The term “Survival of the fittest” is more significant than it has ever been as the imbalance between the world’s ever-growing population and the planets limited resources are operated to advantage the wealthy. Those who fall into the poorer sides of society face greater challenges as businesses take advantage of people that have no other choice but to take a low wage job simply to “survive”. These workers fall into the unfortunate trap of being taken advantage of for the greater advantage of the people they work for, which will therefore lead to negative effects in the economy in the long run, and promote discriminatory acts in becoming a norm in societies.
The economies of businesses that use cheap labor in other countries as a “business strategy” acquire most of the benefits while causing more harm than good to the countries where cheap labor is permitted. Cheap labor may have its advantages in the short term for the country, which is livelihood for their communities, but in the long run, it severely limits the progress of the workforce. As workers acquire small incomes, they do not get the opportunity to acquire things that are likely to improve their livelihood and remove themselves from poverty such as further education for themselves and/or their children (Munger, 2002, p. 227 ). There is a heavy dependence on foreign investment in the cheap labor force and this creates a further imbalance and a growing wage gap. If a large proportion of the population is unable to acquire the means for a decent quality of life this decreases the purchasing power of the population, stagnating the local economic growth, as people are not able to purchase goods and infuse the local market with funds thereby stagnating local businesses. An ec...
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...ns compete for the most profitable ways of performing in their businesses, such exploitation of human beings is usually seen as an advantage rather than a harmful practice also often times ignored, as many focus on the short-term effects or simply turn the blind eye as it does not directly affect them. But as active and advantaged parts of a society we can speak up for people that fall victim to such practices as their voices may hardly be heard. It is our responsibility to take action by being well aware of what corporations we deal with. Raising awareness in our respective communities to educate others of the effects exploitation of human rights through wages can also help put an end to such practices. However, it will take a long time for such practices to completely disappear, and drastic measures of commitment and education are needed to fulfill such a goal.
The concept of discrimination is complex in the case of “The Big One” in this case, corporations in the United States of America such as Nike, Spalding, Microsoft and AT&T are not willing to change their ways of manufacturing their goods in third world countries and American detention centres, and this causes perfectly able bodied employees in the United States to become unemployed as more and more companies apply this measure to make additional profit for themsel...
Gregory Mantsios presents himself as an expert in this essay because he states a lot of facts. The author uses stats, his own opinion, and my favorite thing that brought me in was the myths that he told the reality’s for later in the essay. Mantsios believes that no matter what social or economic class that you fall into, you have a fair chance at succeeding in life. I feel that the intended audience is the citizens of America or people in the workforce since they are the ones that have to deal with this situation. The thesis of this essay is “Perhaps, most importantly, the point that is missed is that inequality is persistent and structural- and it manifests itself in a multitude of cultural and social ways.” The author discussed the problems that occur from economic and social classes. The purpose of this argument is to debate on what kind of people will be successful in life. Everyone has a shot at being successful, and that they do with it is
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
As a country, we support the terms “freedom”, “equality”, and “rights”. However, we need to focus on the working citizens of the United States and ensure equal rights for everyone. The wage theft website indicates that wage theft is not stereotypical, and the issue is not primarily in specific work fields. No worker can particularly avoid wage theft, whether it’s good wages or great benefits. Wage theft is more likely to occur in non-union workplaces.
Corporations seek out countries with cheap labor forces to lower their production costs. Consequently, they will engage in practices, such as banning labor unions and selecting a passive labor force, which frequently consists of young women, to ensure their policies on low wages are met with little or no resistance. Ultimately, in order to attract investments of multinational corporations, governments in third world nations must compete against each other to exploit their own labor force to supply the cheapest products. Furthermore, instead of sharing the profits with the workers, corporations spend most of the money saved from the labors on advertising and celebrity spokespeople.
Members of racial minority groups like the majority aspire to possess material success in life but are void of the means to achieve those (McNulty & Bellair, 2003). The same can be said of the lower class, whose low socio-economic status limit their opportunities for tertiary education which could potentially be imperative in securing lucrative jobs (Curry & Spergel, 1988). Therefore, to satisfy their appetite for success, these people adapt to strain by treading the path of innovators- using illegitimate means to actualise their positively valued goals. Moreover, with global... ... middle of paper ... ...
