Sweatshops: Economic Analysis and Exploitation as Unfairness

Sollars, Gordon G.; Englander, Fred

doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3091-0

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…However, these discussions rarely engage with business ethics literature and do not address the particular puzzle of responsibility for upholding labor rights in GSCs as a separate normative question. Similarly, normative analysis of the morality of sweatshops and the ethics of GSCs tends to draw on theories of freedom, autonomy, and exploitation (Mayer, 2007;Powell & Zwolinski, 2012;Preiss, 2019;Snyder, 2008;Sollars & Englander, 2018), rarely addressing the specific question of who is responsible for the violations of labor standards.…”

Section: Rethinking Responsibility For Global Labor Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared Responsibility and Labor Rights in Global Supply Chains

2021

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Section: Rethinking Responsibility For Global Labor Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared Responsibility and Labor Rights in Global Supply Chains

2021

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“…The result is that sweatshops would hire less, thus harming some workers’ preferences by condemning them to unemployment. Even if the economic reasoning behind Zwolinski’s argument has been contested (Coakley and Kates 2013), most of the available evidence seems to confirm it (Sollars and Englander 2018, 16–19).…”

Section: Exploitation and Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Wage Exploitation as Disequilibrium Price

Richard

2021

Bus. Ethics Q.

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There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do not rely solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation.

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“…Work contracts offer real-life examples of challenges similar to those of the sailor, albeit less colorful. In particular, sweatshops have received much attention in the business ethics literature (e.g., Kates 2019;Powell and Zwolinski 2012;Sollars and Englander 2018). Sweatshops are exploitative environments, where people work under poor conditions, such as extremely low wages, excessively long work hours, or health and safety hazards (Radin and Calkins 2006).…”

Section: The Example Of Sweatshop Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Economists warn that any regulation has unintended results that can make the situation even worse (e.g., Bhagwati 2007). Numerous empirical studies document the negative impact of minimum wages and other regulations (Sollars and Englander 2018). While the liberal argument in favor of the market as a social mechanism derives primarily from its respect for people's freedom, the efficiency of markets in making people better off is thus another reason why they are so widely accepted, even beyond liberal countries.…”

Section: The Example Of Sweatshop Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

Freedom trumps profit: a liberal approach to business ethics

Ostermaier

Aaken

2020

J Bus Econ

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Liberalism is denounced by its critics as an ideology that advocates profit seeking and breeds economic crises. Even much of the CSR literature is pitched against liberalism. Liberalism, however, is about freedom much more than profits. It both legitimizes and confines contracting in markets. Specifically, contracts are legitimate if they are based on voluntary consent and thus reflect contractors' freedom. We propose a broad understanding of freedom and derive criteria as guidance for contractors to establish voluntary consent. For illustration, we discuss the example of sweatshops. We suggest that liberalism is a potentially valuable resource in developing CSR theory.

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Sweatshops: Economic Analysis and Exploitation as Unfairness

Cited by 15 publications

References 44 publications

Shared Responsibility and Labor Rights in Global Supply Chains

Shared Responsibility and Labor Rights in Global Supply Chains

Wage Exploitation as Disequilibrium Price

Freedom trumps profit: a liberal approach to business ethics

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