16857: Durban to Ewen on Farmer Exploitation of Employees (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

My Corbett comment about the possibility of Paul Farmer
exploiting Haitian health care workers was tongue in cheek, but
Stephen Ewen's response merits some comment.  Specifically, Ewen
writes:

   he (Farmer) 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?

This makes the assumption that (1) the factory owner is making a
profit, and (2) that he is "expropriating" this profit.  By
"expropriating" I assume Ewen means removing the funds from the
business, either by repatriating funds to the States or using
them for his own personal affairs in Haiti.  To address both
points:
  (1)  Factories can make profits OR losses, and in today's
Haitian economy there are probably more of the latter.  This
should be intuitively obvious.  Years ago there were far more
factories employing far more people in Haiti.  Why did they
disappear if they were so profitable?
  (2)  "Expropriating the profit" misses the point. Plenty of
Haitian factory owners invest additional funds to grow their
business, akin to Dr. Farmer's taking his U.S. earnings and
plowing them into his Haitian clinic.  A better way of looking
at it might be in evaluating how effectively available funds are
used by the organization, whether it be a factory or a
non-profit clinic.  This is not just looking at the entities'
profit or loss but, rather, evaluating HOW that profit or loss
comes about.  For example, an NGO investing in big cars and
fancy offices for staff use may show that all profits (after
these expenses) are re-invested (ie. not expropriated).  I would
argue that how the available funds are spent is almost as
important as what happens to the profit.

Lance Durban