Obviously I need to read more, and think more, and understand more (and maybe get out more 
) … as I’m at the moment perplexed by what I read in The End of Poverty, by Bono’s old pal Jeffrey Sachs–”in time, his autograph will be worth more than mine”, proclaims the enawed “rock star student” Bono of “my professor” in the Foreword. (Forgive me: I’m a computer scientist, not a specialist in economics or international development. Oh, and not a fan of Bono or U2, either.)
But let’s cut to the point. Right up front, first chapter of the book, I read Sachs write of garment factory girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh (and I’ll skip the bits about their rising at five, the two-hour walk to work, the sexual harrassment from “leering bosses”, their 7-day a week 12 hour shifts, and their impressive control of their bladders):
These sweatshop jobs are the targets of public protest in developed countries; those protests have helped to improve the safety and quality of the working conditions. The rich-world protesters, however, should support increased numbers of such jobs … The sweatshops are the first rung on the ladder out of extreme poverty. (p.11)
Now why had I never thought of it like that before? and what further rewards, a-hem, await them on the second rung? or the third? (and why is it that I find myself thinking involuntarily of Max Fleischer’s 1933 Depression-era cartoon Betty Boop’s Big Boss?) Yes, there may be a fortunate few who (p.12) are “able to save some small surplus from their meagre pay, manage their own income, have their own rooms, choose when and whom to date and marry”, and so on … and, to his credit, Sachs does make very brief passing reference to Grameen microcredit bank. (Mind you, “Some social workers consider that microcredit, invented by Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, is a marketing ploy, leading poor farmers to incur heavy debt”.) But for most women it will be a lifetime in the sweatshops, and then for some …
Hundreds were reported dead or injured following three separate incidents in the Bangladesh garment and textile sector last week, according to various local and international news and Bangladeshi trade union reports. (Sweatshop Watch, 27th February, 2006)
Since 2000, over 580 garment workers have been killed as a result of factory fires, revealing a pattern of reckless disregard for workplace safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry. (Scoop, 6th April, 2006)
A textile worker has died after being injured in clashes between protestors and police near the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. … The worker died in a hospital in Dhaka where he was receiving treatment after being shot in the back … The clothing industry accounts for more than three-quarters of Bangladesh’s export earnings but factories are notorious for low pay and poor safety. Some workers earn as little as $20 a month. (BBC News, 23rd May 2006)
… et cetera
But, hey, Jeffrey Sachs got his information about these happy little girlies from an English-language newspaper, so it must be true, mustn’t it? OK, let’s not be prejudiciously unfair to English language newspapers, and now turn to a 25th May 2006 news report by Shafiq Alam, published in Dawn, “Pakistan’s most widely circulated English language newspaper”:
“A garment worker earns 2,000 taka [= €23, $29, or £15.50] a month for working around 12 hours a day. They pass months without holidays and some factories don’t even pay them regularly,†said Nazma Akhter, head of the United Garments Workers Federation, said on Tuesday. “Some days the factories forced workers to work non-stop for 20 hours.â€
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m no apologist for rural poverty, dirt floors and dysentery, forced marriages, blah-blah-blah, but–goddammit–slaving all day and frying at night is, to my mind at least, not quite the optimal alternative. Arguably–and there are many who do so argue–the sweatshops in fact exacerbate poverty. Cedric Gouverneur reports, in the August 2005 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique, that:
“Globalisation in Bangladesh means manufacturing clothes and raising shrimps for western markets. This has caused poverty and human rights violations. Representative democracy has broken down; Bangladeshis are turning to voluntary associations to practise direct democracy.”
(I’m already thinking now of my ‘Oscar Wilde’ piece, which I’m writing concurrently with this piece … but I don’t want to spoil the surprise by telling you all about it at this time. Also, incidentally, disciplining myself to avoid slipping into long spiels about ‘bonded labour’, ‘child labour’, ‘fair trade’, ‘worker rights’, and other issues I’ll leave to later postings.)
