Kristof: Inviting All Democrats

[La_Serpiente]

Inviting All Democrats

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — I'd like to invite Richard Gephardt and the other Democratic candidates to come here to Cambodia and discuss trade policy with scavengers like Nhep Chanda, who spends her days rooting through filth in the city dump.

One of the most unfortunate trends in the Democratic presidential race has been the way nearly all of the candidates, including Howard Dean, the front-runner, have been flirting with anti-trade positions by putting the emphasis on labor, environmental and human rights standards in international agreements.

While Mr. Gephardt calls for an international minimum wage, Mr. Dean was quoted in USA Today in October as saying, "I believe that trade also requires human rights and labor standards and environmental standards that are concurrent around the world."

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Inviting All Democrats

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[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. And Kristof is saying?

That insisting on living wages and safe working conditions have forced Cambodians into being scavengers? Because there aren't enough jobs? My question is will these Cambodians be better off if they labor for pennies a day in a shop where they inhale noxious fumes or work unsafe machines that could maim them?

[JHB]

2. Inviting All "Free-Trade" Columnists...

...to go get real jobs and let impovrished Cambodians and Thais write the columns instead. They'd certainly make enough money to escape their dire circumstances, even if they split the job several ways.

[La_Serpiente]

3. I thought he was writing satire at first

His last words took a while for me to register.

For the fundamental problem in the poor countries of Africa and Asia is not that sweatshops exploit too many workers; it's that they don't exploit enough.

For me, I just have a serious problem buying products that are made off of cheap child labor. It is a moral issue for me.

[The Zanti Regent]

4. Go work at Wal-Mart, Kristof!

Put your money where your bullshit is and try to make ends meet in a dead end job!

[He loved Big Brother]

5. I cannot fathom his logic at all, which I think is his goal

His article is an obvious way to placate the heartless Repukes who honestly couldn't give a shit about raising human rights, and at the same time making it sound as if the Democrats are the ones responsible for this atrocious standard of living.

I have to ask myself, are there really people that fall for this in the world? He never even states a point. Except the mildly subliminal message that attending to human rights is a burden to capitalism and free trade, a problem that he says is the fault of the Dem Party, while painting a rosy picture of the best of both worlds rolled into one big oxymoron: he expects people to believe the party he belongs to is both doing all they can to exploit cheap labor so our economy will grow, as well as doing all they can to stop cheap labor and defend human rights. Of course, he knows this is utter bullshit, but he wants to try the give the impression that this theory would work oh so well, if it weren't for those pesky Democrats.

[Gulf Coast J]

6. This is basically the same article written by Krugman several years ago

Here is a link to "In Praise of Cheap Labor." http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html

If we impose American labor and environmental standards on countries like Combodia, these factories will have no reason to operate there and people will be left to scavenge garbage all day to survive. Even if neither Republicans nor corporations care about the plight of their workers, opening sweatshops in third world countries is better for them then not opening sweatshops. As Krugman wrote:

You may say that the wretched of the earth should not be forced to serve as hewers of wood, drawers of water, and sewers of sneakers for the affluent. But what is the alternative? Should they be helped with foreign aid? Maybe--although the historical record of regions like southern Italy suggests that such aid has a tendency to promote perpetual dependence. Anyway, there isn't the slightest prospect of significant aid materializing. Should their own governments provide more social justice? Of course--but they won't, or at least not because we tell them to. And as long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard--that is, the fact that you don't like the idea of workers being paid a pittance to supply rich Westerners with fashion items.
In short, my correspondents are not entitled to their self-righteousness. They have not thought the matter through. And when the hopes of hundreds of millions are at stake, thinking things through is not just good intellectual practice. It is a moral duty.

[Demeter]

7. But it isn't Kristof's job going overseas

I thought he was observant and lucid, but maybe it's time he came home and looked around here. Same with Thomas Friedman.

[PATRICK]

8. So Kristoff

Is passionately campaigning for Gephardt? Not very objective. I see no problem with taking some of Gephardt's dream legislation into the solution. If someone has a better idea that does not mean the others are all insensitive dolts. You would expect that from Gep's background and skill. What you don't expect is the equally wild-eyed possibility of this law ever getting passed here or abroad to be omitted in the judgment.

All that great legislative package is so much puff. They all agree on the the main problem whether you'd like to sweep it away suddenly like Kucinich or Gep with fiat miracle. Sounds to me that Dean might have more sense how to move toward solutions regardless if was one-upped by a dream method- a pretty untenable fantasy at that, sad to say.