Abstract
The choice argument against sweatshop regulations states that public officials should not prohibit workers from accepting jobs that require long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions, because enforcing such regulations would be disrespectful to the workers who choose to work in sweatshops. Critics of the choice argument reply that these regulations can be justified when workers only choose to work in sweatshops because they lack acceptable alternatives and are unable to coordinate to achieve better conditions for all workers. My thesis is that the presence of unacceptable alternatives to sweatshop labor or barriers to coordination cannot justify sweatshop regulations such as minimum wage and maximum hour laws. Although officials should promote alternatives to difficult and dangerous sweatshop labor, they should not do so by limiting workers’ and employers’ options through coercive regulation. And the fact that sweatshop workers may face coordination problems does not undermine the claim that sweatshop workers choose to work in sweatshops, just as other workers face coordination problems but nevertheless make occupational choices. Furthermore, efforts to restrict sweatshop workers’ choices are morally risky and may not promote workers’ wellbeing or wellbeing in general.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The specific regulations that I am addressing include minimum wage requirements, maximum hour laws, and workplace safety regulations that go beyond ensuring that workers are informed of the risks associated with their workplaces. I am not addressing laws that prohibit child labor, forced labor, or fraudulent employment. Critics of sweatshop regulations agree that such laws are justified because in these cases workers cannot consent to labor and these practices violate people’s enforceable rights.
I elaborate on this point in “The Risks of Regulation” section.
Though Arnold and Bowie do not explicitly endorse governmental sweatshop regulations, they do endorse the view that employers should voluntarily adopt the sort of policies that regulations consist in for Kantian reasons. On a Kantian account, such an argument would also justify officials enforcing policy that required employers to comply with their moral obligations. And elsewhere, Arnold argues that corporate policy is not relevantly different from coercive government policy (Arnold 2003). Altogether, these arguments constitute a defense of governmental regulation of labor agreements. Bowie also expresses support for this conclusion elsewhere in his work (Bowie 1988).
And in cases where it is false that workers choose to work in sweatshops, for example because workers have been forced, coerced, or deceived, proponents of the choice argument would not defend these unjust labor practices either.
Japa Pallikkathayil explains and defends this interpretation of the mugger case in detail (Pallikkathayil 2011).
Those who share in the aforementioned concerns about paternalism may favor cash transfers, since they enable workers to decide how to use their money to advance their own values rather than taking a stand on which needs workers ought to prioritize.
Another advantage of using aid and income assistance to address workers’ lack of alternatives is that it needn’t rely on public officials in places such as Bangladesh, where public institutions are weak and corrupt. Assistance can be provided privately, without public enforcement, and is therefore more insulated from corruption.
For example Kates writes, “the choice to work ten hours a day is the dominant strategy for each and every sweatshop worker and [10, 10] is the unique Nash Equilibrium of the game” (Kates 2015, p. 7).
This represents the payoffs that led Kates to assign the ordinal preferences to each worker that would make the outcome of workers’ choices a prisoner’s dilemma on his account. Kates models workers’ circumstances as if they are engaged in a one-shot two-player game, where Workers (n − 1) act as a second player.
Following Kates, assume (0 < S < L), which means that all work has a cost and the cost of working longer hours is greater than the cost of working shorter hours. So holding wages constant, the value of a wage (X) for longer hours (L) is less than the value of that wage (X) for fewer hours of work \(\left( {\frac{X}{L} < \frac{X}{S}} \right).\)
According to Kates’ characterization, Workers (n − 1), understood as a group that acts as a single agent, should be indifferent to working short hours and receiving \(\left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right)\) in circumstances where Worker 1 also receives \(\left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right)\) or receives \(\left( {\frac{X + e}{L}} \right)\) by working longer hours. Either way Workers (n − 1) receive \(\left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right).\) Similarly, Workers (n − 1) should be indifferent to working long hours and receiving \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right)\) in circumstances where Worker 1 also receives \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right)\) or receives \(\left( {\frac{X - e}{S}} \right)\) by working shorter hours. Either way Workers (n − 1) receive \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right).\) Therefore, it is false that each worker’s dominant strategy is to work more hours regardless of what other workers are doing because assuming that working shorter hours for a wage is preferable to working longer hours for the same wage \(\left( {\frac{X}{L} < \frac{X}{S}} \right),\) working shorter hours is the dominant strategy for Workers n − 1.
