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13 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 367 (2015)
Markets, Sweatshops, and Coercion

handle is hein.journals/geojlap13 and id is 373 raw text is: Markets, Sweatshops, and Coercion MICHAEL KATES* 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................... 367 11. COERCION ......................................... 368 III. FORCE ............................................ 372 IV. CONCLUSION ........................................ 380 REFERENCES ............................................ 382 I. INTRODUCTION My aim in this paper is to answer the question: Are markets in sweatshop labor voluntary? Do sweatshop workers voluntarily choose, that is to say, to work in sweatshops?' The dominant answer to this question in the philosophical literature is yes. On this view, market exchanges between sweatshop owners and sweatshop workers are entered into freely and in the absence of coercion. Indeed, a curious aspect of the debate on the ethics of sweatshops is that this view is held by both defenders and critics of sweatshops alike. In the words of Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski, No participant in the current debate holds that typical workers are coerced into taking sweatshop jobs.2 My thesis is that even if markets in sweatshop labor are free of coercion, it nevertheless does not follow that sweatshop workers work in sweatshops volun- tarily. To the contrary, I argue that sweatshop workers are forced to work in sweatshops (in a sense to be explained below) and that the reason why defend- ers of sweatshops find paradigmatic instances of coercion morally objectionable should also lead them to find the former set of circumstances morally objection- able as well. My argument for this thesis is divided into four parts. First, I defend a philosophical account of the commonsense distinction between acts of coercion, on the one hand, and circumstances of force, on the other. Second, I clarify why acts of coercion are morally wrong. Third, I argue that force is morally wrong * For helpful comments and discussion, I am grateful to participants at the 2014 GISME symposium on The Ethical Limits of Markets, and, in particular, Jason Brennan, Eric Campbell, John Hasnas, Peter Jaworski, Mark Pennington, Amy Sepinwall, Steven Wall, and Matt Zwolinski. Any remaining errors are my own. © 2015, Michael Kates. 1. I follow Arnold and Hartman 2006 in defining sweatshops as any workplace in which workers are typically subject to two or more of the following conditions: income for a 48 hour workweek less than the overall poverty rate for that country; systematic forced overtime; systematic health and safety risks due to negligence or the willful disregard of employee welfare; coercion; systematic deception that places workers at risk; and underpayment of earnings. 2. Powell and Zwolinski 2012, p. 464. 367

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