Summary Response "Let Them Sweat"

Jackie S

English

Let Them Sweat Summary Response

In “Let Them Sweat” Nicholas D Kristof argues that the international sweat shops are benefitting the people working in them. Kristof argues that there are many benefits in working in a sweat shop compared to working on a farm in some of these third world countries. He also states that, in these third world countries where these sweat shops are located, the people strive to work in these factories, because they get a daily wage of somewhere under $2. Sweat shops might be the only option of work for most of these people, other than doing physical labor under the hot sun in a field, farming. Kristof argues, if the women and children don’t have a sweat shop to work in, they basically won’t have any sort of job. Sweat shops provide hundreds of people jobs. New technology and machinery are huge threats to these sweat shops, which would put hundreds of people out of work. Also, America is campaigning for machinery to take over the jobs of people in the sweat shops – causing many people to lose their jobs, and have no other place to work. This article argues that sweat shops are a typical job for a person living in a third world country, and if we took them away, hundreds of families would suffer, and hundreds of people would be without jobs. Kristof concludes that sweat shops bring steadiness of jobs and economic growth to these poor countries and how the Westerners should start to think how they benefit the people working in them.

After carefully reading this article, I was quite surprised that someone would defend sweat shops, and point out the pro’s to working in a sweat shop in a third world country. One of the examples that he used was of a boy name Ahmed, who was in second grade, who dropped out of school to go work in a carpet factory. Ahmed stated, “Carpet-making is much better than farm work.” This was what people strive to do in these third world countries. They don’t strive to finish high school then go...