they should go to school, but without the information on what would happen to them either way, they will be a lot more likely to end up on the corner. Same goes with the farmer who sells his land to the factory (well usually the land is forcibly taken by a corrupt government who gets money from the factory) with the promise that he will be taken care of but actually gets paid less than a living wage while inhaling chemical dye fumes all day.


Anyway, enough talk on development. Its friday and getting towards quittin time.