I would think that the way to go for Indonesia and Bangladesh would not be via sweatshops. No country every developed via free trade. Not the UK. Not the US. Not Korea .....
I would think that these countries would do better to first strengthen their rural economies so that people would not need to find sweatshop labor. Develop education, especially for young girls -- one of Summers' more enlightened policies. I happened to be in his hotel room borrowing his computer while he was on the phone. He seemed to passionately believe in that policy.
I don't have an elaborate blueprint, but I think that the blueprint of growth via sweatshops will not lead to much success.
In any case, it would be more productive to respond to what I wrote in the context, perhaps even without the sighs.
On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 08:59:29PM -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
> >I would think other factors would affect the relative price of the
> >software and the garment: the military that surround the work compound
> >threatening anybody who would dare to ask for better conditions;
>
> Ah. Now I see it: The MFA does Indonesia and Bangladesh a *favor* by
> keeping them from having too many people working in the textile
> sector. Better to have small firms than big firms because small firms
> keep the manufacturing jobs *here* in the first world, and so
> minimize international trade.
>
> The argument that "manufacturing jobs are good for the rich us but
> not for the poor them because their political systems cannot
> effectively regulate industry" has always seemed to me to have a
> small grain of truth at its core, but to be ninety percent false, and
> to be shoddy and sad.
>
>
> Brad DeLong
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu