When presidents sign fair trade deals with poor countries, make no mistake: they are setting up slave labor camps in those nations so the American consumer does not have to see first hand who pays the real cost for cheap prices at home. The factory collapse in Bangladesh was no accident. It was a calculated price saving maneuver. The US businesses that sub-contracted out labor to regions without safety standards so they could make more profit, did not wish for the death of those workers. Neither did they care enough to prevent them.

“These Bangladesh factories are a part of the landscape of globalization that is mimicked in the factories along the US-Mexico border, in Haiti, in Sri Lanka, and in other places that opened their doors to the garment industry’s savvy use of the new manufacturing and trade order of the 1990s. Subdued countries that had neither the patriotic will to fight for their citizens nor any concern for the long-term debilitation of their social order rushed to welcome garment production. The big garment producers no longer wanted to invest in factories – they turned to sub-contractors, offering them very narrow margins for profit and thereby forcing them to run their factories like prison-houses of labour. The sub-contracting regime allowed these firms to deny any culpability for what was done by the actual owners of these small factories, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of the cheap products without having their consciences stained with the sweat and blood of the workers. It also allowed the consumers in the Atlantic world to buy vast amount of commodities, often with debt-financed consumption, without concern for the methods of production. An occasionally outburst of liberal sentiment turned against this or that company, but there was no overall appreciation of the way the Wal-Mart type of commodity chain made normal the sorts of business practices that occasioned this or that campaign.” -Vijay Prashad

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/26/the-terror-of-capitalism/