Globalization Of Sweatshops

In recent years, there has been a dramatic growth in the outsourcing of production by companies to developing countries. This globalization of production has led the world’s focus on manufacturing methods, specifically the use of sweatshops. The term ‘sweatshop’ in today’s world has gained a predominantly negative connotation due to the Western perspective of this establishment. It evokes a variety of emotions from people without a great deal of understanding of what the term describes or the reasons for its existence.
As always, every issue has two sides, and in the case of sweatshops, it can be viewed as either the violation of human rights and dignity or as the building blocks of a country’s economy. This raises the very pertinent question
Accepted by many as the industry standard, it is important to remember that this definition only provides a precise, legal interpretation of the term and that sweatshops can exist in many forms. The existence of a sweatshop does not lie in the working conditions per se, but rather in the relation of employer to employee. In the words of historian Leon Stein, "The sweatshop is a state of mind as well as a physical fact… The sweatshop, whether in a modern factory building or a dark slum cellar, exists where the employer controls the working conditions and the worker cannot protest" (Pugatch,
One of the most important things to remember is that workers voluntarily choose to work in sweatshops and this must mean something. Understandably they are choosing from a bad choice set, but if this is their top choice, it just might be that the public has misunderstood the concepts of sweatshops. Matt Zwolenski argued in LearnLiberty Website (2012) that sweatshops help the poor to escape poverty. Workers in developing nations deem sweatshops as the best income option available. In fact, sweatshops in countries such as Bangladesh and African nations tend to pay three to seven times higher than any other employment opportunities available in their economy (LearnLiberty.Org 2012). Zwolinski claims that sweatshops are a form of mutually advantageous exploitation between the workers and the employers. The total amount of money the employers are willing to spend on cost of production is limited by the workers productivity. Employers are indifferent about how they divide their budget on wages and providing apt working conditions, but workers prefer higher wages than better working conditions because they are responsible for feeding, clothing and providing shelter for their family. The wages enable the workers to sustain a better living condition than what would have been provided by other local