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Thursday, December 11, 1997 Page:
`Exploitation’ a necessary rung in Third World’s ladder to progress
Whenever a U.S. manufacturing venue is moved to a country offering cheap
labor, a standard criticism is that workers there are being exploited, earning
substandard wages working long hours under poor conditions. The logic voiced
largely by Democratic politicians and labor leaders is that, as well as being
immoral, participating in such a “repressive” economic system helps to
perpetuate and legitimize it while depriving our workers of jobs “rightfully”
theirs.
Some months ago, I addressed our changing employment picture and the myth
of “jobs in perpetuity,” while postulating that those clamoring loudest about
the “exploitation” of foreign workers were far more concerned with the loss of
indigenous workers to exploit than the plight of people thousands of miles
away.
For the purposes of this argument I’ll now assume that, my cynicism aside,
these worthies actually do care about something other than the erosion of
their power base and, for no reason other than to raise their standard of
living, really want to see workers the world over instantly earning wages
competitive with ours. But likely never having seen or studied the native
country of these “abused” masses, except possibly on ” fact-finding ” trips
that find more dinner, sightseeing and shopping opportunities than facts,
these benevolent critics do not understand the downside of bestowing such
instant largess.
I can speak with some authority on the Third World. I’ve worked in many
countries there for prolonged periods. Interacting daily on a personal level
with those self-same “exploited,” I’ve seen that jobs generated by this
so-called “exploitation” often go further toward the orderly advancement of
underdeveloped societies than all the technological and monetary giveaways of
which we are so fond.
Before rushing off to save the downtrodden we should look at the whole
picture lest, in a frenzy of questionably good intentions, we cause more harm
than good.
In China there are over 200 million itinerant “unemployed,” and possibly
300 million unskilled making less than a dollar a day. Most of these men,
women, and some rural children, work dawn ’til dusk, seven days a week, with
primitive tools in conditions that would revolt the strongest steel workers I
know.
That was not a misprint.
Despite what you’ve been told, China is agriculturally self-supporting, but
somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of its population are involved in
agriculture- back-breaking, day-long field labor- for pennies a day. If we
introduced “en masse” the latest mechanized agricultural technology, fewer
people would surely produce more in a shorter time, but at the cost of a few
hundred million jobs.
As neither the infrastructure for mass transport and export of foodstuffs
nor the hard currency for neighbor nations to buy them now exists, there would
be no immediate net gain; there would be no one to sell this abundance to. Our
“good deeds” would likely end up a disaster as those newly unemployed would
stress the social infrastructure beyond it’s breaking point, and food would
rot in storage.
Representing more money than that earned by the average agrarian worker,
“exploitive” jobs with their accompanying advances in semi-skilled technology
help the whole of a backward society to move forward within its means to
absorb change. One new industry naturally generates the logistics it needs.
Allowed to develop at its own pace, progress then does not unduly strain
the underpinnings of the extant culture, thus having less negative impact on
it.
By the same token, to precipitously increase wages, bypassing the
evolutionary process of industrial maturity, can also have unforeseen
consequences.
For example, pay the average Third World worker $50 a day, and they are
highly likely to toil for three or four days then not show up for a week or
two, if at all. A few hundred dollars is a fortune, $1000 and you’re talking
retirement. Instant “prosperity” does nothing to train and educate a stable
labor force, develop technology or advance indigenous cultures with the
equilibrium necessary to insure sustainable, normal societal maturation.
Lacking an acquired cultural imperative to continue working beyond amassing
that which is immediately necessary for future security at the level of
comfort they are accustomed to, uneducated and inexperienced people stop
working when that level is attained.
Do you follow me now, Mr. Gompers?
Throughout recent history it has been proven time and again that the pace
of industrial and societal progress cannot be grossly accelerated without dire
consequences to those involved. Just as we advanced slowly into
industrialization, evolving the workplace and our entire culture as we went,
one cannot artificially change any single aspect of the Third World without
simultaneously needing to advance all other facets of the society at the same
pace.
Attempting this impossibility causes chaos. I’ve seen Westerners come,
spend two days working in country, pack up and leave without a word. Their
puzzled hosts, not able to perform and understand whatever task it was they
were to be taught, are left wondering what they did wrong.
Working conditions, deplorable to us, are “normal” and tolerable to others.
To help Third World countries improve at their own pace, we must not, at this
juncture, arbitrarily impose our ethics and models.
For the present it is jobs, any jobs, and the ability to earn a wage even
slightly greater than that prevailing which are important.
The demand for better circumstances and higher wages that will allow
purchase of all the play-pretties becoming visible in Third World shops and
stalls is even now beginning to assert itself naturally, as it did with us.
Patience is necessary. Evolution, not revolution, will win the day.
We have transcended our Industrial Revolution; others are just entering
theirs. Before you crusade on behalf of the “exploited” examine the
consequences well. Make sure that the objects of you missionary zeal are
equipped to survive it.
Jack Pytleski of Sweet Valley is a field engineer and worldwide consultant
in municipal and industrial water treatment systems. His column appears on
alternate Thursdays.