The Freedom to Work in a Collapsing Building and Open Thread

 

"He Stopped Loving Her Today" - George Jones

I was in transit yesterday, flying back from Nashville -- evidently my 50 minute delay spurred Congress to act immediately -- and nearly choked when reading this piece by Yglesias on the collapse of the building in Bangla Desh that killed 161 people and injured hundreds more.  The take away line from the piece: "in a free society it's good that different people are able to make different choices on the risk–reward spectrum."

Oh, fuck yeah, there is nothing like the freedom to choose to go to work in an unsafe building for $38 a month as opposed to exercising the freedom to be fired when you balk at going into a place on the verge of collapse.  It's all just "different choices on the risk-reward spectrum."  That might be the Slatiest sentence ever written.  Somewhere Michael Kinsley and Will Saletan are green with envy.

I am going to subcontract the work of destroying Yglesias to the folks working at "Et tu, Mr. Destructo" -- hopefully working in a hovel somewhere -- and Corey Rubin.  Mr. Destructo (h/t to Roy) sums it up in succinct fashion:

Writing off the death of 161 people with 370 words of vacuous unconcern requires the machine-like efficiency we've come to expect from places where pre-teens assemble Air Jordans. Yglesias' thesis, what little exists, is that the Bangladeshis are a people squalid enough that death is an acceptable randomly applied career path, and that dead Bangladeshis are what keep flat-front chinos at $29.99 at the outlet store. Our pants are cheap because their lives are, and cheaper things are innately good. Just think how much Upton Sinclair saved on hamburger as a young man. What an ingrate.

It's really hard to top that, but this was pretty close:

The bodies hadn't cooled. The facts couldn't be bothered with—not the reported death count at the time, nor that it was a collapse and not a fire. It didn't matter. It was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, and Slate's blue-sky megathinker was ready. When Matt Yglesias chimes in with his take on the day's events, it's adorable in its ineptitude—like when a seven-year-old attempts his first magic trick. But no child ever pulled a Bangladeshi corpse from his hat and called it a rabbit.

Yglesias engages in an incoherent non-apology, apology today with this gem.  And the trust fund scumbag is pretty irritated with us for not understanding his big-brained thoughts:  "And I have to say that my overwhelming personal response, as a writer and as a human being, is to be annoyed by the responses that I'm getting."

Fuck you Matt.  Fuck you.  I have a suggestion -- stop reading so many libertarian gob shites, quit your job at Slate, and go out into the world for a while and fucking learn something about the value of peoples' lives.  People don't engage in some free-thinking calculus nor bargain to put their lives and limbs at risk -- they act out of desperation, not freedom. 

Addendum:  Thanks to l-t c for expanding on this post and noting that the notion that Americans should take no responsbility for working conditions in places like Bangla Desh is nonsense.

I realize the above is heavy on the ad hominem and lighter on the analysis -- but really sometimes it seems to me that this is appropriate.  Nonetheless, let me spell out in a few strokes why Yglesias is wrong not just in having a reflexively inhumane response to a tragedy, but as a broader matter.  First, the notion that there is some sort of social consensus or legitimate process whereby workers in Bangla Desh decide that it is necessary to put life and limb at risk in order to make more money is simply preposterous.  Making these kinds of blithe economic statements without any analysis of power relations in a society is hopelessly sophomoric.  Especially when discussing a society where people still starve to death -- they are not "food insecure;" malnutrition literally kills them.  Notwithstanding that, workers in Bangla Desh do seem pretty goddamn angry about those who view their lives as worthless.   Hopefully they don't know the way to Logan Circle.  The second point, for those who need to reduce the entire world to a cost-benefit analysis, is that killing and maiming your workers is not a good economic strategy.  Society is really not enriched by having young, productive people exit the work force prematurely -- dead people make lousy consumers, spouses, and parents, and maimed workers tend to be a cost to society, even one with minimal social benefits like Bangla Desh. 

Anything to add?

Comments

[nancy]

Dear Matt, Your mom and dad must be so proud. Sincerely.

[Eric Wilde]

I spend a good deal of time in India, about two months every year over the last ten years. The poverty there can be overpowering to just witness. I cannot imagine living under such dire straits.

Has this person seen someone actually starving? Has he ever been truly hungry himself?

[Sir Charles]

Eric,

From the looks of him I am going to answer negatory on that one.

[big bad wolf]

wow, that's a really stunning piece of idiocy from matt y.

george jones was stone cold genius. i have mostly outgrown my younger way of measuring people by what music they like. but i still look askance at anyone who doesn't like george jones.

[Linkmeister]

Young Matt is in Scrooge territory: his next post should be about Americans losing unemployment benefits due to the sequester, which would allow him to ask "are there no workhouses?"

[Sir Charles]

Linkmeister,

Scrooge was just a rational actor trying not to lose productive time to slackers who wanted a day off.

[nancy]

I don't want to abandon this thread, but truly, too depressing. Liberal ugly-Americanism is just as ugly as any other. Worse actually. We are the supposedly compassionate yet rational political actors. Abstractions in the land of poverty, no matter where, are venal. Fuck this cold-blooded calculus. Matt. Do some soul-searching. You've a voice you just abused. More in common with Romney than Scrooge, I'd say. Scrooge had a sadly heartbroken past.

What you all said. That.

[low-tech cyclist]

Crissa - I seem to be able to comment here OK. And those random moments when comments don't work happen to me just the same as with the rest of you.

I'll go ahead and open a new open thread anyway.

[kathy a.]

via balloon juice + chris clarke, here is what Lindsay Beyerstein has to say. note that US corporations (walmart; gap) were against a 10 cent per garment surcharge for workplace safety proposed in 2011.

[Ken T]

Personally, I gave up on Yglesias a long time ago. I think he's set his career path on following in Tom Friedman's footsteps.