For example, Robert Axelrod’s influential research on iterated prisoner’s dilemmas found that the tit-for-tat strategy, where each player chooses whatever her previous opponent chose, secures the highest payoff for players, in contrast to unconditional defection (Axelrod 2006; Axelrod and Hamilton 1981).
More generally, there are many strategies that improve on universal defection. There are Nash equilibrium strategies at every fraction of mutual cooperative instances between universal mutual cooperation and universal mutual defection (Kuhn 2014).
Steven Kuhn re-frames the prisoner’s dilemma in this way to reflect a multi-player context (Kuhn 2014).
In a one shot game, if t − 1 workers work short hours and receive \(\left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right),\) they have no incentive to work more because then the number of workers working long hours would exceed the threshold and all would then receive \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right),\) other workers who work long hours and receive \(\left( {\frac{X + e}{L}} \right)\) have no incentive to work less because they would otherwise receive \(\left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right)\) if they did (Kuhn 2014). In this case, minimal cooperation would secure everyone’s first or second most preferred distribution of wages and labor, so there is an equilibrium strategy that improves on everyone working long hours for \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right)\) and achieves everyone’s first or second most preferred distribution of wages and labor.
As long as more than t workers are working shorter hours, some workers would genuinely be better off if they worked more and no one would be worse off for it (Kuhn 2014). This dynamic is even reflected in Kates’s initial presentation of the two-player game where worker 1 could defect without reducing Workers (n − 1)’s payoff. Universal coordination on shorter hours may be desirable for some other reason, if for example there were a value to everyone receiving the same hours and wages, but it cannot be justified on the grounds that it is the choice that would make all workers better off and no workers worst off, or that all workers would choose it if other workers chose it too.
To use the above payoffs, insofar as job security is the reason that workers rank \(\left( {\frac{X - e}{S}} \right) < \left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right),\) then these very same considerations undermine the assumption that \(\left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right) < \left( {\frac{X}{S}} \right).\) Kates writes that even if a large increase in minimum wages did cause unemployment, the net income effect of regulation on groups would be positive, but this assertion fails to include the value of income security for workers who could potentially face a higher risk of unemployment because of wage regulations.
Or, using the above payoffs, The claim that workers are playing a public goods game assumes that the constellation of workers’ values align such that: \({\left( {\frac{X - e}{S}} \right) < \left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right)}<\left( {\frac{X }{S}- r} \right) < \left( {\frac{X+e}{L}} \right).\) But some workers may have a rational preference to avoid regulation \(\left( {\frac{X }{S}- r} \right) < \left( {\frac{X}{L}} \right).\)
I am using this example as an especially clear illustration of a more general principle, which is that when people have different preferences or judgments, that they may draw different inferences. In these cases, the ‘group judgments’ may not reflect people’s underlying judgments. By asserting this principle, I am not implying that workers will generally consist in three groups of equal sizes who have different judgments, only that it is a mistake to make inferences about a group’s judgments without a further argument in favor of aggregating judgments in a certain way. A similar point could also be made about the decision to use a majority, supermajority, or unanimity aggregation procedure in order to make inferences about a group’s judgments or preferences—further argument would be needed to justify any procedure.
Kates writes that “[Harrison and Scorse’s] suggest, however, that there is no evidence that exporters or foreign-owned firms were more likely to shut down as a result of increases in the minimum wage paid to sweatshop workers.” (Kates 2015b, p. 203) As I note in the next paragraph, Harrison and Scorse do find that minimum wage increases are associated with a higher probability of firm exit. Rather, the part of Harrison and Scorse that Kates cites is arguing that pressures imposed by anti-sweatshop activists did not induce large exporters or foreign owned firms to shut down operations.
