Retribution not enough

[Harmon Seaver]

Sandy Sandfort wrote:

>  Yeah, the "sweatshop"
> workers' choices are lousy, but they have, in fact, made their choice to
> improve their lives by working in the "sweatshops" as opposed to starving on
> their own retched little plots of land.  Good for them.

       Of course you're ignoring the fact that sometimes the reason that they
are "starving on their own retched little plots of land." is because of NAFTA
and huge multinational corporations importing so much US factory farmed corn
and other ag products into that country that they can't compete. We've been
thru this discussion before.
      All else being equal, there is no logical reason in the world why they
should be "starving on their own retched little plots of land." Peasant farmers
have been making an adequate living on "their own retched little plots of
land." for at least since before any recorded history, and, for that matter,
can still do so.
      The average size farm in the world is only 7 acres, and if you talk to
most of those farmers, they would much rather live and work on their little
subsistence farms than move into a city and work in a factory. I myself lived
for many years on a very small farm and most definitely, as soon as humanly
possible, am going back to doing just that. Moving from your own piece of land
in the country being you own boss to living in a hovel in the city working as a
wageslave in a sweatshop for peanuts is not an improvement by any stretch of
the imagination.
      Anyone who spends any time at all researching the conditions of peasant
farmers in the 3rd world who leave their land and go to work in sweatshops
would never come to the conclusion that they chose to do so.


--
Harmon Seaver, MLIS
CyberShamanix
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