because a broken leg should be the same all over the world.

US use this totally inhuman treatment of many workers to outcompete Europe and Canada!

(The above is a bit tounge-in-cheek. The US health care system is fscked, but so is my local Swedish public system. :-( )

Seriously, you have no sense of history.

The workers at many of those factories probably have better health care then the rest of the working population of that country.

If you want to argue, give good references showing why the economists are wrong, who argue that those factory jobs (etc) better the economy and people's life in all of Asia.

It was less than a century we had child workers in the west. Human rights for women isn't exactly new, either.

Maybe you missed my original node. I'm not talking about public health system. I'm talking about corporations that go overseas because they can find a work regulation more forgiving than that in their home country. Because they can make the good and the bad time there, but not at home. Because they are bound to guarantee lower security standards - this is why I was talking about a broken leg.

This does not mean that they shouldn't invest overseas. What I find unfair is that their gain arises from worker's weaker position (with respect home workers). I accept the argument from merlyn about payment, as I said; I don't accept that this is not sufficient, and that more gains are done on looser safety and guarantees.

You say I have no sense of history. You're probably right, but I see here in Italy that years of working rights are being sacrificed in the name of "work flexibility", while capitals tend to concentrate in the hands of few and people suffers for increased poverty and less stability - which is a big step back IMO. And if this happens here, I fear that better conditions will never happen there: it's us that are adapting to their lower standard, not the contrary.

It was less than a century we had child workers in the west. Human rights for women isn't exactly new, either.

So what? Are you implying we should step back in the west? Or that this path will be the natural one for the east in the next years? This only means that they can't have easy slaves in the west, and they go looking in the third and fourth world. And this is history since the night of times.

Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

Don't fool yourself.

I'm not talking about public health system.

Yeah, I just pointed out that you could argue that e.g. USA's health care system is lower standards than the European. Your argument is relevant here, too. As I wrote -- tounge in cheek.

I don't exactly like the work market, either. But...

My real points was that (a) those factories often have higher standards than the alternative work places overseas and (b) the consensus among economists seems to be that this is part of the only ladder to prosperity that has worked, historically. We in the West climbed something similar in the 19th century.

Now, given those two points -- can you contradict them with good references or are you really complaining anyway?