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The effects of free trade
Capitalism and its effects on society
The effects of free trade
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Capitalism has cause exploitation and alienation of worker, particular those in third world countries. The Maquiladoras in Mexico illustrates the negative impacts that capitalism can have on a society. The Maquiladoras in Mexico were produced once the Bracero programs in the United states was discontinued as a way to slow the rate of migration into the U.S as well as solve Mexico’s high unemployment rate (Wise 2003). Although investment in the Maquiladoras have increased Mexico’s economy, it has also caused many more problems. Workers faced problems such as ‘deplorable health and safety conditions, persistent heath problem, deterioration in the surround environment, and a denial of basic rights and the freedom to organize” (Wise 2003, p. …show more content…
In addition, foreign companies can come to Maquiladoras and produce their export goods and receive wide range of benefits such as being exempts from income and property taxes (Wise, 2003 p.173). Regrettably, when Mexican government tries to make changes, companies threaten to pull their factories in Mexico (Wise 2003). Due to capitalism, government has little control over working condition and wages, which allows the big corporations(capitalist) to exploit their workers(proletariat). As a result of long working hours and the type of work, many workers alienated themselves from the task at work. Through their day, worker move like robots repeating the same task over and over again (movie, Ritzer 161). This is a direct violation of Marx ideas of human nature because capitalism is causing workers to “an often boring and stultifying means of the fulfillment of the only end that really matters in capitalism-earning to survive money” (Rizter
Under this development, foreign companies could set up plants within 100 miles of the United States/Mexico border. These were known as maquiladoras (Broughton 5). Maytag and other manufacturing companies took advantage of this opportunity for the cheap labor, land, resources and thus ability to be more profitable. Maquiladora employment tripled to 1.3 million in 2001, since 1990 (Broughton 142). Maytag’s plant was called Planta III and required less jobs and less skilled labor than what was required in Galesburg. This was good for the company’s bottom line, but bad for employees. The employers had complete control since labor was so easily replaceable. The workers began to be looked at as machines; interchangeable and dispensable and thus were not getting a fair wage. In Mexico the average cost for one week of food was $81 but maquiladora employees would only get paid $36 per week (Broughton 152). Maquiladoras also hurt the local and national Mexican economies. Locals would say that “the only thing maquiladoras have done is occupy the workforce … they don’t resolve any of the problems they generate…overpopulation, lack of social services, school and health care. All of this is what the maquiladoras have brought” (Broughton 153). These companies were simply there to make a profit and provide jobs, not to enrich the employee’s or communities lives. The profits from
The documentary El Contrato follows the exploits of Mexican migrant workers as they find themselves being exploited. In particular, it follows one man, Teodoro Martinez, a father of 4 who has worked many seasons in Canada. Teodoro returns year after year. He does not return because he enjoys it, he returns for the pay. The migrant workers are chosen with certain criteria in mind. These ‘desirable’ traits are that they have minimal, if any, education and a family in Mexico. The workers chosen are typically quite poor, many not owning a house. The pay is better than what they could get in Mexico, so they must make the decision to desert their families for two thirds of the year to support their loved ones. They are brought to a town where most
...on between the non-Maquiladora and Maquiladora industries I feel the inefficient producers will be wiped out. Therefor, Maquiladora employees will need better training, education, incentives as well improved working conditions and higher wages. Operations will also have to be streamlined in order to reap the benefits of economies of scale and scope.
The leaders of big business didn’t give workers the rights they deserved. In the text, Captains of Industry or Robber Barons?, it states, “Workers were often forbidden to strike, paid very low wages, and forced to work very long hours.” This evidence is a perfect example of the dehumanization of workers. The employers treated their workers like interchangeable parts, which were easily replaced. The big business leaders started paying less attention to the working conditions, and more to the production rates, and money. They didn’t care about worker’s family or the worker’s wellbeing. Due to the horrible working conditions, the workers were more likely to be injured, and sometimes, die. The capitalists didn’t give their employees the rights and respect they deserved, because to them they were just unskilled, cheap labor. If the workers were unhappy, they would easily replace them with other unskilled workers. That’s why they were considered interchangeable parts. This evidence shows the big business leaders only cared about money, and didn’t treat their workers
These horrors are intensified by the fact that the immigrant workers are paid wages which barely allow them to live. They dwell in crowded tenements hardly fit for human habitation. And the political climate of the era, in terms of its effect on their lives, as both workers and consumers, was one of corruption and laissez-faire. The capitalist bosses were essentially allowed by political leaders to do whatever...