But let’s move on a few pages of Sachs’ book (and find ourselves reminded of Thomas “The World is Flatulent” Friedman) to Chennai in India where the “IT revolution is creating jobs … that are becoming the norm for educated young women in India” (p.15). And what is it that these college graduates are exercising their cerebral muscle with?
she works as a transcriber of data … This company has a remarkable arrangement with a hospital in Chicago, where doctors dictate their charts and transmit them by satellite to India as voice files at the end of each work day in Chicago. … When the voice files are received, dozens of young women who have taken a specialist course in medical data transcription sit in front of computer screens with headphones in place and speedily type in the medical charts of patients almost ten thousand miles away. They earn … between a tenth and a third of what a medical data transcriber might earn in the United States.
And although this income is “more than twice the earnings of a low-skilled industrial worker in India”–or a sweatshop worker in Bangladesh?–I can’t help but feel that these woman are being short-changed. Or maybe my mother, an audio-typist for a law firm from age sixteen and with little education, was just so darned smart that she could do a job in the legal sector that these college-educated women do in the medical domain. Do I sound cynical? do you get the feeling that I’m a tad bothered at the thought that educated women should squander their education as info-slaves for a Chicago hospital? Yes, I concede that this may be for them, as the sweatshop may be for their sisters in Bangladesh, a passport out of poverty … but had it ever occurred to you not only that they might deserve better but also that they’re perhaps actually capable of better? Darn, maybe I’m just a tad too impatient.
But what bothers me as much as anything, I suppose, is Sachs’ assurance that:
Not only are the Indian IT workers providing valuable goods and services to United States consumers
… how kind of them!
but they are also sitting at terminals with Dell computers, using Microsoft and SAP software, Cisco routers, and dozens of other empowering pieces of technology imported from the developed countries. As India’s economy grows, its consumers opt for a growing array of U.S. and European goods and services for their homes and businesses. (p.16)
And that’s a good thing? Well, it is if you happen to be Microsoft or Dell or Cisco, I suppose; but I’m afraid I’m a little too close-minded and unimaginative to appreciate how that contributes in the most effective way possible towards the alleviation of poverty. Commenting on Bill Gates’ 2002 visit to India in which he pledged hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in Microsoft’s Indian Development Centre, Hyderabad, Lila Rajiva observes that:
astute journalists noted the contrast between the Bill-g fan club in Delhi and Cyberabad (as the Andhra capital of Hyderabad was nicknamed) and the media neglect of Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation, who was in India at the same time. … Gates’ visit was actually a major skirmish in Microsoft’s ongoing jihad against the free software, Linux, which Stallman was promoting and which is broadly popular with governments all over the world, especially in developing countries.
And no wonder. While Microsoft has a perpetual and costly license and its proprietary system is closed to innovation, Linux is free and open to technical development. As a matter of fact, the Indian government had just then issued a directive to move from Windows to open source. The Gates donation was nothing more than a fat bribe to the government to drop Linux and let Microsoft lock itself into the mammoth profits ripening for harvest down the road. [Read the full article here.]
And that, I’m afraid, is what Sachs appears to mean by ‘The End of Poverty’. One cannot doubt his sincerity, nor the sincerity of Bono and others who devote so much of their careers and energies to campaigning for the eradication of poverty; one would be naive, however, not to question their assumptions and to doubt their methods.
My grumble shall continue … but not today.
Further reading and links:
Keya Acharya, ‘What the President Told Bill Gates‘, PANOS Institute, 20th June 2003
Michelle Burton Brown, ‘Women Garment Workers of Bangladesh Seek U. S. Support’, IWW, November 2004
Lila Rajiva, ‘License to Bill: In India, Bill Gates Does Well by Doing Good‘, Dissident Voice, 27 October 2005
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Causes of Poverty
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Yes, tragic but true: the Plague has now reached Richmond upon Thames. Not a street does one pass through but there is a house displaying, draped without, a linen sheet bearing that dire red cross alerting fearful neighbours to the sickness within. Not a moment slips past as one walks this stricken town but one sees a motor vehicle flying that same dreadful red cross betokening the appalling affliction to which its hapless occupants have fallen prey. Eerily empty this afternoon was the place of my employ, so many of my woebegone colleagues confined to their homes, unwavering glazed eyes staring feverishly at the moving images on the face of the box before them. The howls, the screams, the groans, the pitiful yelps … I recoil in horror at the prospect of these blighted souls at night, seeking solace and succour in the taverns of the Borough, stumbling and reeling helplessly as they imbibe the liquor in which they seem to find some comfort.