In this case it's very clear where wealth comes from: Bezos and the rest of the Amazon shareholders are severely underpaying these workers in violation of China's labor laws. Did you read the article?
> We can’t have stolen this wealth as not the smallest fraction of it existed in all the world before the industrial revolution.
The capacity for self-deception is always a bit surprising. Confronted with a clear and concrete case of labor exploitation and wage theft you insist, never the less, it is not labor exploitation and wage theft. That is economic insanity.
> How is removing demand for their labor going to make them wealthier?
There's no need to appeal to vague self-serving questions. The impact of labor standards on global trade have been studied and their impact can be quantified. Here, in particular, the California Effect [1] has been proven to be very effective in increasing labor and environmental [3] standards around the world. California alone could likely help here a lot by demanding regulatory advertising on these products. The first step would be to educate American consumers so they understand the enormous suffering that goes into these products.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/opinion/free-trade-by-its...
[3] https://www.nature.org/magazine/archives/the-california-effe...
What? these inhumane working conditions aren't appealing to any human. Nobody is asking to reduce the demand for their labor, maybe the product should be priced accordingly to facilitate good working conditions and pay instead.
This is your privilege talking. Billions of people find them far more appealing than a precarious life of backbreaking farm labor.
From paying labor less than it’s worth and keeping the difference for yourself.
People use sweatshop labor because they can steal even more of the value created by these worker’s labor, knowing there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. And they’ve done so for so long, amassed so much wealth, that they now can pay for boatloads of “intellectuals” to justify their exploitation as good and necessary, leading to us having this conversation now.
Rather it is the sweatshops fault that it is an inhumane sweatshop which treates the people who work there inhumanely.
Ummmm evidence? Is there an article or study or book which backs this idea up?
This sounds like one interesting idea (the wealth production enabled by ideas, knowledge, systems, etc) coupled with a big dose of denial of reality, namely, the exploitation (of natural resources in Africa, India, and the americas, and of human labor and lives via slavery) which allowed the industrial revolution to come into being.
Plus, the article mentions how other regions in China such as Shenzhen _do_ have better labor practices. It’s not a binary choice between zero opportunity and abusive sweatshops.
The vast bulk of 'wealth' is generated by perpetual rent-seeking by those that maintain artificial scarcity. There are exceptions of course, and most of those are to be found in new technologically driven enterprises.
If we deny these people the prospect of working in factories we are doing them no favours. How is removing demand for their labor going to make them wealthier?
It is not the sweatshops fault these people are poor. It is their poverty that makes a job you find unappealing appealing for them. By all means lobby to increase foreign aid. By all means donate cash via Give Directly.
But don’t think for a moment you are enriching these people’s lives by reducing the demand for their labor. Such thoughts are economic insanity.