Moral Responsibility to the Ignorent?

[CaptainManacles]

Okay, to give this question some context, I'm pretty well a balls to the wall, over the top, entirely tax free government style libertarian. However, in a discussion with a friend of mine, he brought up a really good point about 3rd world country exploitation. Normally, my position is along the lines of, both parties entered the agreement freely, continue to take part in the agreement freely, so at some level they must prefer their new lifestyle to their old one. Otherwise, they are free to return to their agricultural lifestyle.

However, there is something to be said for companies creating economic situations where it is difficult to return to an old lifestyle, where the company has an absolute stranglehold on their well-being. Though normally it would be the responsibility of an adult to see these things coming and take them into account when deciding to enter into the agreement, how reasonable is it to expect that out of people who have not even reached the industrial age? I liken it to signing a lifetime contract with a 9-year old, and using it to exploit the child for the rest of his life. We recognize that a 9-year old is not educated enough to make such choices, so why do we not draw a similar moral line with people in 3rd world countries?

If we do draw such a line, this opens up a whole mess of question: how do we draw such a line, and what exactly is the extent of our responsibilities?

 

[CapelDodger]

Okay, to give this question some context, I'm pretty well a balls to the wall, over the top, entirely tax free government style libertarian. However, in a discussion with a friend of mine, he brought up a really good point about 3rd world country exploitation. Normally, my position is along the lines of, both parties entered the agreement freely, continue to take part in the agreement freely, so at some level they must prefer their new lifestyle to their old one. Otherwise, they are free to return to their agricultural lifestyle.

What makes you think people have access to land on which to pursue their "agricultural lifestyle"? If the land has been turned over to plantation farming for the sake of export earnings which go to the benefit of the owners, people in the cities don't have the option to go back to farming. The ownership of the land will have been established according to laws in which the majority will have had no say, often at the point of a European regiment or more recently at the hands of a local (often uniformed) elite. The land may even have passed into the posession of US citizens or companies, so even revolutionary land-redistribution will bring down the wrath of the mightiest military power the world has yet seen.

So people aren't free in the third world, and your picture of the relationship is completely unreal. It may give you comfort, but the comfort would be more justified if you only supported trade with similar economies to your hoped-for dystopia. Or at least similar to the US.

 

[Skeptic]

You misspelled "Ignorant".

 

[CaptainManacles]

What makes you think people have access to land on which to pursue their "agricultural lifestyle"? If the land has been turned over to plantation farming for the sake of export earnings which go to the benefit of the owners, people in the cities don't have the option to go back to farming. The ownership of the land will have been established according to laws in which the majority will have had no say, often at the point of a European regiment or more recently at the hands of a local (often uniformed) elite. The land may even have passed into the posession of US citizens or companies, so even revolutionary land-redistribution will bring down the wrath of the mightiest military power the world has yet seen.

That was kind of my point. Please read the next sentence.

However, there is something to be said for companies creating economic situations where it is difficult to return to an old lifestyle

But yeah, don't actually try to engage in a productive discussion, just look for whatever reason you can to dismiss the person outright.

 

[drkitten]

Okay, to give this question some context, I'm pretty well a balls to the wall, over the top, entirely tax free government style libertarian. However, in a discussion with a friend of mine, he brought up a really good point about 3rd world country exploitation. Normally, my position is along the lines of, both parties entered the agreement freely, continue to take part in the agreement freely, so at some level they must prefer their new lifestyle to their old one. Otherwise, they are free to return to their agricultural lifestyle.

However, there is something to be said for companies creating economic situations where it is difficult to return to an old lifestyle, where the company has an absolute stranglehold on their well-being.

This problem is not confined to the third world. In fact, it's one of the major problems with Libertarianism. Irrespective of the specious reasoning used to justify it, its primary effect is to ensure that any current economic imbalances remain fixed throughout eternity, by depriving people without current economic leverage of the means to obtain it in the future.

 

[Kerberos]

Okay, to give this question some context, I'm pretty well a balls to the wall, over the top, entirely tax free government style libertarian. However, in a discussion with a friend of mine, he brought up a really good point about 3rd world country exploitation. Normally, my position is along the lines of, both parties entered the agreement freely, continue to take part in the agreement freely, so at some level they must prefer their new lifestyle to their old one. Otherwise, they are free to return to their agricultural lifestyle.

However, there is something to be said for companies creating economic situations where it is difficult to return to an old lifestyle, where the company has an absolute stranglehold on their well-being. Though normally it would be the responsibility of an adult to see these things coming and take them into account when deciding to enter into the agreement, how reasonable is it to expect that out of people who have not even reached the industrial age? I liken it to signing a lifetime contract with a 9-year old, and using it to exploit the child for the rest of his life. We recognize that a 9-year old is not educated enough to make such choices, so why do we not draw a similar moral line with people in 3rd world countries?

If we do draw such a line, this opens up a whole mess of question: how do we draw such a line, and what exactly is the extent of our responsibilities?

IMO you simply cannot draw such a line, you can't reduce politics to five, ten or fiften simple rules, follow them rigirously and expect it to work in real life.

 

[Beerina]

Some of you seem to be living in an academic world where people, fed up with working in a factory, want to go back to being farmers en masse.

Ummm...that's not exactly how it works in reality. Most left the farm because they could get better lifestyles in the cities even in the (imagine Mel Blanc saying the following word, shaking his head so fast his lips go blubbery) horrrrrrrrrrrible factories.


Any time modernization moves into a 3rd world area, the "peasantry" fights to be the first to leave the quaint (to Western Ivory Tower eyes) lifestyles and throw on T-shirts with logos and blue jeans and buy their first car.

And there's still plenty of land for the handful of Bizarro-world theoretical people who want to go toil away on a farm to do so.

Of course, if these are not free societies, then the issue of how free societies should deal with them is definitely an issue.

For the US, anyway, it's the president's job to set foreign policy, which also means how to deal with other, non-free countries. That's a balancing act. Buy (to take a current example) their oil, well, you're supporting that dicatorship (and also making it attractive to other dictator-wannabees.) Don't buy it: not feasible. Demand they have a free society: laughed at, how dare you intervene in their self-determination, etc. (As if a statium taken hostage is practicing self-determination...)

 

[jay gw]

There's nothing hypothetical about exploitation. Spending any time in a 3rd world country will show you how real it is.

Most of the world's land is owned by less than 5 percent of people.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1704841,00.html

Abuja - More than 660 000 Africans, including many children, are still trapped in slavery, forced labour and prostitution, despite increasing efforts by the governments to free them, said the United Nations labour agency on Friday.

According to a report released in Nigeria by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) - a follow-up to an global report released this week in Geneva - African slave labour was worth $159m.

The agency noted in what it described as the most detailed study yet compiled: "In Africa, the eradication of, and even the clear understanding of, forced labour poses complex challenges in a context of poverty and tradition."