| mrstickball said: Question: Wasn't the industrial revolution a good thing, Rath? Last I checked, it helped slingshot society to have better standards of living than almost any other period in history. Due to new industries, more people had jobs and more goods were being produced at lower costs, ensuring that people had more. Also, I think you don't understand living conditions in 3rd world countries and the factories that are there. Have you read any studies about sweatshops and other 'bad' industries in southeast Asia or other locations? Here is a little bit of data for you:
What does the chart show? That in most countries, the average sweatshop worker is earning well above median income in the entire country. In Haiti, a country wracked by poverty, the average hatian sweatshop worker is earning more than double the average income at 40hrs a week. Yeah, sweatshops are horrible :-
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Yep. Even though they can afford to pay a lower wage and people would still accept it, the sweatshop owners in the most dire countries pay much more than they have to in order to ensure they have a healthy and productive workforce. Its worth more in terms of output that the people working are well fed and healthy than if they are starving.
Oh yeah, closing the child labour shops in Malaysia caused more poverty and hardship than the actual shops themselves were claimed to do. After the child labour stopped, people didn't go further and actually fund schools for the children to go to or suplement the income of the parents who relied on their child working to help feed the whole family.
Tease.
