SWEET SWEATSHOPS - A REFLEXION ABOUT THE IMPACT OF SWEATSHOPS ON COUNTRIES’ COMPETITIVENESS

Abstract

“Plainly put, first of all, decent people don’t
want to live in and support a society that is at
variance with what they take to be basic moral
principles. (…) The second reason why one’s
social system should have moral backing is that
society without it is vulnerable to many critical
and sceptical influences” (Machan, 2007, p. 10).
Tibor R. Machan insists: today, western
people want to live in a honourable1 world.
Anthropologists like A. Peyrefitte (1995) and
Bm. Friedman (2005) demonstrate that the
level of morality of a society is closely linked
with its level of economic development. The
authors describe the way through which economic
growth induces the elevation of moral
aspiration of individuals, but also of communities.
As business is a basement of the economic
development, we can induce that it
constitutes an important part of our modern
social order. In fact many researchers, like
K. Weick (2000), consider that, the way it is
done, has a great impact on the feeling we experience,
about the meaning of our own live.
Business seems to be “a profession for human
wealthcare” (Machan, 2007). In fact, business
ethicists largely consider that business has to
be a moral activity… even if they radically
disagree about the means to pursue this goal,
considering the school of thinking to which
they belong.