Chapter 12

My childhood best friend's dad is one of the most patriotic people I know. I've known him since I was two and he has always been very adamant about only buying (or at least making a point to try to buy) "made in America" products. So they always buy Ford cars. Then in this class we all found out that it was actually the Toyota Avalon that was the most American assembled car on the market. I was surprised. It turns out we can all be kind of ignorant on how globalization works. People can get all worked up over things that they aren't even totally aware of, for example protesting sweatshop-made products and not know that this can be really beneficial for moving countries and people out of poverty. I really enjoyed Wheelan's take on this chapter and how he made sure to highlight that sweatshops are awful places to work, but as Western people with higher standard of living it is truly incomparable because it is not worth it or efficient for us to work for $2 a day. It can give these people chances to buy mosquito nets and not starve to death. When they don't have to worry about making it to the next day and have training in some sort of field, then companies will more than likely have to turn to more machines, which lets face it is where our world is headed anyways. I understand people are losing their jobs here and that is very unfortunate, but if we can think about probable long term benefits for us, it can help the people of Bangladesh, Vietnam and more get the chance to think long term instead of day to day survival.