Socialism is the villain, not Nike

This is basically a response to those moral cretins who are waging an anti-Nike campaign urging people to place 'personalized' shoe orders with the company and when doing so to "use words like 'Slavelabor', 'Sweatshop', 'Childslave', or other appropriate names that my strike your fancy."

The Left has a number of ideological hobby horses that it mounts when the opportunity presents itself — or when it creates one, as in this case. This phoney moral crusade against Nike accuses it of exploiting 'cheap' Asian labour, especially child labour. That many journalists cheerfully joined this ideologically corrupt campaign came as no surprise to interested observers of that degraded profession.

About five years ago The Australian Financial Review's San Francisco-based Eric Ellis was one of those who mindlessly hitched himself to the Left's nauseating cavalcade of rotting moralistic baggage by writing an apologia (it does not deserve to be called news) for this anti-capitalist struggle.

Using the left-wing tactic of portraying multinationals as unpatriotic as well as callous, Ellis accused Nike of exploiting "14-year-old Vietnamese and Indonesians in sweatshops while Americans in Flint remain out of work," even though the company made "gigantic profits." (Incidentally, these gigantic profits amounted to 8 per cent of sales revenue.)

Ellis' information on Nike's so-called exploitation of Asian labour came from Michael Moore, a lying left-wing film maker of mockumentaries. Like most journalists, Ellis seems all too eager to suspend his critical faculties (assuming he has any) when it comes to leftwing attacks on capitalism, particularly when an 'evil' multinational is the target.

Once he had condemned the company for exploitation Ellis then had the nerve to finish with the sickening complaint that Nike will be forced to sack 7 per cent of its global workforce, most of which is in Asia, "at a time when they need jobs most."

Readers will no doubt have noticed the rank hypocrisy. After having supported a vicious campaign of vilification against the company and complaining about it not creating jobs in America, the likes of Ellis then shed crocodile tears over Asian unemployment. The irony is that he and most others on the left are literally too stupid to make the connection.

Several things need to be understood, apart from the Left's nauseating double-standards.

Child labour was the natural order of things in Britain — as well the rest of world — until the Industrial Revolution rendered it obsolete, irrespective of left-wing propaganda to the contrary.

What once made child labour frequently vital to a family's economic welfare was the low marginal value of labour's product. This meant that incomes for the vast majority were so low that children, despite their horribly low productivity, had to supplement the family income by working. In a sense, everyone had to man the economic lifeboat. (It has been estimated that once per capita GDP rises to $US5,000 child labour virtually disappears).

In 1688 Gregory King published the first survey of living standards in England and Wales. Out of a population of 5,450,000 he found that 2,825,000 were starving and it was only through poor relief that they survived at all.

Unfortunately, living standards in England and Wales at that time were the norm for Europe for many decades to come. The appalling level of poverty in eighteenth century France, for example, was reflected in the mortality figures. Life expectancy for males in 1800 was 24 years and 27 years for females. In 1780 (9 years before the revolution) more than 80 per cent of French families spent over 90 per cent of their incomes on bread. (The situation was not as severe in England where industrialisation was now well underway.

Industrialisation had the effect of significantly raising the value of labour's marginal product which by definition meant a rise in living standards. This phenomenon was completely domestic in origin and unique. Fortunately for the rest of the world, industrialisation is a process that can be emulated. Unfortunately, many countries suppressed capitalism, the only thing that made industrial progress possible, in favour of socialism. The result was 100 million or so deaths and incalculable misery for hundreds of millions more, none of which is ever referred to by the Left's moral crusaders.

This brings us to Nike's operations in Vietnam. The communist government in Hanoi is responsible for the appalling level of wages in Vietnam, not Nike. It is that government's socialist policies that keeps living standards at an abysmal level. A free market, even a badly hampered one, would have seen significant increases in real wages as capital accumulation got underway. Instead, socialism's totalitarian hand was laid over the country with the most dreadful consequences.

So do not blame Nike. On the contrary, applaud it. By investing in the Vietnam it is creating more job opportunities and helping, even in a small way, to raise the demand for labour. It completely eludes the company's critics that to attract workers it has to pay at least as much as any Vietnamese company, including state 'enterprises'. But the likes of Ellis and Garry Trudeau, for example, never attack Hanoi for paying lousy wages, exploiting cheap labour, running sweatshops, using child labour, etc. In fact, they have never attacked the Hanoi regime for anything — including mass torture and murder.

To a certain degree, Indonesia is similar. President Sukarno's socialist policies severely crippled economic progress. Though he was deposed by the military in 1965 the damage was done and immense. Those who followed are certainly an improvement and living standards clearly exceed those of Vietnam — something that left-wing crusaders ignore — but corrupt economic policies and gross interventionism have clearly kept living standards much lower than they would have otherwise been. Yet, once again, the Left and its media mates cynically lay the blame for low wages at the door of another dreaded multinational.

Calling the man who started the campaign to have Nike personalise its product with vindictive political nonsense like ‘Slavelabor’, ‘Sweatshop’, etc, a moral cretin might seem a little harsh. But ponder these awful facts. The ‘agrarian reforms’ carried out in 1954 by North Vietnam’s communist regime saw about 50,000 peasants murdered with another 50,000 to 100,000 imprisoned in labour camps. So bad was the religious persecution that up to million Catholics fled to the South with retreating French troops.

