Holes in my bucket! Feudalism and Child Labor?

SupaNova

Channel Zero wrote: »

You again misrepresent Sachs' views to your own end.

Can you tell me what is Sachs' view then?

Channel Zero

SupaNova wrote: »

Can you tell me what is Sachs' view then?

The burden of proof is on you to prove that Sachs approves of sweatshops in their current form. I know that he doesn't. Selective quoting is grand until someone comes and calls you out as benway and kyuss are doing.

SupaNova

Channel Zero wrote: »

The burden of proof is on you to prove that Sachs approves of sweatshops in their current form. I know that he doesn't. Selective quoting is grand until someone comes and calls you out as benway and kyuss are doing.

Do you even understand what Sachs is talking about in that quote and why he advocates more "sweatshops"?

Permabear

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Channel Zero

SupaNova wrote: »

Do you even understand what Sachs is talking about in that quote and why he advocates more "sweatshops"?

Typical libertarian response.

"Do you even understand....?"

"You obviously don't understand speculation so let me explain it to you.."

Sachs does not advocate more sweatshops in the way you would like it to mean. Sorry to break it to you.

SupaNova

Channel Zero wrote: »

Sachs does not advocate more sweatshops in the way you would like it to mean. Sorry to break it to you.

His position is the same as mine and hence my quotation marks of sweatshops. Sachs advocates more sweatshops because that is how they eventually cease to be known as sweatshops. Just as labor is bid away from agricultural jobs by offering better pay and conditions, more "sweatshops" would have to bid labor away from existing sweatshops by doing the same, and the process goes on.

Channel Zero

SupaNova wrote: »

Sachs advocates more sweatshops because that is how they eventually cease to be known as sweatshops.

No he doesn't. Ever heard of Alter Globalisation??

Do a wiki and learn about it.

Listen this is the same circular logic and propaganda that thankfully ended with the creation of workers rights and the welfare state. Whether you like to admit it or not, you are exactly repeating the same arguments that Rothschild and the wealthy elite were parroting 100 years ago to try to justify non-taxation for the wealthy.

SupaNova

Channel Zero wrote: »

No he doesn't. Ever heard of Alter Globalisation??

Can you please show where Sachs is being taken out of context please rather than proclaiming it without backing it up?

Channel Zero

SupaNova wrote: »

Can you please show where Sachs is being taken out of context please rather than proclaiming it without backing it up?

Please quote Sachs in context in full and let's have a look.

KyussBishop

SupaNova wrote:

It doesn't answer my question though, if unions and legislation are responsible for a minimally decent quality of living, why can unions not legislate a good standard of living, you don't have to explain how we even get to lavish quality of living.

I'm generally willing to change my view if someone shed some light on these questions, rather than go on a rant, not accusing you of this, but some are eager to do so.

I did answer that; that's not the purpose of the minimum wage.


What are peoples opinion on the income gap between wealthy and poor in China? Should this income gap be lowered, so that workers can earn more money?

I wonder if there are any good stats of company profit margins vs worker wages in China? I would be curious to see, how many companies are making considerable profits at the cost of worker wages.

A major problem in China at the moment, is that while they have a rich export-economy, they don't have much of a consumer economy, because people don't have enough disposable income.
If money is being hoarded that could be used to increase worker wages, that would stimulate their local economy better and would help increase the standard of living for all.


A(nother) question: If we assume that for especially poor economies, cheap labour is necessary to begin with, at what point of economic development do people think it should be reduced or stopped?

SupaNova

Channel Zero wrote: »

Please quote Sachs in context in full and let's have a look.

Sachs is being quoted in full on his views on sweatshops, and I don't see how those quotes can be misconstrued. So I can only assume your refusal to show us that they are out of context is because you can't or because you won't, either way there is not much point in responding to you.

Channel Zero

SupaNova wrote: »

Sachs in being quoted in full on his views on sweatshops, and I don't see how those quotes can be misconstrued. So I can only assume your refusal to show us that they are out of context is because you can't or because you won't, either way there is not much point in responding to you.

Quote in context in full please.

Permabear

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SupaNova

KyussBishop wrote: »

I did answer that; that's not the purpose of the minimum wage.

No you didn't answer the questions, the question was not what is the purpose of minimum wage, the question was if the minimum wage does provide and maintain a decent minimum standard of living like is proclaimed, why can't it provide and maintain a good(or lavish) standard of living?

