Exploitation by Multinational Corporations

Multinational corporations are often accused of exploiting workers in developing countries by providing them meager wages and sweatshop working conditions. Does the United States have a moral obligation to restrict imports from developing nations to discourage this exploitation? I personally believe that all workers should be treated with dignity and respect by their employers, but trying to eliminate so-called sweatshops in the name of helping foreign workers may end up making them worse off. Douglas Irwin argues that the problem for workers in developing nations is not the existence of sweatshops, but rather “the lack of good alternative employment opportunities” (p. 246). If a person voluntarily works in what we believe are exploitative conditions, it is because that job is better than the alternatives. The last thing we want to do is to make someone worse off in the name of fighting a moral crusade against exploitation. Irwin describes what a Cambodian immigrant told him about sweatshop labor: “In comparison to the hot, humid conditions of agricultural work, where you stand exposed to the sun in muddy fields and have to rip leeches off your legs every few hours, a factory is one of the few places in Cambodia where a person doesn’t sweat so much” (p. 246).

Reference

Douglas A. Irwin (2020). Free Trade Under Fire (5th Edition). Princeton University Press.