Thursday, June 27, 2002

Let them sweat.... Send this entry to: Del.icio.us Spurl Ma.gnolia Digg Newsvine Reddit

Let them sweat.... So says Nicholas Krisoft. His article is pithy-and doesn't state anything that those who've considered the economic situation in a country like Pakistan or Indonesia couldn't realize. My alma mater happens to be (was) a big beneficiary of Phil Knight's Nike largess (both the Law School and library are named after him). We used to joke that we were the University of Nike. That all stopped when some students decided to stage sit-ins to protest working conditions in the Third World. Knight stopped giving as much money-and no doubt the sweat shops continue and the moral fibers of hundreds of activist college students have been assuaged. So I would ask my progressive friends-what is the alternative to the brutality of the transition from an agricultural economy to a capital-intensive industrial one? The answers-when offered-were that we have to find an alternative. I suggested that massive income transfers might help-but no one seemed very eager to follow-up on this idea. I wonder if part of the problem is that Americans-being urban folk-have idealizations of rural country life. I had to disabuse my friends of any notion that the tenants on my family's Jute plantations in Bangladesh were "yeoman farmers" of any sort. When you can't read-your options are limited. You either sweat under the sun-or under bright lights. What keeps you going (so I imagine) are dreams of a better life for your children.