Collis McKenzie, Chapter 1, Question #4

The book points out a few examples of things that, in the western world, are portrayed as heinous practices set up to take advantage of the weak or poor, such as the cutting down of rainforests or sweatshop labor. I've seen tons of posts online from concerned individuals to "save the rainforest" or "stop Nike from paying their workers $0.30 for making a soccer ball that they charge $80 for," but I've always thought that there had to be another side to the issues. It seemed incredibly unlikely that someone just woke up one day and said "I'm going to go cut down hundreds of trees today for no reason and money will just appear in my pockets," or "I'm going to go take an arduous job that makes me little money rather than twenty easier opportunities that make me more money." It's easy for us that don't have to cut down the rainforest or make soccer balls to say that these things shouldn't happen, but those workers need to make a living. I don't necessarily disagree that the rainforests should be preserved or that sweatshop labor should be changed or reformed, but I do believe that they are deeply complicated and to present them as absolute evils is misrepresentation.