2075F SWEATSHOPS + ENVIROMENT

Q: What defines a sweatshop?

A: Extremely low wages, poor health/safety conditions, no freedom of association, and sometimes child labor.

Q: What is the “race to the bottom”?

A: Countries compete for foreign investment by lowering wages and labor standards, pushing conditions downward.

Q: What is the perversity thesis?

A: Raising labor standards backfires by reducing employment and pushing workers into worse informal-sector jobs. (Maitland)

Q: What is the formal vs informal sector distinction?

A: Formal sector = regulated workplaces; informal sector = unregulated, more dangerous, lower wages. Raising formal wages increases informal poverty.

Q: Maitland’s first main argument defending sweatshops?

A: Sweatshops pay higher-than-local alternatives; they are often the best option available.

Q: Why does Maitland oppose raising minimum wages in developing countries?

A: It causes job loss and worsens worker conditions by reducing demand for labor.

Q: What does Maitland call the “Great Non-Debate”?

A: Activists frame sweatshops emotionally instead of debating proper labor standards.

Q: Donaldson’s objection to market standards?

A: Market principles fail in countries with massive unemployment; workers can’t freely choose safer conditions.

Q: DeGeorge’s objection?

A: Without background institutions (legal protections, unions), bargaining is unfair and exploitation is likely.

Q: What is Arnold’s “moral manager” concept?

A: Managers must balance right vs right, not right vs wrong, including ethical obligations to workers.

Q: What rights does Arnold claim workers universally have?

A: Rights to freedom and well-being (UDHR Articles 3–5, 23–25).

Q: What is Kant’s “pragmatic contradiction test”?

A: A rule is immoral if universalizing it contradicts one’s own ends; used to argue for full hazard disclosure.

Q: Supplier A vs Supplier B takeaway?

A: Supplier A respects rights and must be chosen, even at higher cost; rights are non-optional.

Q: What is Arnold’s universal disclosure standard?

A: Employers must disclose workplace hazards they themselves would want disclosed.

Q: What is Marx’s idea of alienation in sweatshops?

A: Workers become commodities; labor enriches capital but impoverishes workers.

Q: Wertheimer’s view of exploitation?

A: Workers become commodities; labor enriches capital but impoverishes workers.

Q: Alan Wood’s definition of exploitation?

A: Taking advantage of structural vulnerability and bargaining inequality.

Q: Zwolinski: What is autonomy-exercising choice?

A: A choice expressing a person’s agency—even in bad conditions.

Q: Zwolinski: what is preference-evincing choice?

A: A choice shows what a person prefers among available options.

Q: What policy interventions does Zwolinski oppose?

A: Bans, boycotts, mandatory industry-wide regulations.

Q: What are failures of voluntariness?

A: When poverty or ignorance limits free choice—but Zwolinski says removing options worsens things.

Q: What are failures of independence?

A: When sweatshops close off better options (e.g., prevent union formation).

Q: What is the tow-truck example meant to illustrate?

A: Exploitation via unfair advantage even in beneficial transactions.

Q: What is the tug-boat example?

A: Shows mutually beneficial exchanges can still be unfairly distributed.

Q: According to Arnold, who is responsible for sweatshop harms?

A: Corporations, because they pressure suppliers and are causally implicated.

Q: Young: What is the social connection model?

A: Responsibility is shared across global actors who participate in structural processes.

Q: Why does Young reject the liability model?

A: It wrongly focuses on assigning blame instead of transforming unjust structures.

Q: What is political responsibility (Young)?

A: A forward-looking, shared duty to change unjust social structures.

Q: Why does Young use fast fashion as an example?

A: It shows how consumer habits reproduce exploitative labor practices.

Q: What parameters determine structural injustice?

A: Connection, power, and privilege.

Q: Bowie’s main thesis on business & the environment?

A: Businesses have no special obligations beyond obeying the law—except they must not undermine environmental regulation.

Q: What obligation must business avoid violating (Bowie)?

A: They must not interfere with democratic environmental legislation.

Q: How do consumers express environmental preferences?

A: Through markets and politics.

Q: Why can’t consumers express environmental preferences well in markets?

A: Because environmental goods are public goods with externalities.

Q: What is the tragedy of the commons?

A: Individuals free-ride off others’ cooperation → collective environmental degradation.

Q: Why is social consensus relevant (cars example)?

A: Society accepts certain risks, such as auto emissions, for the benefits they bring.

Q: What does “ought implies can” mean for corporations?

A: Companies can’t be obligated to build maximally safe or environmentally perfect products if it’s impossible or impractical

Q: Arnold: Why can’t Bowie rely on democracy?

A: Many nations where pollution occurs are non-democratic, so public preferences aren’t represented.

Q: Why do emissions cross borders matter?

A: Pollution affects global citizens, not just local voters.

Q: How do businesses shape consumer preferences?

A: Through advertising, which undermines Bowie’s “consumer sovereignty” argument.

Q: What limits consumer choice?

A: Monopolies or lack of alternatives; consumers often cannot “choose green.”

Q: Why does Arnold appeal to the preferences of future generations?

A: Justice requires considering harms to people not yet alive.

Q: What is the polluter pays principle?

A: Those who cause environmental harm should bear the cost of fixing it.

Q: What is natural capital?

A: The stock of natural resources (water, air, biodiversity) required for economic functioning.

Q: What is the linear model of industrial capitalism?

A: Extract → Produce → Dispose, causing resource depletion.

Q: Why is the biosphere the limiting factor?

A: Economic activity is a subsystem of the biosphere; environmental capacity constrains growth.

Q: What is radical resource productivity?

A: Dramatic efficiency increases to reduce resource inputs and waste.

Q: What is biomimicry?

A: Designing products/systems modeled on natural processes to reduce waste.

Q: What is a service-and-flow economy?

A: Selling services instead of products to extend product lifespan and reduce waste.

Q: What does “investing in natural capital” mean?

A: Restoring ecosystems and resources to maintain long-term economic viability.

Q: Why must sustainability be ethical, economic, and ecological?

A: All three pillars are required to support human well-being.

Q: Why doesn’t “business as usual” work?

A: It accelerates ecological collapse and cannot support global needs.

Q: What is market failure in environmental issues?

A: Markets underprice environmental costs, leading to overuse and pollution.

Q: What role must government play?

A: Correct externalities through regulation.

Q: Why is lobbying environmentally harmful?

A: It prevents citizens from expressing their environmental preferences politically.

Q: Why does pollution challenge national sovereignty?

A: Environmental harms are globally distributed.

Q: Why must sustainable capitalism consider inequality?

A: Environmental harms disproportionately hurt the poor.

Q: What is the biosphere’s “biophysical limit”?

A: Ecological capacity restricting economic growth.

Q: Why is natural capital undervalued in conventional capitalism?

A: Treated as limitless, making depletion appear costless.

Q: What is the next industrial revolution?

A: A shift to economies that preserve natural capital and maximize resource efficiency.

Machan’s coal mine example

• Prospective employees who are weighing their options regarding whether they should take a job in an unsafe coal mine are at liberty to choose among the following options:

a) accept or reject

b) organize into a group and insist on various terms not in the offing c) bargain alone or together with others and set terms that include improvements

d) Pool worker resources, borrow and purchase the firm