Nathan Rowley, Chapter 12, Question 6

I was reading the section about trade and pollution, and how London's worst air pollution occurred in the 1890s. The Industrial Revolution was past, the revolutionary becoming the normal. It reminded me of the conditions that industrial workers of the time dealt with: dangerous machinery, long hours, low pay. Rather like a sweatshop. . .

It was then that I realized that there is a pattern to societal progression. After the introduction of industry, societies enter a period of rapid industrial growth at the expense of workers. Eventually, society moves out of this stage into one of gradually greater-skilled workers, until a country reaches what would be considered developed by today's standards. It has been roughly 175 years since the Industrial Revolution. And the thing is, the U.S., Britain, and other similar countries had to do it by themselves. If that took only 175 years, a tiny blip of time, countries that have sweatshops now should reach today's level of development even faster; they don't have to invent all of a developed nation's technology from scratch.

Sweatshops are not only good for the people working in them, comparatively. They are an indicator that rapid development is on the horizon.