What are peoples opinion on the income gap between wealthy and poor in China? Should this income gap be lowered, so that workers can earn more money?

The article mentions the problem of high rents in Beijing and decent housing, redistributing income will not solve this. Income inequality is not really a concern, but adequate housing is, again another thread, China's attempts to centrally plan around this problem have been a failure so far.

A major problem in China at the moment, is that while they have a rich export-economy, they don't have much of a consumer economy, because people don't have enough disposable income.

If China let their currency rise rather than deliberately suppressing their own citizens purchasing power that would help, they are making slow moves in this area by gradually adjusting their peg.

If money is being hoarded that could be used to increase worker wages, that would stimulate their local economy better and would help increase the standard of living for all.

Well this is a debate for a different day, for one China already has the problem of high inflation, and then there is a lot more than the mere act of spending that drives an economy.

Permabear

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Channel Zero

Stick that link up that the quote is from. That's a good way to ascertain how Sachs feels about your ideology.

I know for sure that he abhors it. So it's comical to me that someone would selectively quote him. That's all.

SupaNova

Nobody has claimed he supports libertarianism. The thread is about child labor so quoting an economists view on child labor is pretty relevant.

Permabear

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KyussBishop

Permabear wrote: »

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Okey; I suppose in retrospect the answer for most to that question would be "they shouldn't".

A new question: If the profit margins of companies are high, and income inequality is high, and worker wages are low, will (or should) anything happen to resolve that? (this isn't restricted to government intervention)

Permabear wrote: »

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Trade unions and collective bargaining, worker dissatisfaction and strike action, worker-owned corporations, competitive wages between companies (not likely in China), greater protections against fraud, top-end wage cap, regulation against most damaging or common types of fraud/damaging-market-practices (previous two keep money in the market), probably more I can't think of offhand.

I don't think economic growth directly leads to increased wages; if there is not enough money in the economy to support higher wages, it is a necessary precursor to increased wages, but income inequality and such need to be tackled in addition to (and sometimes in absence of) that.

As for the role of minimum wage: This plays its part, but I'm not sure at the moment at what point in the process of a developing economy it's best implemented.

SupaNova wrote:

No you didn't answer the questions, the question was not what is the purpose of minimum wage, the question was if the minimum wage does provide and maintain a decent minimum standard of living like is proclaimed, why can't it provide and maintain a good(or lavish) standard of living?

You want the minimum wage to maintain a decent standard of living without having an impact on the economy than is greater than necessary.

To use it as you describe would be to use it as a blunt tool; it maintains a floor in wages to attain basic standards of living, it's not a tool to continually increase wages.

SupaNova wrote:

The article mentions the problem of high rents in Beijing and decent housing, redistributing income will not solve this. Income inequality is not really a concern, but adequate housing is, again another thread, China's attempts to centrally plan around this problem have been a failure so far.

That's a bit of a red herring there; how is income inequality not a problem, if many people are fraudulently earning huge amounts of money and hoarding it, whilst many workers have to deal with lower wages?

Do you think workers wages should be increased? Do you think some people earn too much money?

SupaNova wrote:

If China let their currency rise rather than deliberately suppressing their own citizens purchasing power that would help, they are making slow moves in this area by gradually adjusting their peg.

I don't understand that, through what method would that help?

SupaNova

KyussBishop wrote: »

That's a bit of a red herring there; how is income inequality not a problem, if many people are fraudulently earning huge amounts of money and hoarding it, whilst many workers have to deal with lower wages?

Do you think workers wages should be increased? Do you think some people earn too much money?


I don't understand that, through what method would that help?

All this is going really off topic, income inequality, people fraudulently earning huge amounts of money, do some people earn too much? China's housing, how would moving a currency peg help? etc.

KyussBishop

SupaNova wrote: »

All this is going really off topic, income inequality, people fraudulently earning huge amounts of money, do some people earn too much? China's housing, how would moving a currency peg help? etc.

Heh, no it's all inherently involved in solving the issue of child labour and 'cheap' labour that doesn't meet minimum standards of living.

Permabear

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Duggys Housemate

You are apparently accusing Marxists of having the same ideology as neo-classical economists. Market clearing is not a left wing philosophy.

The whole debate about sweatshops in China - which is where we are at - tends to ignore the fact that the manufacturing has left the West, probably for good. Which tends to prove the market clearing point. If they didn't want to reduce wages, they would have stayed put with your more productive workers. ( That is, Apple and Dell would not have outsourced, to begin with).

