Nicholas Kristof, my favorite New York Times columnist, appears to have taken up a recent interest in Liberia. He rarely writes about the country. Yet two postings on his blog mention the country.
In one, he argues that we shouldn’t waste energy fighting against sweatshops because the alternative labor opportunities in developing countries are worse.
Now, there are lots of reasons why Africa doesn’t have a garment industry (except for Lesotho, Namibia and a few other places), and they include corruption, poor infrastructure, and quality control. But it’s also true that if a major apparel maker went into, say, Liberia, it would be competitive only if it paid very low wages — and that would get the company in trouble with the press and sweatshop watchdogs. So there is zero apparel export from Liberia (a fragile country with huge unemployment and a wonderful president whom we should be trying to support).
In another, he poses Liberia as one possible country where he will be traveling with the winner of his annual reporting contest.
Hopefully we can look forward to some original reporting on Liberia from Kristof in the coming months.
The perspective offered on his sweat shop article was sobering. I think those that I argue the most passionately against companies like Nike working in Vietnam or other places have an unrealistic view of what a rural or urban life looks like without those opportunities. This is not to say that human rights and improved working conditions shouldn’t be pursued with all measure of enthusiasm.
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un saluto from Italy, ciao