Labour Division –Good Or Bad?
Work
Work, is an essential part of our live. We work, to earn a living; we work, to apply what we have learnt. Most importantly, work is what that keeps a country’s economy moving.
Work is a complicated concept. In order to work, we have to possess the necessary skills for the job. However, it is hard, if not impossible for us to possess the knowledge for all kinds of jobs, most of us tend to specialise in a certain sector, hence the division of labour.
In the division of labour, workers are separated into different sectors. For example, in a factory certain groups of workers are in charge of the manufacturing of the goods while another will be in charge of the packaging. Even in schools, we have different departments of teachers teaching different subjects. Division of labour makes production more efficient. As mentioned in the lecture, capitalist economy relies on division of labour, and it will bring prosperity to the whole society if everyone is engage in production.
However, as always, there is a conflicting view to this. It is said that labor division also creates solidarity. People of the same jobs will tend to be group together, hence creating the solidarity. I believe that this is true. Work takes up most of our time, and it is no surprise that we will tend to interact more with people who work together with us. It is argued that this would result in class consciousness, which can be linked to last week’s lecture on class and inequality.
Free Trade
The case of inequality is worsened by free trade. Under free trade, countries are allowed to seek the cheapest cost of labour from the less developed countries.
Multinational Corporations (MNCs) from developed countries, seeking the lowest cost of labour often choose to move their manufacturing process to less developed countries like China and Vietnam. The workers there earn minimum wages while the MNCs get higher profits due to them. In a way, this can be considered as exploitation. This will also result in the widening of the income gap between the developed countries and the less developed ones. On top of that, as stated in the lecture, child labor is the cheapest form of labor, unknowingly, the MNCs have encouraged child labor.
Furthermore, several industralised countries are also treating the third world countries as their dumping ground, choosing to dump their waste in these countries. An example of such a country will be Albania, who accepted a shipment of expired pesticides from Germany (American University). Again, the industralised countries have exploited the less developed ones. Also, due to the fact that these developing grounds act as the manufacturing grounds to the MNCs, environmental problems like air pollutions will be worsened.
Thus, unknowingly, these MNCs have worsened the social problems of these countries.
The idea of free trade is supposed to benefit the countries, to allow their economies to prosper. However, just like globalization, it is a double edged sword. It indeed allowed prosperity in countries, but only the developed nations. Once again, the third world countries, who are the ones in need, are being left out of the route to prosperity. Their conditions have yet to improve, and even in some cases, worsened. So is free trade fair trade? I do not think so. The rules and regulations of free trade should be review to protect the interests of the third world countries. One good example will be the banning of OEDC toxic waste exports in 1997. There should be limited exploitation of cheap labour in the developing countries, especially when it involves child labor, which should be completely removed.
Reference:
1: http://www.american.edu/TED/projects/tedcross/xwast31.htm – Web Source