In the countries they are in, they can pay higher than the average, however that average has been rising lately due to some agitation above and below, below from un-unionised but yet still organised workers, and above the scrutiny on FoxConn and others by the Western Press. What isn't a significant factor is worker shortage, as the world is full of agricultural workers, and China has most of them. We will know that China is full when Africans are working for Foxconn.

Of course they could pay even more, Foxconn could pay Western wages and make a profit. It would just use more machines.

Do you have any evidence to support that belief? Or is it just something you "think" might be true?

The US in the last 3 decades.

SupaNova

KyussBishop wrote: »

Heh, no it's all inherently involved in solving the issue of child labour and 'cheap' labour that doesn't meet minimum standards of living.

You have the issue of child labor in many countries without a currency peg so child labor and currency pegs are not inherently involved. If China's currency peg and housing policy is on topic, you can essentially ask me for my thoughts on each and every third world country's particular economic and monetary policy. Likewise with inequality, you can have countries where there is great income inequality and child labor is almost non existent, so inequality is not essential to a discussion on child labor also.

Duggys Housemate

SupaNova wrote: »

You have the issue of child labor in many countries without a currency peg so child labor and currency pegs are not inherently involved. If China's currency peg and housing policy is on topic, you can essentially ask me for my thoughts each and every third world countries particular economic and monetary policy. Likewise with inequality, you can have countries where there is great income inequality and child labor is almost non existent, so inequality is not essential to a discussion on child labor also.

It is you who muddied the waters, and poisoned the well, in the first post, with talk of libertarianism and how you never found an argument which convinced you of any other philosophy ( I doubt you ever will).

You then moved onto the supposed main topic, that of child labour. However that was introduced as a for example... It's a topic which on it's own, might have garnered some agreement. I can see Krugman's position. However Krugman is not a libertarian, and not defending a libertarian position. So the thread could end with centrists, leftists and libertarians arguing the non-libertarian point that sometimes child labour is a necessary evil.

You have designed the thread to defend libertarianism with recourse to non-libertarian arguments by people who vomit at the thought of the rest of your philosophies - like Krugman. If people agree, if they agree that is, with Krugman's arguments, you will assume that libertarianism is somehow validated. It isn't.

In any case it is you who brought libertarianism into the debate, right there in the first sentence; and you who also moved onto other ideological claims - that rising productivity always leads to rising wages, a claim so false I wonder if you are actually in the actual world we all live in. One where productivity rises in the US have not led to commensurate increases in wages probably in your life time. That world.

The child labour argument is a fig leaf, and your position is open to attacks from anti-libertarians, specifically on your main point, which is - see the last paragraph - empirically false. So everything is on topic, since libertarianism is the topic. If it weren't you would have posted a different post.

This is what is under debate:

It is increased production that increases wages and phases out child labor, not government legislation

which is a specific version of the general claim that


It is increased production that increases wages , not government legislation

You are defending a general libertarian claim with the fig leaf that in some countries child labour may be necessary for some families - a fact which is orthogonal to whether increased production makes those children richer or not.

SupaNova

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

It is you who muddied the waters, and poisoned the well, in the first post, with talk of libertarianism and how you never found an argument which convinced you of any other philosophy ( I doubt you ever will).

For a start I am not thoroughly convinced of libertarianism but obviously convinced by enough to identify myself with the ideology. Since child labor is so often used to as an emotive plea against libertarians and their ideology, and it is claimed West would return to an age of children cleaning chimneys if libertarians had their way, whilst making contradicting claims I thought a thread specific to child labor would be interesting.

You have designed the thread to defend libertarianism with recourse to non-libertarian arguments by people who vomit at the thought of the rest of your philosophies - like Krugman. If people agree, if they agree that is, with Krugman's arguments, you will assume that libertarianism is somehow validated. It isn't.

This thread isn't supposed to be about libertarianism as a whole but child labor. I do not somehow think that if Krugman somewhat agrees with libertarians on child labor it validates libertarianism as a whole in anyway. But a general point I am trying to make, is if you are going to take libertarianism apart, tackling libertarians on child labor isn't going to cut it.

