Sweatshops Essay

"Free Exchange for Mutual Benefit: Sweatshops and Maitland 's "Classical Liberal Standard" " Thomas Carson 's article criticize Ian Maitland 's arguments in defense of sweatshops, based on Ian 's view of "the Classical Liberal Standard" published in 1997, in the Brithish Academy of Managment Annual Conference Proceedings. Ian 's central thesis, is a defence of the sweatshops in the poor countries in the third world, statinig that "A wage or labor practice is ethically acceptable if it is freely chosen by informed workers" (Carson,1). The global intercontinental coorporation 's sweatshops capture the requirements of the CLS and this way they are providing better options and opportunities to the workers in the third world contries. Maitland claims, that the multinational business corporations must inform their employees of the risks and hazards, to which each one of them is subjected at the work place. This idea corresponds with Milton friedman 's view that freedom equals choice as biliteral, voluntary and informed transaction. The idea of "negative freedom" in the sweatshops ( meaning: that corporations are giving the opportunity to poor people to work and labor, are limiting their choice in the same time) is obvious. Friedmain says that "lack of options limits one 's freedom" and Ian 's keeps repeating that when the companies satisfies his CLS conditions , the multinational sweatshops are giving better options to the third world countries. Thomas Carson gives his objections to the CLS by addressing three cases directly to Maitland, he is not arguing that Ian 's thesis is not moral, but it does not settle the moral questions at issue. In his first case, he describes the following situation: He lives in rural North Dakota and he has a very sickly woman as a neighbour. There is a huge blizzard that leaves the village without electricity and their only option is to use wood stoves and fireplaces. Since his neigbour does not have any of these, he is