The Toxic affects of Cheap T-Shirts

First of shout out to Betsys’ group for their example from planet money t-shirt!! This was a great example of the ideas that your group presented about globalization and exploitation go hand in hand. Since the video didn’t play I watched it on my own. One of the most interesting things that I learned from the planet money is that CEO’s of companies that have factories in developing countries know that they need to exploit people to be more competitive. "Our industry follows poverty." It's an industry "on roller skates," he said, rolling from Latin America to China, to Bangladesh — wherever costs are lowest. In countries like Bangladesh in which the garment industry is the biggest employer and industry it’s easy to take advantage of these people.

The government in Bangladesh wants to keep these factories there and doesn’t allow people to try and organize for better wages and living conditions. Because government doesn’t allow people to organize the working conditions there are horrible and sometimes lead to death of workers. Although in some factories there has been improvement because some groups that have been able to organize has developed there is so much more that should be done. An example of a tragedy that should have been avoided is that of Rana Plaza. An eight-story garment factory that makes apparel for several Western retailers collapsed killing more than eight hundred people in Rana Plaza. Although there was a new focus on the conditions of the factories due to this tragic event, factories in the garment industry largely remain unregulated.

The reasons that the government of Bangladesh doesn’t want to impose many regulations on the garment industries is because this is the biggest industry in the country. Since this is an industry that chases poverty the government of Bangladesh knows that if it in forces many regulations on these factories that they will just close their doors and find cheaper labor some where else. Although workers in Bangladesh make some of the lowest wages in the world and their government fears that forcing companies to pay them higher wages will cause them to leave and find a cheaper work force. This reminded me of Requiem for Detroit where there was also one major industry. Bangladesh could suffer an economic downward spiral if the garment industry were to leave. It would be something similar to Detroit when the automobile industry collapsed there.

Exploitation of people is not the only negative outcome of globalization. Capitalism is driven by consumers wants more things for the best price. In order to achieve this goal there are also negative out comes for the environment. Keeping with the Bangladesh example, there have been an estimated 15,000 premature death, as well as several million cases of pulmonary, respiratory and neurological illness that are being attributed to the poor air quality. This figure was released by the Air Quality Management Project(AQMP) which is funded by the government and the World Bank.

Again the government is aware of these figures but they also don’t want to impose regulations upon factories to regulate the air pollution because they know that the factories can leave. 

            Another source of pollution in these cities besides the pollution coming form the factories is the vehicles that the large population driving. Although people that work in these factories don’t make a lot of money even people in the middle class income bracket which would be $450-$800 U.S dollars per month can afford cars now. (http://www.irinnews.org/report/83772/bangladesh-air-pollution-choking-dhaka) This new access to cars is great for the people but it is creating an unsafe environment. 

Consumers can do a lot to improve the quality of life for people in other countries. Being an informed consumer and not purchasing from companies that don’t pay people living wages. But I think that consumers have a hard time making these choices because they can’t afford to. Buying items that are fair trade is much more expensive. If there were cheaper alternatives that allowed people to buy items that provided people with living wages I’m sure they would chose those.