In any case it is you who brought libertarianism into the debate, right there in the first sentence; and you who also moved onto other ideological claims - that rising productivity always leads to rising wages, a claim so false I wonder if you are actually in the actual world we all live in. One where productivity rises in the US have not led to commensurate increases in wages probably in your life time. That world.

Source please?

benway

Ok. Where to start.

First of all, I should have made it clear about 10 pages ago that this:

SupaNova wrote:

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is completely discredited in development circles. If ever anyone did actually believe that growth was the solution to poverty and deprivation in itself, those days are long gone:

Already in the 1990s, concerns were being raised about some of the market-oriented policies that seemed to be the fashion of the times. The East Asian financial crisis in 1997 was preceded by the Mexican crisis in 1994 and followed by crises in Russia and Brazil in 1998, Turkey in 2000 and Argentina in 2002. Countries that had not opened out their financial markets to the same extent as South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia or Thailand, namely countries like India, China and Chile, weathered the 1997 crisis and subsequent storms much better. The moment the crisis hit, Malaysia abandoned capital market openness and introduced temporary short-term capital controls. Many have argued that because of this it did not suffer as deep a recession in the crisis.

The financial crises brought to the fore concerns that the market oriented reforms of the 1980s and 1990s might not necessarily be delivering even in their own terms, in terms of growth and productivity, and even when averages were improving, inequalities were on the increase.

Plus, it is absolutely clear that free markets are not the only way to achieve growth, as evidenced by Brazil, India and especially China. A more nuanced approach to development - sustainable development, and sustainable human development URL="http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1994/papers/sudhir%20anand%20and%20amartya%20sen.doc"]doc[/URL emerged in the late 80s, pioneered by the likes of Amartya Sen, and is now the globally accepted approach. No offence to Sachs and Krugman, but I'd rather listen to the UNDP on this:

UNDP wrote:

Sustainable human development is at the heart of UNDP’s work. Economic growth will not produce jobs and cut poverty unless it is inclusive and unless the needs of the poor and marginalised are at the centre of development priorities. Research shows that when men and women have equal opportunities and freedoms, economic growth accelerates and poverty declines more rapidly. UNDP thus works with developing countries to integrate the standards and principles of human rights such as non-discrimination, participation and accountability in design and implementation of development policies and programmes. Our work on poverty reduction, democratic governance and environmental sustainability goes hand in hand.

Sustainable development raises questions about the post-war claim, that still dominates much mainstream economic policy, that international prosperity and human well-being can be achieved through increased global trade and industry (Reid, 1995; Moffat, 1996; Sachs, 1999). It recognizes that past growth models have failed to eradicate poverty globally or within countries, ‘no trends, . . . no programmes or policies offer any real hope of narrowing the growing gap between rich and poor nations’ (WCED, 1987, p. xi). This pattern of growth has also damaged the environment upon which we depend, with a ‘downward spiral of poverty and environmental degradation’ (WCED, 1987, p. xii). Brundtland, recognizing this failure, calls for a different form of growth, ‘changing the quality of growth, meeting essential needs, merging environment and economics in decision making’ (WCED, 1987, p. 49), with an emphasis on human development, participation in decisions and equity in benefits. The development proposed is a means to eradicate poverty, meet human needs and ensure that all get a fair share of resources – very different from present development. Social justice today and in the future is a crucial component of the concept of sustainable development.

Hopwood et al. - Sustainable Development: Mapping Different Approaches

Sen's Development as Freedom is well worth a look on this, especially his incisive view on inequality, markets and famine.

Again, no-one is saying that growth isn't necessary, it's the accepted "sine qua non of poverty reduction". But if the growth is all going into the pockets of a small sector of society, it's not going to be effective. And it's never been demonstrated, to my knowledge, that an exclusively market-based schema will be capable of addressing this.

Especially since trickle-down has been effectively dismissed in recent years, not that anyone ever really believed in it, I don't think, (a source for SupaNova on the rich getting richer and the poor and middle classes getting poorer in the US in the past 30 years also) as have canonical models of "globalized" development:

The argument goes as follows. Suppose there are two countries, the North, with a high ratio of skilled to unskilled workers, and the South, with a low ratio. Under autarky the wage of skilled workers will be relatively low in the skill-abundant North and relatively high in the skill-scarce South. Opening trade will equalize factor prices in the two countries. Hence, the wage of skilled workers will rise in the North and fall in the South, while the wage of unskilled workers will fall in the North and rise in the South. Thus inequality will rise in the rich country and fall in the poor country. The extent of, and gains from, trade will typically be greater the scarcer are skills in the South. Similar results obtain in a Heckscher-Ohlin model with capital and labor as the two inputs, assuming labor is equally distributed within each country while capital is not.

