Tierney on Wal-Mart and Sweatshops

A great John Tierney column in today's NY Times. A brief excerpt:

Has any organization in the world lifted more people out of poverty than Wal-Mart?...Making toys or shoes for Wal-Mart in a Chinese or Latin American factory may sound like hell to American college students -- and some factories should treat their workers much better, as Strong readily concedes. But there are good reasons that villagers will move hundreds of miles for a job. Most ''sweatshop'' jobs -- even ones paying just $2 per day -- provide enough to lift a worker above the poverty level, and often far above it.

We will be discussing the sweatshop debate later in the semester in ec 10.