marinelli's miscellany

Should we feel weird about the computers and phones we use, all the clothes that we wear that are made in faraway factories in Asia under harsh working conditions? …the mainstream view that you would hear from lots of economists would be no, you shouldn’t feel weird. The famously liberal Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and New York Times columnist, has argued that in places like Indonesia, terrible factories, far, far worse than anything you’ve heard about here today, they raised the economy. They made everybody better off… [says] Krugman:

‘It is the indirect and unintended results of the actions of soulless multinationals and rapacious local entrepreneurs. It is not an edifying spectacle, but no matter how base the motives of those involved, the result has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to something still awful, but nonetheless significantly better.’

- Ira Glass, citing and quoting Paul Krugman, This American Life (Ep. 454: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory).