Are Sweatshops Evil?

Are Sweatshops Necessarily Evil?

The western school of thought regarding sweatshops dictates that they are evil, inhumane vehicles, used for making the poor poorer and the rich richer.   The problem with this belief is that it is Western, when sweatshops are a predominantly Asian and South American occurrence. Taking the non-Western lifestyle into deliberation, we must reconsider whether sweatshops are simply imposed systems of slavery without beneficiary elements, or relatively benign stepping stones on the road to economic success.  
According to CorpWatch1, an organization dedicated to policing corporations, a sweatshop is a workplace where workers are subject to extreme exploitation, poor working conditions, and physical/psychological abuse.   These terms are not always applicable to the businesses we deem sweatshops.   ‘Extreme exploitation' is described as receiving low pay or below minimum wages.   In 2000, the California minimum wage was $5.752, while sweatshops there paid their employees only $5.18 an hour.   However, this amount was above the federal minimum of $5.15.   According to law, the legal minimum is the higher wage.   In Shanghai the minimum was $.21 per hour2.   Nevertheless, the California wages were considered ‘exploitation'.  
Twenty-one cents an hour is regarded as good pay to many of these workers.   One girl in Bangkok makes roughly $.022 per hour3, or $2 for nine hour shifts.   For her and her family, this is something to be proud of.   If her factory was closed down, she would have difficulty finding a job of similar situation.   A Nicaraguan worker regarded the prospect of a closed factory as ‘a crisis'4.   The laborers there need the factories to survive.   Many of them worry that there are not enough hours to work.  
Allegations of poor working conditions and abuse are also blown out of proportion.   The Nicaraguan sweatshops oversee a flow of vendors selling food to the workers during their lunch breaks.   Some have air-conditioning,...