Authors with deadlines don’t spend time reading fan mail, do they?

He looks like a total child molester in that picture.

No, you can maximize profits at the expense of the workers. It’s how businesses operate. It’s not “feudalism”, it’s basic business. If you think that the workers should share equally in the profits, then you can always go work for a co-op or something.

Good luck with that. If you think the cost of electronics, clothing and consumer goods going up about 400% is a good thing, your plan will succeed.

My first comment isn’t absurd at all. Wal-Mart has never had a shortage of workers. It didn’t need to raise its minimum wage to compete with anyone. You have no evidence to the contrary. It raised its starting wage for one reason and one reason alone - PR. If you have anything that proves otherwise, let’s see it.

Because both McDonald’s and Wal-Mart adjusted their wage structure for PR reasons and PR reasons alone.

If you’re a Democrat, you have to be asking yourself “How in the Hell did it come to pass that my two options are an admitted socialist and a moderate Republican?!” because that’s what the Democrats have put out there.

“Economists point out that a bad job is better than no job at all” is not in any way a “justification of labor conditions that have been recognized forever”.

Then you can complain about child labor on Gawker, then go out and purchase products made by child labor! It’s an odd, odd, odd situation.

Neither argument has anything to do with morality. Argument 2 isn’t even an argument - it’s simply an explanation for why employers do what they do. There’s nothing to argue about. Employers pay as little as they can in order to increase profits. That’s not an argument, it’s simply saying the obvious. You could argue…

This is terrible to say, and is probably going to get me lit up here, but stories like this make me think that assisted suicide should be 100% legal all over the country. If I were faced with early-onset Alzheimer’s to this extent, I would not want that to ruin my wife’s life or anyone else’s.

I didn’t read anything he wrote as justifying the conditions. He later labeled them as “sad” and, apparently, wrote a story about how “sad” they were or something. I haven’t read it but accepted it as true that he got a “National Emmy Nomination”, whatever that is.

If you considered it, then do you think he made a value judgment or not?

“It is what it is” hardly sounds like a value judgment.

Both arguments that you outlined are the same argument. Economists point out that a bad job is better than no job at all. Employers point out that it is in their own best interest to hire people as cheaply as possible in order to maximize profits. The two arguments are both justifications of basic labor market…

It is. Otherwise, all an individual consumer does is individually profit from “slave labor” by purchasing goods made in countries that have no regulations for workers, like China. So long as companies can cheaply manufacture products overseas, and make a profit when US consumers buy those products, the practice will…

Again: If Americans “cared about Chinese workers” they wouldn’t be buying all this cheaply made Chinese shit. Who do you think is importing all the shit you complain about being made by “slave labor”? Fucking Americans, that’s who.

What’s wrong with the proposition that a “shitty job in shitty conditions in better than no job at all”? It’s true.

If Americans are willing to pay double what they currently pay for cheaply made goods manufactured in China, have at it. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Who do you think is buying all that shit?

As much as I loathe Rafael, this article’s not fair to him.