Made in greed

Maximising gains is the mantra of the Eastern economic boom, so why blame the West for poor standards?

My English friends were amused when I was searching high and low in London for an English-made suit. Remembering the old "Made in USA" joke (USA for Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association), I didn't want something from China or Sri Lanka. My friends were sceptical. "A 'Made in England' label only means some poor Bangladeshi woman wore her eyes out stitching it in the East End," they said, echoing Thomas Hood's heart-rending poem, The Song of the Shirt.

Pictures of demonstrators outside Primark, the downmarket London retailer, holding placards proclaiming emotively "shame", "never again" and "cheap clothes = sweat shops" recalled that episode. The protesters seemed clean, young and idealistic, the kind of educated, politicised Londoner who carries a rock of guilt on the shoulder for the evils of colonialism. Outraged by the collapse of Dhaka's illegally constructed, eight-storey Rana Plaza, killing more than 400 workers in five garment factories, they blamed leading Western brands including Primark, Matalan, Mango and Benetton who bought readymades from these Bangladeshis.
 

The building's defects - lack of basic structural security, fire safety measures and other protective facilities that are mandatory in Europe and America - were attributed to pressure from the buyers to lower prices. That hypothesis fell into the accepted pattern of East-West relations in which the former is always the victim and the latter the culprit. There is historical truth in the allegation, but it also overlooks the contemporary East's avarice and corruption.

Western brand owners do pay only a pittance for Asian garments. That was known long before the Pope's "slave labour" comment. They shifted their custom from China to Malaysia to Indonesia to Vietnam to Bangladesh, as wages and overheads rose in each country. But it would have made little difference to working conditions if the Western buyers had paid more. The Bangladeshi factory owners would have pocketed higher profits. They wouldn't have raised wages. Nor would they have paid a higher rent to Mohammed Sohel Rana, the building's owner. It was his duty to ensure adequate safety precautions in Rana Plaza. Similarly, it was up to the Bangladeshi government to ensure this was done by carrying out regular honest inspections. Both cut corners. Of course, Rana's tenants could also have demanded better facilities. But why would they bother if that pushed up the rent? Low rent means more profits.

Cutting costs and maximising gains are stark features of the economic boom we are also experiencing on this side of the border. An unscrupulous operator with influential political backers has ruined thousands of ordinary people who entrusted all their savings to the Saradha scheme. That, too, is a manifestation of uncontrollable greed. It would be silly to denounce the profit motive without which there can be no productive activity, but cost and return must also be balanced. Leaving aside fraudulent savings schemes, I wonder if the building spree in our cities does that.

Owners of houses with a bit of land are busy converting them into blocks of flats. As a result, several hundred families now often occupy space meant for just one. The burden on (and consequent deterioration of) all civic services is one outcome. Another is the rise of a thrusting new breed called promoter. It flourishes in a barely legal twilight area between political parties, municipal authorities and the urban underworld. Property owners are usually its victims. Many Indian promoters also try to get away with ramshackle constructions like Rana Plaza.

The European Union should certainly compel buyers to pay much more. But, sadly, if they do so, garment makers (or middlemen) are likely to pocket the difference. Employees may not benefit. No Asian employer willingly raises wages. Nor does anyone voluntarily pay higher rents. And if they are forced to do so, there is no guarantee that landlords like Rana will invest the additional rent in structural improvements. It's grab as grab can all the way.

Governments alone can provide a remedy. Although official intervention has added another dimension of corruption and exploitation throughout South Asia, governments, no matter how callous, remain the only authority accountable to the public that can hold others (manufacturers and landlords for instance) responsible for their actions. Despite fashionable modern objections to "big government", we can't do without it. Twenty-first century Asia is no better than 19th century England where Hood's seamstress "with fingers weary and worn,/With eyelids heavy and red" plied her needle in "poverty, hunger, and dirt", lamenting "Oh! God! That bread should be so dear,/ And flesh and blood so cheap".