To the Editor:
Annelise Orleck claims that, contrary to the lecture I gave last week, sweatshop labor is not good for workers or consumers ("The Truth About Sweatshops," Jan. 16), but she offers no evidence or theory of how conditions can be improved without jeopardizing the jobs that exist.
Instead, she recounts the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and the following labor legislation, and she compares it to the situation in Bangladesh today. While United States working conditions have improved dramatically, she quotes an activist who said, "Today in Bangladesh garment shops, it's not 2011. It's 1911."
U.S. working conditions have improved because U.S. productivity has improved. Legislation largely codified changes that were taking place through the market's competitive process.
U.S. productivity is roughly 31 times greater than that of Bangladesh. That's why our wages are higher and our working conditions better. Imposing 2011 U.S. safety standards in Bangladesh would result in massive job loss because it would raise compensation above worker productivity.
Bangladesh's living standards are close to that of the U.S. in 1820, well before the U.S. had any substantive labor or safety legislation. By 1911, U.S. income was five times as high as Bangladesh's current income, but we were still decades away from major national legislation.
Sweatshops are part of the market's process of development that eventually leads to better living standards. Unfortunately, simply legislating higher standards will undermine that process and strand workers in poverty.
