Abstract
Sweatshop labor is often cited as an example of the worst and most pervasive form of exploitation today, yet understanding what is meant by the charge has proven surprisingly difficult for philosophers. I develop an account of what I call “Needs Exploitation,” grounded in a specification of the duty of beneficence. In the case of sweatshop labor, I argue that employers face a duty to extend to employees a wage sufficient to meet their basic needs. This duty is limited by the degree of the employees’ dependence on the employer for basic needs and a reasonability standard where the employer may remain within a range of well-being between deficiency and luxury.
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Notes
I will use the term ‘sweatshop’ labor to describe very low-wage labor as this term is typically used both by proponents and critics of low-wage labor. However, nothing morally is meant to hinge on the use of ‘sweatshop’ labor rather than ‘low-wage’ labor.
Consider that Tim Tycoon might sell an artwork to Bill Billionaire without having it appraised because Tim cannot be bothered to take the time to ascertain its exact value. If Bill benefits disproportionately from the exchange, it does not seem that he exploits Tim, at least not in the same sense that some sweatshop workers are said to be exploited. This case raises the possibility that it is the desperate situation of the workers alone, and not the fairness of the exchange, that motivates concerns of exploitation.
David Miller (1987) develops a similar account of exploitation.
It is for this reason that Wertheimer is resistant to including background injustices in a hypothetical fair market price. As he puts it, “citizens will find themselves in situations in which they can strike agreements that will produce mutual gains. The parties to such transactions may understand that even though some fare less well than others by the appropriate principles of social justice, it is unreasonable to expect the better-off party to repair those background conditions by adjusting the terms of a particular transaction” (Wertheimer 1996, p. 234).
Calculating a living wage is difficult, but not impossible. The Workers Rights Consortium (2008), for example, has developed country specific living wage calculations, including access to basic levels of nutrition, housing, energy, clothing, health care, education, potable water, child care, transportation, and savings.
Ruth Sample (2003) uses this language in her account of exploitation.
For some well developed lists of basic needs, goods, or capabilities see, for example, Martha Nussbaum (2000) and Madison Powers and Ruth Faden (2006). Two methods of justifying a list of basic needs are dominant in the literature. First, our basic needs might be a matter of objective truth, based on the nature of human beings. Barbara Herman, for example, discusses ‘true needs’ in Kant’s work, based on the centrality of rationality to humans. As she puts it, “a person’s true needs are those which must be met if he is to function (or continue to function) as a rational, end-seeking agent...” (1984, p. 597). Second, the content of our basic needs might be established through a consensus among people with differing conceptions of the good life. Martha Nussbaum (2000), for example, justifies her capabilities list through an overlapping consensus and Nancy Fraser (1989) stresses the importance of dialogue for resolving conflict regarding needs. Thomas Scanlon (1975) discusses both justifications for determining the urgency or importance of preferences. In terms of the content of a list of dimensions of and needs for well-being, it is not clear that these two approaches will differ greatly, and I am agnostic as to which mechanism should be used. For general discussion of the moral demands created by basic needs, see Gillian Brock (1998), Garrett Thomson (1987), and Soran Reader (2005).
As Barbara Herman puts it, “Enjoyment is not a kind of minimum wage to keep moral workers happy so that they won’t go on strike. The thought is rather that unless one is willing and to some degree able to enjoy life, one cannot appreciate and so correctly evaluate the range of human concerns. One will not make wise judgments about either one’s own needs as an agent, or about the happiness of others” (2002, p. 242).
Of course, the purchase of gold-plated sinks may be important to the flourishing of the manufacturers of these sinks and their employees. One can imagine cases where the purchase of luxuries might be justified as the best means of pursuing the goal of minimal flourishing for all. A ‘trickle-down’ justification of luxuries, however, would depend on the dubious claim that purchasing these goods is a more efficient means of promoting flourishing than direct benefits to one’s own employees or indirect giving, such as a donation to a need-based scholarship fund.
Notable exceptions will include members of the boards of MNEs and large shareholders.
Shareholder responsibility movements have focused on harnessing the power of small investors to force votes on resolutions requiring more socially responsible conduct from recalcitrant MNE boards. See, for example, G. Jeffrey MacDonald (2006).
My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this objection.
Iris Young (2004) argues that the responsibility to bring about just social institutions is determined by factors of connection, power, and privilege. If so, the many individuals connected to MNEs will all have a responsibility to bring about just institutions in the future.
We can imagine, moreover, that Debbie is acting in a community where employees depend on their employers for all of their basic material needs.
Christine Korsgaard justifies a similar move by arguing that ideal Kantian ethical theory can be interpreted as a two-level theory so as to cope with the nonideal world. When we enter into a situation in which obedience to the Formula of Humanity would generate very bad consequences from the perspective of treating persons as ends, we can deviate from its demands. In these cases, the Formula of Humanity can be abandoned because it is not appropriate for nonideal conditions. However, it can still guide our conduct as “[i]t defines the goal toward which we are working, and if we can generate priority rules we will know which features of it are most important. It gives us guidance about which of the measures we may take is the least objectionable” (1986, p. 347). Tamar Schapiro (2003, 2006) argues also that in nonideal circumstances, where non-compliance by others dissolves a practice into what she calls a sham practice, actions will become particularly goal oriented.
Similarly, a manager might hire only workers who are easier to raise to the level of a decent minimum of well-being—for example, infertile or childless workers, and workers with fewer dependencies generally. As with the NWC, here the manager seeks to avoid charges of exploitation by opting out of a mutually beneficial relationship with those workers most in need. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this example.
Ruth Sample takes a similar position when defending her intuition that mutually beneficial exploitation can be morally worse than neglect. She holds that “a person who systematically avoids an interaction because it would not be profitable enough, or even because it might be costly, may not have actually adopted a maxim of beneficence. It will not always be clear when one has. Even if we see the obligation to refrain from exploitation as a perfect, exceptionless duty (rather than a duty of beneficence), this leaves the question of our duties of beneficence untouched. A person who systematically avoids such interactions—who is determined to get the best deal or not interact at all—can hardly be said to take such a duty seriously” (2003, p. 72). Given that I see needs exploitation as tied to a perfect duty of beneficence, Sample’s point might be changed to hold that even if one sees the duty of beneficence in needs exploitation as perfect, we still must consider whether the imperfect form of that duty is being discharged through the person’s other actions.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Maggie Little for her generosity and constant encouragement with this project. I would also like to thank David Luban, Leigh Palmer, Madison Powers, Henry Richardson, Soran Reader, and an anonymous reviewer from Ethical Theory and Moral Practice for their many helpful comments.
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Snyder, J.C. Needs Exploitation. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 11, 389–405 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9115-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9115-9