In response to Powell and Zwolinski’s interpretation of Harrison and Scorse, Kates (who cites evidence of Indonesia in support of his claim that regulations will not necessarily cause capital flight) claims that Indonesia is an unusual case for assessing the effects of labor regulations (Kates 2015b, p. 201).
David Zimmerman cites an example of Pran, a girl who is forced to labor in a sweatshop and turns to Buddhism and becomes indifferent to her difficult circumstances (Zimmerman 2003). Pran may become so committed to Buddhism that she remains at her sewing machine even when the sweatshop is closed and she is free to leave. In this case, Zimmerman argues that even though Pran autonomously chose Buddhism, she is not truly autonomous. Zimmerman’s case is a more powerful challenge to a presumption in favor of deference to people’s (potentially adaptive) preferences, because some preferences develop in circumstances of force or coercion, which clearly do limit a person’s autonomy. But in circumstances of so-called exploitation, or more general conditions of structural injustice, the case for deference to adaptive preference is stronger, especially when potentially adaptive preferences are used to justify paternalistically coercing marginalized groups.
References
Arnold, D. G. (2003). Libertarian theories of the corporate and global capitalism. Journal of Business Ethics, 48(2), 155–173. doi:10.1023/B:BUSI.0000004595.77613.ec.
Arnold, D. G., & Bowie, N. E. (2003). Sweatshops and respect for persons. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(2), 221–242.
Arnold, D. G., & Bowie, N. E. (2007). Respect for workers in global supply chains: Advancing the debate over sweatshops. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1), 135–145. doi:10.5840/beq200717121.
Axelrod, R. (2006). The evolution of cooperation (Revised ed.). http://www.citeulike.org/group/5970/article/1119275.
Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211(4489), 1390–1396.
Barnes, E. (2009). Disability and adaptive preference. Philosophical Perspectives, 23(1), 1–22.
Bhagwati, J. (2007). In defense of globalization: With a new afterword (Reprint ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blattman, C., & Dercon, S. (2016). Occupational choice in early industrializing societies: Experimental evidence on the income and health effects of industrial and entrepreneurial work. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2850398. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2850398.
Bowie, N. E. (1988). Fair markets. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(1/2), 89–98.
Coakley, M., & Kates, M. (2012). The ethical and economic case for sweatshop regulation. Journal of Business Ethics, 117(3), 553–558. doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1540-y.
Frank, D. (2003). Where are the workers in consumer-worker alliances? Class dynamics and the history of consumer-labor campaigns. Politics & Society, 31(3), 363–379. doi:10.1177/0032329203254860.
Fricker, M. (2009). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guerrero, A. A. (2007). Don’t know, don’t kill: Moral ignorance, culpability, and caution. Philosophical Studies, 136(1), 59–97.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248.
Harrison, A., & Scorse, J. (2006). Improving the conditions of workers? Minimum wage legislation and anti-sweatshop activism. California Management Review, 48(2), 144.
Harrison, A., & Scorse, J. (2010). Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism. The American Economic Review, 100(1), 247–273.
Hidalgo, J. (2010). An argument for guest worker programs. Public Affairs Quarterly, 24(1), 21–38.
Hidalgo, J. (2013). Do employers have obligations to pay their workers a living wage? Business Ethics Journal Review, 1(11), 69–75.
Hilhorst, T., & Pirchet, N. (2012). Bangladesh: Food security and land governance factsheet. Fact sheet. Ministry of Foreign Affairs—The Netherlands, The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT). http://www.landgovernance.org/assets/2014/09/Bangladesh-Factsheet-20121.pdf.
Kates, M. (2015a). Markets, sweatshops, and coercion. Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, 13, 367.