There are, however, at least two empirical problems with the Heckscher-Ohlin story. First, it predicts that bilateral trade will be greatest when factor endowments are most different, ceteris paribus (Vanek, 1968). There is little trade between advanced countries such as the U.S. and very poor countries such as Chad. A second problem with the Heckscher-Ohlin model is that evidence from examination of specific developing countries following trade liberalization and from cross-country studies does not suggest that trade liberalization generally reduces inequality in poor countries and in fact frequently suggests that trade liberalization can increase inequality...

... This analysis corresponds to the view of many anti-globalization protestors that globalization benefits elites in both rich and poor countries

The thing is though, it's not globalisation that's the problem, it's the fact that they're doing it wrong. Although, by corporate logic, they're doing it right, by maximising profits. This is why regulation and legal protections are necessary.

SupaNova wrote:

not government legislation.

Is where it gets interesting. Bangladesh actually had legislative prohibitions on child labour, and a minimum wage, inadequate as it was, but there was either an unwillingness or an inability on the part of the government to implement them without pressure being applied - by organised labour or by external actors. Coincidentally, or not, our friends at the Index of Economic Freedom rate their Government Spending at a whopping 93.9%. Well done Bangladesh, A+ ... gold star for you on that exam.

It's a fair point to suggest that these external actors might have been more motivated by protectionism than altruism, but that's really not relevant, imho - better conditions and better pay for workers are just as important a part of sustainable development as growth is.

Permabear wrote:

"I believe that sweatshops are a necessary step in the economic development of the Third World"

Interesting way of summarising it - "a necessary step in economic development" ... sounds a lot like historicism to me. Again, like Lenin and Trotsky's Marxist idea that Russia needed to industrialise before they could attain true socialism.

KyussBishop

Permabear wrote:

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Well, I'm not necessarily making that presumption (it seems a bit too absolute).

I agree with the general thrust of what you're saying though, that better paid workers tend to do better work; I don't think that applies to all types of work though.

For instance, a worker on a factory line in charge of putting the same component into the same circuit board template, thousands of times a day, and in a country with lots of cheap labour available, is going to have to work his/her ass off if the employer demands, and the quality of work would not vary with wage because the worker will have a quota to meet and would be responsible for slowing down the whole factory line.

The research you point out is true in a lot of cases, but can't be applied generally as it's not true in all cases; on a factory line certainly, and with lots of willing cheap labour, it doesn't seem like the employer will have any inherent motive to increase wages.

In cases like this, workers can become analogous to capital and mechanical resources, and can get treated as such.


Also, it should be noted that even if rationally speaking, better wages may result in more work and profit, employers (and actors in the market generally) do not always act rationally; however, in a developing market without proper workers rights in place, it is rational (economically) for them to exploit that situation. You need the right environment for the research you point out to be true.

In general, I think the abundance of cheap labour and ability to hold workers in poverty with low wages, greatly tips the power in the employers favour, leaving the employee without much of a bargaining position; they have to work as hard as their employer demands, for as little as their employer likes, and they have no recourse in that matter.

Permabear wrote:

the Marxist Left clings fast to the ideological belief, wholly unsupported by empirical evidence, that wages can only increase as a consequence of labor activism or government regulation.

Well I don't hold such absolute views myself; labour activism and government regulation are both tools (among many) to be used in increasing wages.
Their efficacy has been proven (empirically), by the immediate increase of affected workers wages when enacted; I don't state they are the only means (in many situations, they are certainly not effective when they are used alone), but they are proven means, as tools in a wider strategy.

Permabear wrote:

Even so-called "sweatshops" today pay two or three times the average national wage, even when they don't have to.

That doesn't mean anything, if the average wage is tiny; the average wage could easily be 4-5x less than is needed for a basic decent standard of living (not saying that's the situation in particular countries, I'm not sure of that, just highlighting the meaningless nature of using the average wage to backup a claim).

Permabear wrote:

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You're starting to depart from reasoned argument

1: You don't speak for those workers, so need to back that up (not that multinationals are prized jobs, but that workers feel their wages are fair)
2: "illogical clamoring": Remember those "low-level personal attacks" we've been discussing lately? I'd very much like to stick to fair and reasoned arguments, which don't jab at other posters, and which don't (subtly) start to drag the atmosphere of the thread down. I don't intend to respond in kind, so I'd rather not be subject to it.

