the beyatles:

What's greedy about not paying US citizens 6 bucks an hour, while moving to a country with no wage standards, to pay them 2 dollars a day? Because that differential in labor costs goes directly to the consumers. Which is why the buying power of the US dollar has gone up exponentially the last 20 years!

It's not like these factory owners are reeping huge benefits or millions of dollars or something. When Nike for example moved everything to china, they didn't do it to avoid labor costs and regulation, but because THEY CARE ABOUT THE Chinese' right o a job and a better standard of living. Before Nike was there, they had ..let's say....50 percent unemployment...and a yearly wage of....500 dollars..now? They have 10 percent unemployment, and make almost 2000 dollars a year, that's almost 4 times better (these figures have not been vetted...) so every one wins, right?

Exaggerations aside, I wonder if people who ask "why do americans have an inalienable right to jobs" are the same people who say "People have the right to make as much money as they want". So...you're welcome, if you're rich, to make as much money as you want off the backs of the poor, but the poor have no rights to expect decent pay, much less a job at all.

That's the american model though "Just be thankful you have a job asshole, stop this fucking liberal pussy whining about how you "can't feed your kids on 6 dollars an hour" or "can't take the kids to the doctor, then don't have kids asshole!"".

There's a great david cross bit from a LONG time ago, where he talks about maybe if McDonalds didn't spend millions and millions on tv advertising every year, they could oh...pay their minimum wage employees an extra dollar an hour. The 19 year old kid standing next to a 500 degree frier for 8 hours asking "can someone explain again to me why I'm NOT selling drugs?" " yeah I make minimum wage, they'd LIKE to pay me less, but legally they can't, so ....I win!....Yayy..."

I don't know if I can make this any simpler: if you don't like the working conditions, or you don't think the job pays enough, don't take the job. That rule applies if you're working at a McDonalds in LA, a factory in Cleveland or a "sweatshop" in Vietnam.

Unless an employee is being taken or held against his or her will, at some level the employee has decided that the benefits the job provides are worth the toil. To use prejoratives like greed to describe a voluntary market exchange is nothing more than being generous with other people's money.