Cruel & Unusual Punishment

Aftenposten sends three young fashion bloggers to work in the Cambodian sweatshops where their favorite garments are made.

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

The wrong lessons are going to be learned. If her favorite clothiers raise the wages, then someone else will go to Indonesia and underbid them. The lesson that these girls are learning is painful, but it is fun for the other Swedes, who deeply enjoy self-righteousness and punishing people whose values aren't exactly in line. The real lesson, which will be entirely missed by those self-righteous, is painful for all of them: general prosperity requires an enormous network of sacrifice over time. Young Swedes have good lives not because government policies give it to them, but because their forebears endured much the same hardship as these Cambodians do now, generation upon generation, in hopes that those who live after would have comfort. Societies cannot simply declare themselves prosperous.

Scandinavian consciousness-raising is pretty much jacking off. Their poorest 25% left for North America, then they suddenly thought that socialism and pacifism were good ideas. Imagine how easy socialism would be for America if we had somewhere else to send the poorest 1/4 of us. (I still wouldn't recommend it, though.)