Permabear wrote:

Additionally it should go without saying that as an economy develops, labour shortages take place. As demand for labor (especially skilled labor) outstrips supply, employers may have no choice but to raise wages. This can clearly be seen in China's industrial heartlands, where a growing shortage of labor for factories has been forcing wages higher for some time; it's also true elsewhere in the developing countries of Asia.

This I agree with; it's at this point, that the imbalance in the employers favour, tips more in the employees direction. A lot of the problems (for workers) of cheap labour, though not all, which could most benefit from trade unions and regulation etc., come before this point.

Permabear wrote:

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Do you have any evidence to support that belief? Or is it just something you "think" might be true?[/quote]
I think when it leads to increased wages, it always happens indirectly; this is obvious, because employers control the wages and they have to increase the wages, hence it's indirect.

So, this indirection means that when economic growth happens, presumably inflating companies profits, it is possible for employers to choose not to give on some of those profits to employees (particularly if the employer has no or little incentive to do so).

So, just like government intervention and labour activism alone won't necessarily increase wages, economic growth alone doesn't necessarily increase wages.
Following from that, I do think that economic growth is an important component in a strategy aimed at increasing worker wages.

SupaNova wrote:

You have the issue of child labor in many countries without a currency peg so child labor and currency pegs are not inherently involved. If China's currency peg and housing policy is on topic, you can essentially ask me for my thoughts on each and every third world countries particular economic and monetary policy. Likewise with inequality, you can have countries where there is great income inequality and child labor is almost non existent, so inequality is not essential to a discussion on child labor also.

You mentioned the currency peg in relation to my point about China's local consumer economy, and that local consumer economy (or lack of it) directly relates to lack of disposable income of workers and the low wages of the workers which are part of the discussion.

Since the whole topic so intimately involves discussing economics, there's little point in ruling out any area of discussion of the economics. We also need real world examples in order to ground the discussion in reality.

Duggys Housemate wrote:

So the thread could end with centrists, leftists and libertarians arguing the non-libertarian point that sometimes child labour is a necessary evil.

You have designed the thread to defend libertarianism with recourse to non-libertarian arguments...

Hmm, hey that's a pretty good point, why did I not think of that earlier; isn't exploitative child labour inherently a form of 'violence' against those children, based on core Libertarian principals?

benway provided a good example from that UNICEF report earlier in the thread, of how child labour is almost always directly harmful to those children.

Isn't this abhorrent to all Libertarians???? [/thread?]

Permabear

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Duggys Housemate

Permabear wrote: »

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Is he an actual Marxist or is that just a libertarian smear job?

Yet again, you've skipped over the fact that there is not an "abundance of cheap labour" in many emerging economies. As noted above, many Asian economies, including China and India, are currently experiencing labour shortages. The New York Times wrote last month that "Labor shortages are already so acute in many Chinese industrial zones that factories struggle to find enough people to operate their assembly lines." Consequently wages are rising rapidly (wages in southeastern China are rising at around 15 percent a year), challenging your assertion that companies are "holding workers in poverty with low wages."

China has about half of it's population in rural poverty, an argument you are in fact making when you say that the pay in the industrial zones is 2-3 times higher than the average pay. The reason for labour shortages is China's internal visa policy, clearly then it is government intervention which is causing wage increases in certain areas, by artificially lowering the supply of labour - something that Unions try to do with closed shops. This hardly refutes any non-libertarian argument. Other forces affecting labour supply ( worker hours) is the one you also mentioned, and there are external and internal pressures on companies like FoxConn to push wages up.

As I said before, it's very easy to misrepresent reality to suit the requirements of a Marxist agenda.

Is anybody here an actual Marxist, or are we dealing with some kind of McCarthyist rant here?

Once one looks past the standard Dickensian arguments about exploitation and examines the reality of the Asian labor market, a completely different picture emerges — one that is not so conducive to the kinds of simplistic, emotive arguments being presented on this thread.

There are no emotive arguments being made, I think most people are in vague agreement with the Krugman analysis, which is non-libertarian - in some cases child labour is better than the alternative. We are however, dismantling, other libertarian shibboleths presented without empirical fact, or reason.