Abstract
The ongoing controversy about sweatshop labor has mainly focused on economic, on the one, and ethical aspects, on the other side. While proponents of sweatshop labor have argued that low wages would attract foreign investments, would create new workplace opportunities and thus improve economic welfare in less-developed countries, opponents of sweatshop labor argue that such treatment of laborers would violate their dignity, and they prompt western buyers to stop this kind of exploitation. However, the arguments in this debate are not new. As we will show, they can be traced back to the early “sweatshop” debate between social reformers and classical liberals in the 19th century. Interestingly, the 19th century debate identified sweatshop labor not as an industrial system but as a social phenomenon which becomes more likely when several social preconditions are fulfilled. It will be shown that the social preconditions identified in this debate determine working conditions till today and can be used to identify industries were sweatshop labor is more likely than in others—even in western countries.
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Notes
Thus, for instance, in the nail and chain making industry or furniture manufacturing but sometimes also in the boot making sector the work was not carried out at the lodging of the workers or the sweater, but the workmen had to rent “a seat” in one of the small premises to accomplish their work (Schloss 1889a; Aves 1889; Lee 1892).
In fact also other wage systems did exist. If workers were not paid on basis of piece work they were paid weekly on the basis of their “day work”. However by defining ever greater quantities of work as standard of what should be accomplished within 1 day the workers had only three opportunities: Either not to accomplish their daily minimum, which means that they have been paid not for a “whole day’s work”, or to work excessive overtime to make their daily earnings, or to take the remaining work at home and accomplish it with the help of their families (Potter 1889; Auten 1901).
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Aßländer, M.S. Sweated Labor as a Social Phenomenon Lessons from the 19th Century Sweatshop Discussion. J Bus Ethics 170, 313–328 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04293-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04293-7