When the communists broke the Tet truce and captured the city of Hue they massacred about five thousand people. Hundreds were even buried a live. After the North over-ran the South in 1975 it immediately imprisoned 40,000 South Vietnamese in Hoa prison, just outside of Saigon, even though it was only built to house a couple of thousand inmates. It has been estimated that about 80,000 South Vietnamese were quickly murdered while thousands more were shipped to labour camps. The death toll from the regime's Gulag has yet to be estimated.

Today the regime is as vicious as ever. The labour camps still operate, as does the secret police. Your life is not your own — it is literally the property of the state and free thought is a crime against the Party.

Did the smug instigator of the anti-Nike campaign condemn this? Not on your life. Evidently overflowing with a sense of his moral superiority — a common characteristic among lefties — he launched a sanctimonious campaign against the company. Whatever Nike's faults it has never murdered anyone, it has never tortured anyone, it does not persecute anyone or imprison critics, it never waged war against anyone. All it does is produce and sell sneakers.

It is not Nike that should be indicted but those left-wing moral poseurs who have given unstinting support to every murderous socialist regime that has cursed this century. It is not multinationals that have kept wages low in Vietnam but an evil socialist government. This is the real story and it is one the Australian media will never tell. And it is one that our leftwing moral cretins will never launch a campaign against.

It was the corporate-bashing crusading Michael Moore who tried to stop his own employees from joining a union (the Writers' Guild). The guild then had to force Moore, the working man's friend, to pay his staff the contractual credits and other payments that he had tried to screw them out of.

"Using the left-wing tactic of portraying multinationals as unpatriotic as well as callous, Ellis accused Nike of exploiting "14-year-old Vietnamese and Indonesians in sweatshops while Americans in Flint remain out of work"

what about leftests, mr n mrs bill klinton, supporting and exploiting "14-year-old Vietnamese and Indonesian girls "right to be prostitutes"...or have their families, sell them in to prostitution???

Good article and one that complements a more Nike-specific story that was posted this week(or last.) It detailed how at first the workers at the factory walked to work, then they could afford to buy a bike, then motorscooters. They may far more than the average wage, and when asked what they would like to change most workers wanted Nike to expand so their family and communities can continue to benefit.

Their standard of living was raised(and by the way, they get medical care and other such benefits) and the people are learning about capitalism, to a degree. This is GOOD for Vietnam and for Nike.

It's no coincidence that many labor unions were behind the anti-Nike protests of the 90s. They intend to cause the Vietnamese to lose THEIR jobs and bring them back to the US for fat, lazy unionists.

I wonder why this is still an issue, I thought it was resolved in the Public relations arena a couple years ago.

Nike is providing modern jobs for a population that has not many of those from whih to choose and pays at the going rate or higher in the countries where it does business. Nike improves the employment situation in those countries and by its very existence in those economies it causes the going rate to rise. Nike gives families a chance to live better than they possibly could were Nike not offering employment. The left purports to demand that Nike should pay Indonesians what such workers would earn in the US . If Nike did that and did not go broke paying wages vastly in excess of productivity those workers would constitute a class of wealth that would set them over the working class in their countries.How does the left justify calling for creation of a class of rich people?

the people are learning about capitalism, to a degree. This is GOOD for Vietnam

The Vietnamese people do not need to learn an appreciation for capitalism. They just need their communist government to disappear. They are capitalists and traders par excellence so far as the system allows them to prosper. The Viets have the Overseas Chinese trading genes and a Christian heritage besides, which allows them to trade outside of the family with trust and expectation that agreements will be honored. Catholics are only 10-12 % of the population but their Christianity enabled trading habits have soaked into the population at large, at least that part that is in the cities.

I apologize for misstating my position and a mistaken choice of words.

You are correct that the government is the problem, what I should have said is that greater exposure to wealth and capitalism would generate a native pressure to rid Vietnam of the government.

Anh la nguoi Viet, phai khong?

"exploiting "14-year-old Vietnamese and Indonesians in sweatshops .."

I, and some of my close friends, are supporting children in VN who would not otherwise be able to get an education. In VN, education is not free as it is in the U.S. In VN, a family must pay USD $15 per month to send one child to school but the per capita income in VN is USD $360 PER YEAR. Obviously, a family will have a very tough time sending even one child to school. I have invested a lot of my own personal time and energy in studying the Vietnamese culture and people during the past 35 years and am sponsoring a young (13 years old) kid to go to school - this is an anonymous thing since I can't sponsor her publicly else the gov't will say "send us the money and we'll hand it out)...yeah right..to your cronies with a pittance to some party kid."

FYI, it costs me $180 per year to sponsor a VN kid for one entire year's education. If you're interested, lemme know; you can help change the fate of a country.

Prior to this, this girl could not go to school mostly because she had to work at the family's vegetable business since they can't afford to hire anyone. Now how does the 3rd world sweat shop argument work in this scenario?

Khong phai nhung toi qua Viet Nam cuoi thang 7 o lai Sai Gon mot thang ve.

Kho^ng pha?i, nhu*ng to^i qua Vie^.t Nam cuo^/i tha/ng 7 o*? la.i mo^.t tha/ng ve\ .

Khoong phair nhuwng tooi qua Vieetj Nam cuoois thangs 7 owr laij Saif Gonf mootj thangs vef.

I also have VQR but it doesn't make it through these posts.

Is this documented anywhere?

Daniol Radosh made this charge writing for Salon back in '97. Moore wrote a ranting response (does he do any other kind?) back to him, and below that you'll find below Moore's letter Radosh's defense of his claim. Oh, and of course Moore never sued. :-)

Not airtight evidence, but it should give you something to work with.

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