In 1800s, the industrial revolution spread across the United States, which significantly change the way of manufacturing and labor society function. More and more Europeans were transferred to America, which increased the population of America. In addition, the larger transportation and communication made the old type of labor conventions and household manufactory became outdated. At that time, the “Artisan Republicanism” was extraordinary popular in the United States, people work depended on their workmanships, and people were also able to be their own boss on the job. However, factory based workplaces replaced the traditional patterns of work, which significantly increased the efficiency of manufactory industry, but on the other hand, labors met big problem, not only on the status of a master in their field, but also on the lower wages and longer working hours. American workers found that they had become “wage slaves”. In response of these changes, laborers started protesting the new revolution, resisted changes of older traditions of work,
Submerged in the impoverished urban border culture which they helped create, the maquiladoras draw young women north from all over Mexico’s interior. The women migrate with hopes of acquiring jobs in the booming foreign-owned factories and are plunged into a new border “country” that is far from a promised land. Maquiladoras are a financial endeavor for foreign industrialists who hope that by situating factories in Third World countries they will substantially cut production costs. The industrialists have been accused of taking advantage of Mexico’s cheaply accessible labor force and less restrictive health and safety codes in order to achieve these lower production costs. While preliminary surveys on the effects of maquiladora work on women’s physical health show little to no adverse side effects, researchers and advocates are not completely convinced that long term health effects will prove positive.
As people immigrated to the United States, legally and illegally, particularly Hispanic workers, they began to look for jobs to provide for their families. They took jobs that Americans did not want: they accepted the low-paying, physically-demanding, and temporal agriculture jobs. Since many did not speak English and were uneducated, some even illiterate, they were easy targets for farm owners to exploit. Immigrant workers were often not paid, had low wages, and because of such conditions, some even died. In addition, they also lived and worked in appalling conditions, some workplaces did not even have suitab...
Since the worker’s product is owned by someone else, the worker regards this person, the capitalist, as alien and hostile. The worker feels alienated from and antagonistic toward the entire system of private property through which the capitalist appropriates both the objects of production for his own enrichment at the expense of the worker and the worker’s sense of identity and wholeness as a human being.
El fetiche de la mercancía es la transformación del producto social en una cosa metafísica. La mercancía es resultado de las relaciones objetivas de producción y, en la economía capitalista, alcanza el estatuto de mediación entre los productores: ella refracta la relación social de los hombres como una relación de objetos, o mejor, como una relación objetiva entre cosas. La forma mercancía es la síntesis de la relación social que nace con el trabajo. (Marx, 1983: p.71)
Due to the large increase of immigrants in the United States in the 1800s, sweatshops started to develop in the East Coast cities. The immigrants that were mostly targeted to work in sweatshops came from European countries. These immigrants were not forced to work in sweatshops with poor working conditions, but they had few other choices because most of them were unskilled laborers in a new country. This situation facilitated the growth of sweatshops. Social and economic conditions in cities made it possible for sweatshops owners to choose from a large desperate population of workers willi...
...n that “the directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labour-power to the greatest possible extent” (Marx 363). Under the framework of this argument, the laborer that produces more than the wages required for his subsistence is being exploited and robbed by his or her employer.
capitalism we often work jobs that we hate. While working that kind of a job we tend to feel “not at home” meaning that we don’t want to be in our work place because we hate every single thing about it and therefore it is a place where we don’t feel comfortable. Later on Marx presents the four categories of Alienation. In the first one, the maker of the product has been alienated from his creation because the finished good belongs to his boss and not to ...
Producing goods or services are dictated not by employees but by their employers. If profits exist, employers are the ones that benefit more so than the regular worker. “Even when working people experience absolute gains in their standard of living, their position, relative to that of capitalists, deteriorates.” (Rinehart, Pg. 14). The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Hard work wears down the employee leaving them frustrated in their spare time. Workers are estranged from the products they produce. At the end of the day, they get paid for a day’s work but they have no control over the final product that was produced or sold. To them, productivity does not equal satisfaction. The products are left behind for the employer to sell and make a profit. In discussions with many relatives and friends that have worked on an assembly line, they knew they would not be ...
As a member of a capitalism society the worker engages in an exchange of labor for wage, where their labor practices consumes a large portion of their life (Appelrouth and Edles 2016). The worker no longer has that aspect of human nature, robbing them of their existence or species being (Appelrouth and Edles 2016). Capitalism robs the worker from what they can be, for they spent large portions of their lives becoming a commodity; due to this they are unaware of who they are (Appelrouth and Edles 2016). They will experience a lack of self-expression through their work resulting in the neglect of the workers creative nature, which leads to an alienation from self (Appelrouth and Edles