I know it can seem very obvious, but as the retarded as I am, when a debate occurs between me and my friends, I always go for the "non-logical" side, even though it's against my own beliefs.

A long time ago, I remember taking place into a "Child Exploitation" debate. Everyone was calling that it was atrocious and all and then, some arguments came to my mind: without these companies exploiting them, they wouldn't get a salary at all and in the Third World, even a a penny is very important to survive.
You could say that these companies could at least offer good treatment and salary and that's true, but still... isn't this better than nothing?
... you could decide to create your own company, establish in Africa/China and give them what you're expecting people to do, but you aren't doing much to make it so anyone act like that, heh?

I know it's pretty basic thoughts, but it still makes a minimum of sense... what do you think of it?

Even better than forcing people to work without schooling and keeping them in the cycle of poverty:

Pay their parents the money they would earn if they didn't work and send them to school!

And this has been done in several countries, but it needs to be more widespread, it needs to be better promoted and it needs to reach rural areas.

-> They'd earn no money, no? :S

Payne, do me a favor and edit your first post. I know english isn't your first language, but when you post in SD you have to be more proficient in it than you currently are, mainly because it's hard to figure out some of what you are saying in your topic post. Do me a favor and have someone help you put your thoughts into english (I can help if you PM me asking for it).

As payne noted, the money they would earn by not working would be exactly 0. If you meant allow them not to work and still pay them, then they haven't earned anything, and that's giving away free money. I don't personally have a problem with companies going to third world countries and paying the workers (even children) next-to-nothing, because that's just how business works. What I DO have a problem with however, is them getting paid next-to-nothing AND having to work in a dangerous, disease-prone, unregulated environment. If we were somehow to enforce a law saying they needed to be paid a lot more, they wouldn't get the jobs at all and would be worse off, but I think it could be reasonable to regulate the working environment (i.e. provide clean water, impose safety regulations, ect), without scaring off the businesses.

Until you provide citations for this, that's a load of drivel.

Providing clean water would be hard: even the villages themselves do not have clean water and are still trying to make deals with the damn water companies established there...
Trying to do such things (including the safety regulations) would largely increase the costs of establishing into such countries and the industries would simply move to China, which have access to most of the points you could mention in terms of amelioration in the Third World thus triggering even less job for the poor because our actual economic system (capitalism) is about profit and trying to meet such conditions costs much more than paying a little more some Chinese

I see two options:

1) Let them starve to death without a job. No exploitation, but no survival either.

2) Let them barely get by while working in poor conditions. They are being exploited, but they are still living.

Which would you rather? It's not like you're just going to give them your money so they can survive, so it's hypocritical to tell the big companies to (your 35¢ a month donation does not really count). Even if you were giving them significant percentages of your money, it's not your place to expect others to do the same. I think it's NO ONE'S place to expect that. Forcing people to help others is infringing upon their rights. Stopping them from hurting others is protecting the other's rights, but that's not the same as forcing them to help. Anyway, I'm straying from the original point, so I'll end with that

I wonder to whom you were directing this because no one talked about forcing people to donate...
Anyways, I find it funny how SEN people all (2) seems to agree how the Third World is stuck with this situation as long as we keep our actual mentality :S

That's why I said I was straying from the original point.

Exploitation is a bad thing, but lets face it and admit that everything we buy is either from China or Thailand. (obviously)
Lets also admit that we're a bunch of bastards with our bull shit holidays like Christmas (The only country I see "giving" is the ones that don't get anything back) It also doesn't happen to be a good season if you're a turkey (best joke ever, thank you very much)

I really hate child exploitation, In my mind when I think of it I picture a very large man, the ceo, right next to this anorexic child dying of malnutrition. and it's definite these businesses don't pay people because they're kind, they only pay them enough to be considered "humane"

Paid slavery, and in my mind it makes them no better then Hitler. Your idea does intrigue me though =D, I'll try supporting the side I'm against.

We do nothing to solve this problem. We just say "yeah, it's bad" and continue with our lives. We can hardly afford things as it is, imagine how much the cost would increase if it didn't come from such cheap labour. We grant them jobs, and they grant us their objects so everyone is happy.

In the end, we must keep in mind that those countries are different then ours, we live in a capitalist society (where exploiting others for our own agenda, our own goals is always worth celebration) meanwhile they live in a developing country. It'll take time for them to reach our standards of living, and over time I'm sure they'll eventually abolish child labour anyway.

Did I do good on both sides =D?

I just wanted to stress out these two points.
First of all, it's not very relevant, but I had to quote Marx that qualifies the capitalism, among other things, as a system based off profit which pays the workers just enough for them to survive.
Secondly, an other aspect of the capitalism, I think, is the fact of actually increasing your profit year after year. If it was really only based off profit itself, the price could easily get lowered and it would be as easy to pay more these exploited workers: the amount of profit they do over each and every item is enormous.
For example, I was shopping some boxers at a store when my friend and I saw a reduction from 4,90$ to 0,50$... and I'm pretty sure the company was still making profit over this. When you see these ads calling for 50% of discounts over certain items, they still do profit over it... they are literally telling you that during all those years, they've been stealing your money heavily just to, after all, make you think that you are about to do a great deal with that reduction and make even more money with you.

Something funny I noticed but which has real application to this problem: Bottled water in the U.S. can cost about $1 (or more, I've seen it go for like $3 at ball games and stuff). The same bottled water in China costs 1 yuan (about $0.15). Say a business had to provide a bottle of water per shift or something, selling 10 shirts in america could provide enough water for a whole plant if they buy it from the right place...

That's actually a great idea. Moreover, it would stimulate China's economy.

I think with my retail store we can reduce items to 10% and that covers all costs for that item and no profit is made.

Odds are, we aren't seeing the benefits of child labour, the CEO is.

Africa should be left4dead. It's for the most part, not habbitable.

I don't know how relevant this is, but I'd just like to mention charity fundraisers are BS and not to donate to them. My movie theater has something called "stars of hope" where we tell people to donate their spare change or an extra dollar to help fight cancer. What they don't tell you (and we had to google) is that more than half of the money goes into the pocket of Regal Cinema's CEO. Do not donate to charities through store promotions.

May I see the source for this? I'd like to share this info with some friends that would laugh a lot about it