16853: Ewen: Re: 16850: Durban wonders if Farmer is exploiting workers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stephen Ewen <ewenste@bellsouth.net>


While Durban makes a few good points, it is impossible to miss the great
gulf between his comparison of factory owners and workers and Farmer and
health care workers.  1) What Farmer pays health care workers in Haiti is
very probably a true living wage for the workers and their families, and
it is higher than "market rate," i.e., what the health workers can get,
say, in state-funded hospitals or the private Haitian medical market; 2)
he pays this comparatively low yet living wage to ensure a maximum amount
of resources can be used *to save lives*; 3) he is not expropriating the
very vast bulk of profits as factory owners do, and in fact the situation
is reversed, with Farmer taking much of the profits from his own doctoring
in the U.S. and giving it into his work in Haiti.  Can the same be said of
any factory owners in Haiti?  Even partially?

Stephen Ewen