The gap in wealth between the rich and the poor continues to grow larger, as productivity increases but wages remain the same. There were changes in the tax structure that gave the wealthy tax breaks, such as only taxing for social security within the first $113,700 of income in a year. For CEOs this tax was paid off almost immediately. Free trade treaties broke barriers to trade and resulted in outsourcing and lower wages for workers. In “Job on the Line” by William Adler, a worker named Mollie James lost her job when the factory moved to Mexico. “The job in which Mollie James once took great pride, the job that both fostered and repaid her loyalty by enabling her to rise above humble beginnings and provide for her family – that job does not now pay Balbina Duque a wage sufficient to live on” (489). When Balbina started working she was only making 65 cents an hour. Another huge issue lies in the minimum wage. In 2007, the minimum wage was only 51% of the living wage in America. How can a person live 51% of a life? Especially when cuts were being made in anti-poverty and welfare programs that were intended to get people on their feet. Now, it seems that the system keeps people down, as they try to earn more but their benefits are taken away faster than they can earn. Even when workers tried to get together to help themselves they were thrown
William Graham Sumner is a social Darwinist who claimed that people who work hard are rich, while people who do not work as hard are poor. In his article “What the Social Classes Owe Each Other,” he discusses the distinction between the lower and upper class. The upper class consists of all the determined hard workers, while the lower class consists of lazy workers. He believed that every man is given a chance to work for their success, but not everyone is able to grasp their opportunity and most end up in the lower class. In this sense, we should not help the poor.
In the beginning in the late 1700 and early 1800 hundreds when the Industrial Revolution when many families had to find someone to work or they wouldn 't survive in this decade this started child labor you might be asking yourself what is child labor, child labor is work that harms children or keep them from attending school or trying to get an education to better themselves. industrial labor organization made 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 had to work under the condition that are considered legal hazards or extremely exploitative in the environment that they worked in. underage children had to work also because usually their families were extremely poor and didn 't have enough money to support their selves for their children by them doing this there are many things that involved child labor when it came to the mistreating them. Such as them getting
Our society today, as it develops, seems to be becoming more and more like the World State described in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” One very obvious and evident similarity between both the Brave New World and the world we live in today is the existence of different economic classes with widening gaps in their economic conditions and social gaps. The society in Brave New World is split into five castes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. This is very similar to how our society is split into distinct economic classes such as high,
The growing numbers of income inequality are rapidly increasing and it is absolutely terrifying. In these readings, we explored the thought of a personal problem and a social problem.
The more educated and diverse a society is, the better society’s job market is served. This social economic separation of class is both good and bad for society. Many workers at the lower levels of employment are both pleased and displeased with many aspects of work. Though this fact also holds true with most any job at any level, pay scale often compensates for endurance of a particular job type. The security of a person’s job is also an issue that in today’s economic times forces one to be prepared for change.
These concerns typically include the rights of the children, the responsibility of the parents and employers, and the well-being and safety of the children. In Stefan Spath’s “The Virtues of Sweatshops,” it is made very clear that he, like many others, feel that the general public is highly misinformed on what sweatshops are and what they actually contribute to their respective communities. In the eyes of someone from a developed country, sweatshops and child labor that takes place in them seem primitive and are interpreted as simply a means by which companies can spend less money on employers. He states that when labor unions claim that companies which establish operations in developing nations create unemployment in America, they aren’t really explaining the whole story. The author claims that those who are adamantly protest sweatshops are only telling half the story with a claim like this. He points out in this part that the American people can rest assured that high skilled jobs will not be taken over to developing countries because “– high-skilled jobs require a level of worker education and skills that poorer countries cannot
Shah, A. (2006, May 28). Corporations and Worker's Rights. - Global Issues. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.globalissues.org/article/57/corporations-and-workers-rights
Critically one of the larger factors of this topic where the problems begin is in poverty. Citizens of the United States often argue that lack of social reform has significant effects throughout all communities and their poverty levels in America. This may be true to a certain degree, but a largely missed fact is that exponential growth has occurred vastly in the past hundred years shown through histories’ short industrialization of the US; population size strongly correlates to the increase cost of living and the poverty threshold. Social form favors the increase of manufacturing which has dominated not only our capitalist market but many foreign markets as well; while compared to service occupations which have made little advancement compared to production output and technology. Those key components affect largely the amount of jobs available and knowledge required to compete in a competitive job market, yet allow employers to operate at minimal expense level. This disparity of finite jobs creates the separation of classes respectively relating people’s ability t...