Since I treat this place as one of my soapboxes, I thought I’d comment on Sweatshop labor by arguing that perhaps it’s not as bad as Liberals, Marxists, and Leftist Anarchists would have you believe and see what others think.

The disparity in working conditions to me seems like a culturally-relative perception, as a result of comparative advantage.

Third-world countries, right now, are comparatively disadvantaged either through years of Colonial exploitation(which many Libertarians neglect to mention DID happen), destabilization, or a small resource-pool.

Regardless of the cause, disrupting free trade is not a solution because having a labor-intensive market is not necessarily permanent or deleterious.

In fact, it’s a surefire guarantee for third-world countries to live above the default state of destitution that is abject poverty.

It’s the first step to economic development. So boycotting Nike or what-have-you because they have sweatshops omits the predicament that sweatshop laborers want to avoid even more. 

Wanting to restrict global trade in favor of the underdog may be morally ideal, but it won’t work because it’s a pipedream conjured on a gray-matter bed of false premises which, in turn, delivers false promises.

They argue that foreign aid could make up for free trade, however nothing has worsened global poverty more than foreign aid because local producers of any given developing country incurs a loss on consumer demand.

Making a proposal with false promises to developing countries in order to halt free trade isn’t just myopic, it’s condescending.

loveintheshadowsistheonlykind:

My mother just came up with a great response to the whole ‘men rape and abuse women because of evolution and NATURE’ argument.

Some prick was saying it on facebook, and, at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with that level of asshattery, I asked her what I should say.

Her suggestion: ‘Just because you’re stuck at the primate level of evolution, don’t assume all men are’.

(via saturdaymorning)