Labor Arbitrage

[don]

Old school
Triangle Shirtwaist factory







New school
Rana Plaza garment factory



sweat shop . . . labor arbitrage

what was once old is new again

[GRG55]

Re: Labor Arbitrage

sweat shop . . . labor arbitrage

what was once old is new again

Maybe not quite the same as times past.

Like so many sectors of the economy all around the world the variation we appear to have here is sweat shop labour being spun into yet another real estate play...it's the fast money in the massive and still-being-played-out global real estate bubble that created the conditions for this. As politically incorrect as this is going to sound, the moaning and groaning about western retail brands paying more to third world workers isn't going to make a damn bit of difference.

Land speculation, corrupt contractors, construction that does not meet even the most inadequate building codes, bribing building inspectors for signatures and the enormous flow of lucre that the insiders, central bankers, private bankers, politicians and other FIRE interests are trying to resurrect (knowingly or unwittingly is debatable) from Dubai to Dongguan (home of the empty New South China Mall) and beyond won't change just because some clothing retailers try to impose from abroad some sort of minimal working condition standards. There will be a lot more collapses of buildings where the steel wasn't installed in the concrete, where the piles weren't drilled or driven to bearing depth, and where seismic and/or fire codes were completely ignored.

[don]

Re: Labor Arbitrage

Labor Arbitrage's cost reduction tactics are as old as the Industrial Revolution, in some ways facilitated by FIRE, more so by neoliberalism