Sweatshops and The Heart of Darkness

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Sweatshops and The Heart of Darkness
By Kristin Bresnahan, Sydney Sarachan and Molly
Rhodes
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What are some stats?

• Hundreds of millions of workers around the world,
  including millions of children, work in
  sweatshops.
• Workers are sometimes paid as low as .06 an
  hour.
• 90 of sweatshop workers are women and are often
  taken advantage of by supervisors when they
  misbehave.
• 50 of U.S. garment factories are sweatshops, and
  75 of the garment shops in the U.S. violate both
  safety and health laws.
• Some of the worst sweatshop runners include
  Disney, Guess, Gap, J.C. Penney, K-Mart, Nike,
  Wal-Mart, and Victorias Secret.

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Why are there Sweatshops? (according to Co-op
America)

• 1. Corporate Greed
• Corporations no longer need to operate their own
  factories. In a world virtually free of borders,
  they can search the globe for subcontractors
  and suppliers where regulations are weak,
  workers are exploited, and operating
  costs are low. This permits companies
  to deny responsibility for abuse in these
  factories.

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More reasons

• 2. International Politics
• The World Trade Org. (WTO) and the World Bank
  have elevated the rights and liberties of
  corporations above those of individual nations
• No provisions have been created to respect the
  rights of workers.

• 3. Competition for Lowest Prices
• Retail giants put pressure on their suppliers to
  keep costs down, while encouraging consumers to
  buy more.
• Where and how these products are made, and why
  they are so cheap, is often a secret kept from
  consumers.
• Example It was discovered that Nike lied to its
  consumers about the way its goods were produced,
  claiming it was their right under the First
  Amendment.

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And even more

• 4. The Muddle in the Middle
• The number of middle merchants has increased
  greatly with the shift of factories overseas.
• The global supply chain has become more and more
  complex, allowing everyone involved the ability
  to deny responsibility for the continuation and
  exploitation of sweatshops and their workers.

• 5. Squeezed at the Bottom
• Profit pressure in the global economy moves
  downward-from CEO to factory supervisor. This
  squeeze ends at the bottom of the chain with the
  workers who are forced to produce goods as
  quickly and as cheaply as possible.
• This causes forced overtime, low wages,
  punishments, fines, and child labor.

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and the End Result?????
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So the real question is
What is the price we pay to achieve our ideals?
or rather
What does the pursuit of ideals lead to?

• The mistreatment of sweatshop workers is our
  modern day objectification of human beings, we
  have not really escaped this kind of injustice.
• Kurtzs Intended and others naively like her,
  serve as the incentive to commit these cruel acts
  against humanity like the Galleria and other
  sources of commercialism are today.
• It is the economic world in both instances which
  supports the naïve world.

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Support in the Text
Analogous assertions in the Heart of Darkness
Modern Day

• her engagement with Kurtz had been disapproved
  by her people. He wasnt rich enough or
  somethingit was his impatience of comparative
  poverty that drove him out there, (74).
• Brought from all the recesses of the coast in
  all the legality of time contracts, lost in
  uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food,
  they sickened, became inefficient, and were then
  allowed to crawl away and rest, (20).
• the labourer is worthy of his hire, she said
  brightly. Its queer how out of touch with truth
  women are! They live in a world of their own and
  there had never been anything like it and never
  can be. It is too beautiful altogether (16).
• the reality-the reality I tell you-fades.
  The inner truth is hidden-luckily, luckily,
  (36).

• Corporate Greed
• International Politics
• Competition for Lowest Prices

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Support (cont)
Analogous assertions in the Heart of Darkness
Modern Day

• The brick layer who doesnt lay bricks.
• Marlows belief that he is a better man for
  not condoning the activities when he still
  supports them. He drops the responsibility.
• I saw a high, starched collar, white cuffs, a
  light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean
  necktie and varnished bootsI could not help
  asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He
  had just the faintest blush and said modestly,
  Ive been teaching one of the native womenIt
  was very difficult, (21).
• one of these creatures rose to his hands
  and knees and went off on all-fours towards the
  river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then
  sat up, (21).
• The horror! The horror! (68).

• The Muddle in the Middle
• Squeezed at the Bottom
• Protest Groups Recognition of problem

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Conclusion

• What redeems it is an idea alone.

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Sources

• http//www.sweatshops.org/educate/why.html
• http//www.newyouth.com/archives/editorials/astro/
  sweat_shops_in_the_modern_world.html
• http//adbusters.org/breaking_news/2003_01_23.html
  
• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York
  W.W.
• Norton Company, Inc., 1963.