PHNOM PEN, CAMBODIA-- As hard as it is to believe, there are still those who support sweatshops by purchasing products made by capitalist corporations who exploit their poor employees.

Some have attempted to make the case that sweatshop workers are not being exploited all, but rather actually prefer to be paid more than double what they are used to getting from sifting through the local garbage dump.

In 2004, conservative economist Walter Williams wrote: "In Phnom Pen, hundreds of Cambodians traipse through trash dumps scavenging for plastic bags, metal cans, bits of food and whatever else they can find to sell."

Williams quoted a New York Times reporter who wrote: "Nhep Chanda averages 75 cents a day for her efforts. For her, the idea of being exploited in a garment factory -- working only six days a week, inside, instead of in the broiling sun, for up to $2 a day -- is a dream."

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Williams continued: "If Nhep Chanda, who earns 75 cents a day toiling in nasty trash dumps, is offered a factory job at $2 a day, has she been made better off or worse off? Any reasonable person would conclude that she's better off. When one person makes another person an offer that makes that person better off, does it make sense to characterize it as exploitation?"


Williams ends his propaganda piece by posing a question: "While we're at it, we might ask if anti-free trade demonstrations and other public pressures stop companies from having manufacturing facilities in places like Cambodia, paying $2 a day wages, will people like Nhep Chanda be worse off or better off? In other words, do we help people who have few miserable alternatives by destroying their best one?"

Of course comrades, we know the answer to this question. Nhep Chanda will be better off scavenging for leftover food in the blistering sun, because nobody will be exploiting her by profitting from her effort. She will have the freedom to choose which bits she wishes to consume, how hard she works, and for how long. Never mind that she prefers the sweatshop to eating trash, The Party™ knows what is best for Nhep, and for everyone else.

Please comrades, I implore you: stop buying products made by capitalist swine who exploit their poor workers by giving them better wages than they can make dealing in garbage, so we can send girls like Nhep back to the garbage dump where she belongs.

Liberian homeless adopt environmentally friendly lifestyle! They would be making a much heavier carbon footprint if they had jobs, cars, homes with air conditioning, and - Marx forbid - three fatty meals a day with a large cup of carbonated sugary drink.

In my Book of Progress, these are the model citizens of Planet Earth.

Displaced young adults are living in a graveyard in Liberia's capital Monrovia

The Independent wrote:"There was a body there, but I took it out and threw it away," says Junior Toe. A veteran tomb dweller, as those occupying the cemetery are known, he has lost count of his years living among the dead. Standing on the worn edge of an open tomb, he peers into his second-hand bedroom. The empty space, about two-metres deep, is finished with stained green tiles crossed by vines. "When you look for a tomb, the body can't be too fresh," he advises. "It has to be really dead, then you can clear it away into a bag."

Is a change of address on file for the displaced necrovoters?

Numerous voters at the same address can trigger an investigation...

Red Square wrote:Liberian homeless adopt environmentally friendly lifestyle! They would be making a much heavier carbon footprint if they had jobs, cars, homes with air conditioning, and - Marx forbid - three fatty meals a day with a large cup of carbonated sugary drink.

In my Book of Progress, these are the model citizens of Planet Earth.

That's really the big picture here Comrade, isn't it? We must prevent the third world from tasting the lifestyle of luxury that is so disgustingly enjoyed here in the west. Their lifestyle in the garbage heap is where we should all strive to end up so that we can finally reach equality for all, while saving the earth rather than greedily exploiting one another.

Ah, but in the truly glorious world of Next Tuesday, there will be no garbage dumps because everything will be either consumed or recycled. I do not know whether this is good or bad....

For the Children.

RedDiaperette wrote:Ah, but in the truly glorious world of Next Tuesday, there will be no garbage dumps because everything will be either consumed or recycled. I do not know whether this is good or bad....

Comrade kitty, fear not. All which was bad is now good, and that which was good is recycled to something bad, but required, so it will be good again because it's so bad...

It's sort of like Soylent Green...

Ivan the Stakhanovets wrote:

RedDiaperette wrote:Ah, but in the truly glorious world of Next Tuesday, there will be no garbage dumps because everything will be either consumed or recycled. I do not know whether this is good or bad....

Comrade kitty, fear not. [highlight=#ffff00]All which was bad is now good, and that which was good is recycled to something bad, but required, so it will be good again because it's so bad...[/highlight]

Comrade Ivan, this is such a beautiful statement that I will have it cross-stitched to hang upon my wall. It will be my mantra in times of temptation to (shudder) thought.