Aww Globalization, You Shouldn't Have

I'm excited today because a new pair of Nikes I ordered will be here within a few hours. These are particularly cool to me because they were custom designed by my youngest sister Meghan on Nike.com's NikeID, where you can design your own shoes and they will make and ship them to you. On top of that I got the regular, affordable, UPS ground shipping, which has taken FOUR DAYS to ship to me from CHINA. Not only is this fast and cheap but I have been able to follow my shipment from GUANGZHO, China to Anchorage, AK to Louisville, KY to Syracuse, NY and finally to Henrieta, NY from where the truck left with my shoes at exactly 5:49 AM. It amazes me how quickly our world is developing via globalization. Just a few years ago neither custom made shoes nor such expeditious long distance shipping would have been possible with said convenience and reasonable prices.

Today globalization is a touchy subject. For members of technological and business communities, it evokes futuristic sentiments of satellites linking up in space, people from all cultures and backgrounds meeting and learning from each other and every byte of information known to man being blown across the universe for all to share.
For others, globalization beckons thoughts of sweatshops, impoverishment and local cultures fading into western uniformity.

Last semester I took a Sociology class where we watched a documentary about Mexican factory workers called Maquilapolis. It was essentially like those sad Sarah McLaughlin commercials you hate but cannot turn off. A significant portion of the film was actually just close-ups of sad faces and violin music. The rest of it however did an excellent job of exposing the poor working conditions of the factory workers. They are exposed to dangerous chemicals on a daily basis, work around the clock and face living conditions that nobody reading this would tolerate. After the documentary was over the professor turned it off and the class was silent. The white guilt in the room was palpable.
"Any questions or comments?", the professor asked. Not one to be swayed by propaganda (or at least feel like I am being swayed by propaganda), I raised my hand and asked what it was like where all those people had come from. "What do you mean?" the professor said. "Well, they all chose to work and live there by their own free will so unless they are there for the sake being exploited, where they came from must be worse". The entire class, decked out in Nike shoes and Sony laptops looked at me like I was an asshole for not sympathizing with the people in the video.

I am certainly not saying that these working conditions are preferable or that what the companies are doing is right, but for most of the people working in these factories they are coming from even worse backgrounds. Maybe the family can't pile into the mini van and go to Dairy Queen after dinner but at least there is dinner.