Wilding is a term coined by Charles Derber in his book “The Wilding of America: How Greed and Violence are Eroding Our Nation's Character”. In the book, Derber tackles the concept of the American dream and how individualism is glorified at the expense of the common good. Success as depicted in the American dream is tantamount to the amassing of material wealth gained by doing everything within one’s power to achieve it regardless of harm caused to others. Derber regarded this phenomenon as wilding and defined it as a degenerate of individualism which encompasses a variety of antisocial behavior (Derber 11). Wilders are individuals or corporations programmed by society to act towards self preservation and advancement. This is a paper on the effects of wilding in the American economy. Special focus has been given to the relocation of manufacturing activities to developing countries and the sweating of workers in those countries.
Labor is one of the essential factors of production and wages are one of the major expense in any industrial process. A company that manages to reduce its payroll expenses makes huge savings on expenses. In a bid to achieve this, companies often cross the line between effective costs management and wilding. The line is crossed when actions taken harm the rights of the workers. Wilding against workers occurs when they are used as pawns to gain leverage in the market.
A corporation that moves production activities to a foreign country wilds against its mother country. By moving operations, the company denies the government revenue in the form of taxes. Money which could have been used for development activities in that country ends up in the hands of a foreign government. The economy suffers due to shortage of cash flow leading to reduced economic activities. The citizens of the mother country also suffer due to shortage of jobs in a tight labor market. Moving production negatively impacts on the mother country while it favors the company.
Companies which move manufacturing activities often abuse workers in the target countries. Such companies are characterized by low wages, sweating of workers, and unhealthy work conditions. The argument by such companies is that they came into those countries to save on operational costs. Governments often ignore such issues because the companies create much needed employment in harsh economic environments.
Wilding corporate behavior is manifested in sweatshops. The operators of sweatshops strive for “wealth and power by harming workers, citizens, and communities” (Derber 55). Owners of such shops rationalize their behavior through profits made. By overworking their employees, they realize more profits and this to them is enough justification for their actions. Corporate wilding is driven by sheer greed in an individualistic political economy. Corporations manage to sweat their workers by threatening to leave or move production activities to other regions where they are sure of same cheap labor (Furchtgott-Roth). Workers are forced to accept low wages for fear of losing employment in a tight labor market. The administration of such a community will allow this to happen and even accord such companies incentives just to keep them at a given location. Such intimidation is a form of wilding.
Sweatshop operators justify their treatment of their workers by comparison of wages with those of rival businesses. They argue that if they offered higher wages, they would lose out to the competition (Derber 63). Sometimes the employees are made to work in dehumanizing conditions which with no regard to safety procedures. This treatment of workers as pawns or lesser humans to be used as accessories to gain market advantage is wild in itself. The predatory nature of the corporations is evident in the way they manipulate employees to their advantage.
Major clothing retailers in the USA such as Wal-Mart subcontract companies to tailor their designs. These companies contracted then contract the actual workshop owners to tailor the designs (Williams 55). Workshop operators from Asian countries compete for business by bidding at the lowest prices. These businesses realize profits by sweating the workers. Workers are offered very low wages which they have no option but to accept due to unfavorable labor market (Ross 54).
Bangladesh is a major clothes exporter to then European Union. The country is the second biggest clothes exporter in the world. The textile industry is the backbone the Bangladesh economy. The country has special trade realtions with countries such as the European Union, Canada, Australia, and the United States. The west gets a ready market for the cheapest labor in the world from Bangladesh. Sweatshop labor is rampant in Bangladesh.
Sweatshop work environments are very unhealthy and intolerable. Tailoring sweatshops are occupied mostly by women. According to Seedeen, poor ventilation, heavy machinery, cramped work spaces, inadequate air condition, and blocked fire exits are among the things that laborers endure. Factory fires and building collapsing are the main cause of deaths in sweatshops. A factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan caused 289 deaths in 2012. Another fire in Tarzeen Bangladesh claimed 112 lives. The fatality rate was so high because the fire exits in both cases were locked or blocked. In 2013, a textile factory, Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed killing 1,129 people. Workers had complained of huge cracks on the walls to the building owner who ignored their concerns and sent them back to work. The single building housed five different factories and a total of 3,122 employees (Seedeen).
Countries like Bangladesh with sweatshop labor have labor and building laws just like other countries. However, these laws are marred by corruption and general laxity on the part of the inspectors which makes it very hard to enforce them. The international corporations enjoy the cheap labor without intervention from local administrations.
Apple products are manufactured in Chengdu China by Foxconn Technology Group. The workers in this company face inhumane treatment in the form of poor workplace conditions, low wages, long work hours, and poor housing conditions. These conditions are so bad that workers under stress and pressure commit suicide. A total of 17 workers took their own lives in 2010. A global exposure of the situation led to an agreement between the two companies, Foxconn and Apple, to improve work conditions for the workers. An audit performed in 2012 by Fai Labor Association (FLA) stated that low wages for overtime done, long working hours, and workplace safety issues still persist (Seedeen).
The issue of international corporations sweating workers in developing or semi developed countries is contentious. The nature of the situation, whether wild or desirable has generated debate with valid and cogent arguments from proponents and opposers of sweat labor alike. Defenders of sweat labor maintain that cheap labor is a necessary step towards development in poor countries. It offers a starting point in international trade for countries with nothing else of economic value to offer. The other point of argument is that sweat labor is a lot better than conventional labor in poor countries. Unskilled labor in developing countries entails working in poor hazardous environments such as dump sites. Wages are also lower than those of people working in sweatshops. Those who do not manage to secure jobs, resort to scavenging for scraps. A lot of people working under these conditions dream of securing sweat jobs (Gordon 64).
Cheap labor is the only attraction to big corporations in developing countries. By agitating for better working conditions, these corporations will opt to transfer the work contact to other countries. This could be a threat the livelihood of the sweat workers who are unlikely to secure employment elsewhere. Such is the thin line between wilding in form of sweating and benefitting third world countries.
Sweating of poor countries by international corporations is wild and wrong. These corporations do not move into these countries because they want to benefit the locals there but to slash their production costs. These corporations rate their wages according to local conditions which are far removed from what they would offer in their mother countries. Corporatons shold harmonse wages in developing countries to those in developed regions such as the European Union.
Cited Works
Derber, Charles. The Wilding of America: How Greed and Violence Are Eroding Our Nation's Character. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Print.
Furchtgott-Roth, Diana. Sweat Equity for Sweatshop Workers? The Economics of Freedom and Equity. Blogger, 2014. Web 14 Dec 2014.
Gordon, Jennifer. Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. Print.
Ross, Robert J. S. Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. Print.
Seedeen, Rashad. Bangladesh and the Ethics of Sweatshops. In Our World: Events and Issues That Shape Our Planet. Weebly, 2013. Web 14 Dec 2014.
Williams, Mary E. Child Labor and Sweatshops. San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Print.
