[reality_czech]

And yet, the countries which had sweatshops, like China, India, Vietnam, etc. have had huge success in bringing their population out of poverty. The countries which didn't, like most of Africa, did not. Population growth also tends to go down with industrialization, not up. So you are basically completely wrong when you say that sweatshops trap people in poverty.

Speaking of wrong... Suicide rates per capita are also higher in many rich countries than in many poor ones. It's the "per capita" part that people don't understand. Foxconn literally has 1,300,000 employees. At the standard US rate of 13 suicides per 100,000 people per year, we should expect 169 suicides at Foxconn per year. But people see a headline about a dozen suicides at Foxconn and think it's a crisis, because math is hard.

Despite your disgust with the poor, no major pathogen of the last few decades has been traced back to sweatshops. AIDS and Ebola came from people interacting with apes, not from factory workers. Bird Flu came from birds. So I call bullshit on your claims that the poor are breeding super-diseases.

We can all agree that capitalism has some bad aspects and maybe the governments in these countries should be doing more to help. Spreading a lot of ridiculous nonsense about how these people are worse than animals is just that, ridiculous.

[dang]

Please don't conduct flamewars on Hacker News. We're trying for thoughtful discussion here. When you do things like the following:

> Despite your disgust with the poor

> Spreading a lot of ridiculous nonsense about how these people are worse than animals

... you're pouring fuel on the fire. Please don't do that, regardless of how correct your underlying argument is.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

> . But people see a headline about a dozen suicides at Foxconn and think it's a crisis, because math is hard.

Although you're being dismissive, your math and intuition is a bit off. Workplace suicides are rare in places like the US and make up approximately 1% of all suicides. That one company has a number of suicides all at one facility known to have poor working conditions does indicate a trend. So, it's not 13 out of 1.3 million, it's 13 out of 230000-450000 (estimates). Not only that, but the company adapted by implementing suicide prevention measures.

You also neglect to mention that around 150 people at Foxconn threatened to commit mass suicide in protest of the working conditions.

If there were a rash of suicides at Ohio State University and they all were freshmen or transfer students, and they all jumped from buildings, that would indicate an alarming trend, not some statistical anomaly.

Math isn't hard. We would expect the suicides to be more random. Also, and I'm just speculating, it's not crazy to think some others were covered up.

> Spreading a lot of ridiculous nonsense about how these people are worse than animals is just that, ridiculous.

I'm not the OP and that is a bad comparison. Treated worse than dogs is perhaps a better one.

> So I call bullshit on your claims that the poor are breeding super-diseases.

I wouldn't call it complete bullshit. Poor people in India who bathe in the open sewer known as Ganges, one of the most if not the most heavily polluted waterways, is a recipe for breeding a super disease. Though, this is caused by lack of education, it is not entirely, completely disconnected from poor wages.

> We can all agree that capitalism has some bad aspects and maybe the governments in these countries should be doing more to help.

Yes, we agree. We tolerate the profit off of human misery and suffering. Progress has almost always been driven by misery and suffering. And we are all responsible for it.

[ahakki]

> Workplace suicides are rare in places like the US and make up approximately 1% of all suicides.

This might be true, but Foxconn employees mostly live at their workplace, so all suicides of Foxconn employees are technically «workplace suicides». That doesn't really tell us a whole lot though.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

I think only 25% live in dormitories where the suicides took place. I seriously have doubts that Foxconn/China aren't playing down and under-reporting this. Also, as mentioned, the company enacted a sweeping suicide prevention program, including taking measures such as installing nets in places to prevent jumpers from killing themselves.

[saint_fiasco]

How is that a bad thing? Most people who attempt suicide and survive say they regret the attempt.

In the US it's not fashionable to kill yourself at work, but people jump from bridges a lot, so lots of bridges have safety nets. They don't just delay suicides, they outright save lives.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

It's not a bad thing at all. I'm sorry if I gave that impression, but it's another reason why simply looking at 13 out of 1 million as the suicide rate isn't quite right

[olewhalehunter]

>Poor people in India who bathe in the open sewer known as Ganges, one of the most if not the most heavily polluted waterways, is a recipe for breeding a super disease.

Cholera, to be specific

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera#History

[xorcist]

Foxconn is not a sweatshop. It's not really relevant to that conversation.

Also, no one argues that sweatshops doesn't bring money into the country. They can trap poor people in poverty and still bring in money. That would look like widening gaps between poor working class and lower middle class. Which is exactly what we see.

[crdoconnor]

"And yet, the countries which had sweatshops, like China, India, Vietnam, etc. have had huge success in bringing their population out of poverty."

Most of the countries that have moved from 3rd to first world status have done so only after a massive wave of strikes to improve pay and working conditions in sweatshops (usually brutally suppressed).

"The countries which didn't, like most of Africa"

Correlation != causation and yes, there are sweatshops in Africa. Africa's struggle to escape from poverty is hampered by a lack of good governance and infrastructure - coincidentally two things sweatshop owners also want.

[saint_fiasco]

Sweatshop owners want good governance and infrastructure. That's how they protect their capital investments.

Who would open a sweatshop in a place where the government could expropriate it, organized crime could take it over, or a simple rain could make the workplace inaccessible and the merchandise stuck in a warehouse?

[crdoconnor]

Well, exactly. However, just because they want these things and pile in when they appear doesn't meant that they should take credit for them happening.

[PhasmaFelis]

> Despite your disgust with the poor

> Spreading a lot of ridiculous nonsense about how these people are worse than animals

How the hell did you turn "living conditions for the poor are appalling and must be improved" into "the poor are disgusting"?