Top 3 Ways Sweatshops Help the Poor Escape Poverty

Professor Matt Zwolinski explains three reasons sweatshops may actually be worth keeping.

Matt Zwolinski

Matt Zwolinski is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego and director of USD’s Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy. He is the editor of Arguing About Political Philosophy and, with Benjamin Ferguson, The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism and Exploitation: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (both in progress). He is currently writing a book on the history of libertarian thought with John Tomasi, and a book on the idea of a Universal Basic Income with Miranda Perry Fleischer.

Sweatshops should all be shut down because of the terrible working conditions and unfair treatment of workers, right? But what about the people who choose to work in these conditions? If we look at sweatshops from the perspective of the world’s poor, we may find that we should not be trying to close their doors after all. Professor Matt Zwolinski explains three reasons sweatshops may actually be worth keeping: sweatshop jobs may be better than the alternatives, closing sweatshops just reduces job options for the poor, and it is better to do something to end global poverty than to do nothing. From the perspective of the world’s poor, which looks better: an American company that outsources to sweatshops and provides jobs in developing countries, or an American company that hires only U.S. workers?

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