Sweatshops Are Bad

With the increase of taxes on big businesses that manufacture clothes, electronics, and other items, companies are constantly looking for a way to cut costs and increase profits. Many companies that manufacture clothes use sweatshops, which allow for cheap labor costs and few rules controlling working conditions and overtime regulations. Many clothing and footwear companies have been linked to these sweatshops, where the working conditions are so bad that in some cases the workers will commit suicide at work. Sweatshops will usually exist in countries that have few laws in place that protect the workers or the environment. Businesses can take advantage of both of these factors, as they allow the wages for the workers to be low and plants …show more content…
In a free market, the company that can produce goods at the lowest cost will always win by default. All companies are in business to make money, and the easiest way to increase profits in a capitalist world is to pay the workers less. Whether it be low wages, no health insurance, or dangerous work conditions, the bottom line is to save as much money as possible to drive up profits. Many people fail to understand that will sweatshops are evil, they are also a necessary evil. In a perfect world business would care about its workers more than the profits they bring in. In reality the profits are the reason that the business exists in the first place, and it is also what allows the company to pay its workers. In order for people in one country to be able to afford goods such as clothing and electronics, the cost must be as low as possible. Low costs of good simply results from low production costs, and low production costs often results from low wages to the ones who actually produce the goods. In certain countries there are few laws to protect the people or the environment, and in these places it is most appealing for manufacturing plants to exist. The lack of any type of union in these plants also helps to keep the wages paid down. All of these factors can make manufacturing plants the most amount of money at the expense of the worker. In third world countries, there …show more content…
The first logical step would be to force governments of these countries to enact labor and environmental laws. In many of these countries, the government is very corrupt and they have no interest in doing this. It is almost impossible to force a government to adopt new laws, the best way to try to do this is to sanction them. What results from the sanctions is the impoverished people losing out the most. Trade sanctions will only hurt the people at the bottom, and not the wealthy people in the corrupt government. Unless new laws can be established in these countries, I do not feel the sweatshops will close down any time soon. The fact of the matter is that we all buy many items every day that are made in sweatshops. Our desire or need for these items will not decrease because they are made in horrible conditions. Since we continue to buy these items, the demand does not decrease. Instead, some companies try to cover up their connection to sweatshops. In many cases they will buy the goods off of a “middle man” and they tend not to ask questions about how the goods are produced. In order for capitalism to work, some people in this world must pay the cost. The cost is now being paid by impoverished people who cannot afford to feed their families, and we are taking advantage of them each time we purchase these products. It is as simple as this, if we want to