** Home sewing, exploitation, & doing without intending
Topics: Regulation, Unions
08 Aug 1994
From: ervan
The headline article in today's Chronicle read "Home-sewn trouble: Textile
workers exploited in spite of labor laws". The law in question is one that
prevents people from sewing women's garments at home (for some reason, it's
still legal to sew men's clothing at home). Robert Reich is heading a
national campaign to crack down on this practice. Here we have people
showing some initiative, saving gas (presumably a liberal biggie), saving
overhead from using up space at a sanctioned business, and making an honest
living as best they can. But, no, it's 'exploitation' becuase they are
working at home.
The only reasonable part of this is that some people force their children to
work unreasonably long hours at unreasonably young ages. I'll Leave that as
a separate, but real, problem.
Beyond that, it is allegded that many such workers make less than minimum
wage (plausibly true). However, it's the whole practice that is illegal,
regardless of the wage. It goes to show how silly the minimum wage is
because these people are paid by the piece. They are independent
contractors doing a job at a bid price. There have been one or two dBase
projects that I ended up drastically underbidding and working for
sub-minimum wage. Maybe I should have the labor department sue my client?
One garment industry executive quipped "They now think it is their God-given
right to ignore the law." Well, as matter of fact, it is. More power to them.
As mostly Chinese people are involved, they defend it by saying they can
work at home without knowing English which they would need in a factory.
That's perfectly reasonable. They also say they want to stay home with
their kids so that they can watch them while they work. That's also
perfectly reasonable (where are the children-at-any-price liberals in this
debate? Oh well, just another liberal hypocrisy). But, no, the government
says they are better off if unemployed because they are not exploited that
way. I love this: James Kight at the Labor department even said "These
people don't necessarily want to be helped."!! Imagine that! They don't
want to be forced out of their job by a government run amok claiming that's
good for them. I'd like to like 'help' Kight & his boss boss Robert Reich.
The idiocy of all of this is clear enough, but the real question is why?
One answer for the immediate crack down is that these people are not paying
their taxes, perish the thought! Since the government has already made them
outlaws for daring to sew dresses in their homes, they obviously don't see
any reason to call attention to themselves by paying taxes. The other
interesting thing is that the only significant tax they are escaping is
social security (they make too little to pay income tax). How ironic that
it is another program, like minimum wage, that is meant to help workers and
ends up screwing them. Both can be evaded in one fell swoop. Yes! It does
not do anything for the socialist fantasies of central zoning planners either.
But this only explains the crack down, not the law in the first place. It is
an unholy alliance of the garment union and the government acting to protect
a monopoly. In the 30's, the union argued that wages could be raised by
outlawing home work. That's a lie of course. The real reason is that the
union could not effectively monopolize garment labor so long as it was still
possible for people to work in non-union shops (at home). But anyway,
congress, either with infinite gullibility or a deliberate wink to such
shenanigans, bought the argument and passed the law. We can see the effect
of this today as most garments are manufactured overseas and those union
jobs are gone, gone for everyone. But that's a different story.
The point here is that the government is acting overtly as exploiter. Here
is the deal:
1) The government establishes the garment union as a monopoly.
2) It bans all competition (i.e. home work).
3) It has the audacity to tell people its for their own good.
4) The union votes for the party that passed the law because
they are extracting value from monopoly rents.
5) Everybody else is screwed in the short run.
6) Everybody is screwed in the long run.
It's not just a heck of a lot different than drug gangs shooting it out over
who gets to sell on which corner, except the government has home sew-ers
pretty seriously outgunned.
A common rebuttal to this sentiment is that representatives are well meaning
and they do not intend to exploit people. I agree. But there there is
something deeper at work. The nature of the electoral process is such that
it only collects people which behave in such a way regardless of their
intention. A representative who does not act to exploit others for his
constituency will soon be out of office. It hardly matters that in his own
mind he is doing the 'right' thing. It hardly matters that voters think
they are only protecting their due. The nature of the game produces results
the same as if it were run with malevolent exploitive intent.
Consider a couple of analogies. How many preachers believe they are
perpetrating an act of fraud when they take the collection and promise
heavenly rewards? Virtually none. Yet, that's exactly what they are doing.
Is it that they are that foolish (well, maybe) or that self-deceiving? Not
really, it's simply that preachers who did not behave in such a fashion
would not be in business (either because they would starve because of lack
of collections or they would not be saying something that sells). Thus,
there can be no other kind but the fraudulent.
The second analogy is back in the economic realm. How many do-gooders stay
in business? Some do, but only by outside contributions. The nature of the
game is that only profit seekers stay in business. Thus, it is not
surprising that business owners seem 'greedy'. If they were to behave any
other way, they would not be in business. Fortunately, unlike the case with
preachers, this is a good thing. It hardly matters that people wonder why
they are 'greedy' or that they feel guilty about being so. It only matters
that they keep operating that way in order to enrich everyone as much as
possible.
Intentions do not matter. Results do.
---Ervan
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