RICHARD N. COOPER

[Developing country] sweatshops, where the conditions are admittedly appalling by Western standards, represent an improvement -- often a significant improvement -- over the alternatives available to their workers. To boycott them or impose other significant additional costs on them makes life worse for many poor people by depriving them of relatively good jobs. This is especially true for women in the developing world, for whom rural life is often far worse than industrial labor in cities.

Wealth managers not only exploit gaps in legal systems but they also seek to influence legislation, especially in offshore tax havens, to the benefit of their clients. In doing so they preserve and even increase wealth inequality and help undermine the legitimacy of governments that tolerate their wealthy citizens’ evasion or avoidance of the financial responsibilities that every one else must meet—a form of shirking made much easier by modern communications technology.

[Developing country] sweatshops, where the conditions are admittedly appalling by Western standards, represent an improvement -- often a significant improvement -- over the alternatives available to their workers. To boycott them or impose other significant additional costs on them makes life worse for many poor people by depriving them of relatively good jobs. This is especially true for women in the developing world, for whom rural life is often far worse than industrial labor in cities.

Wealth managers not only exploit gaps in legal systems but they also seek to influence legislation, especially in offshore tax havens, to the benefit of their clients. In doing so they preserve and even increase wealth inequality and help undermine the legitimacy of governments that tolerate their wealthy citizens’ evasion or avoidance of the financial responsibilities that every one else must meet—a form of shirking made much easier by modern communications technology.