[beaconstudios]

the payment of subsistence wages is not what leads people to become wealthier over time. The reaction to the oppression of subsistence wages, leading to workers' rights movements, is. At least, that's the case in the UK and the USA - China was never a sweatshop country before the revolution, and now it is in some areas, so it's not an example of overcoming sweatshop work at all.

My point is that sweatshop workers become less poor when they become tired enough of their conditions to rise up against their masters, not because they are able to put together savings or anything like that.