Kates, M. (2015b). The ethics of sweatshops and the limits of choice. Business Ethics Quarterly, 25(1), 191–212.
Klosko, G. (1987). Presumptive benefit, fairness, and political obligation. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 16(3), 241–259.
Kristof, N. D., & WuDunn, S. (2000, September 24). Two cheers for sweatshops. New York Times Magazine, pp. 70–71.
Kuhn, S. (2014). Prisoner’s dilemma. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/prisoner-dilemma/.
List, C., & Pettit, P. (2002). Aggregating sets of judgments: An impossibility result. Economics and Philosophy, 18(1), 89–110. doi:10.1017/S0266267102001098.
Maitland, I. (1997). The great non-debate over international sweatshops. In British Academy of Management annual conference proceedings (pp. 240–265). http://s3.amazonaws.com/prealliance_oneclass_sample/XD9X0rww73.pdf.
Meyers, C. (2004). Wrongful beneficence: Exploitation and third world sweatshops. Journal of Social Philosophy, 35(3), 319–333. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.00235.x.
Moller, D. (2011). Abortion and moral risk. Philosophy, 86(3), 425–443. doi:10.1017/S0031819111000222.
Nozick, R. (2013). Anarchy, state, and utopia (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Olsaretti, S. (1998). Freedom, force and choice: Against the rights-based definition of voluntariness. Journal of Political Philosophy, 6(1), 53–78. doi:10.1111/1467-9760.00046.
Olsaretti, S. (2016). Voluntariness, coercion, self-ownership. In D. Schmidtz & C. Pavel (Eds.), Oxford handbook of freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199989423.013.24
Olson, M. (2009). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ostrom, E. (2015). Governing the commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pallikkathayil, J. (2011). The possibility of choice: Three accounts of the problem with coercion. http://philpapers.org/rec/PALTPO-7.
Powell, B. (2016). Sweatshop regulation: Tradeoffs and welfare judgements. Journal of Business Ethics. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3227-2.
Powell, B., & Zwolinski, M. (2011). The ethical and economic case against sweatshop labor: A critical assessment. Journal of Business Ethics, 107(4), 449–472. doi:10.1007/s10551-011-1058-8.
Preiss, J. (2014). Global labor justice and the limits of economic analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly, 24(1), 55–83. doi:10.5840/beq20141272.
Quong, J. (2011). Liberalism without perfection (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sachs, J. (2006). The end of poverty: Economic possibilities for our time (Reprint ed.). New York: Penguin Books.
Shiffrin, S. V. (2000). Paternalism, unconscionability doctrine, and accommodation. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 29(3), 205–250. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2000.00205.x.
Snyder, J. (2008). Needs exploitation. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 11(4), 389–405.
Snyder, J. (2010). Exploitation and sweatshop labor: Perspectives and issues. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(2), 187–213. doi:10.5840/beq201020215.
Snyder, J. (2013). Disregard and dependency. Business Ethics Journal Review, 1(13), 82–85.
Sollars, G. G., & Englander, F. (2007). Sweatshops: Kant and consequences. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1), 115–133.
Wertheimer, A., & Zwolinski, M. (2013). Exploitation. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/exploitation/.
Zimmerman, D. (2003). Sour grapes, self-abnegation and character building: Non-responsibility and responsibility for self-induced Preferences. The Monist, 86(2), 220–241.
Zwolinski, M. (2007). Sweatshops, choice, and exploitation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(4), 689–727.
Acknowledgements
I thank the editor, two anonymous referees, Javier Hidalgo, Chris Freiman, Haley Harwell, Gordon Sollars, and participants in the “Freedom and Justice in the Workplace” panel at the 2016 International Leadership Association meeting for helpful comments on prior drafts of this paper. I thank Elizabeth DeBusk-Maslanka for editing assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Flanigan, J. Sweatshop Regulation and Workers’ Choices. J Bus Ethics 153, 79–94 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3395-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3395-0