Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Death in Dhaka

Bangladesh.  If you wear clothes, you probably own some that were made there and you probably paid a whole hell of a lot less for them than had they been made in the US and odds are you have more than one change of clothes too. You probably don't spend much time feeling bad that the people who made them can't afford them and are far more likely to die of poverty and disease than collect a pension or social security or Medicare. Whose fault is that anyway?

Odds are as well that you won't even know about and aren't likely to be in a state of shock and obsessive mourning -- won't be seeking healing and closure or holding moments of silent prayer -- if you're an American, that is. Americans have time for that sort of thing: time to run marathons, time to feel sorry for themselves if a few are killed by something other than an industrial accident, time to feel oppressed by taxes.

We'll pretty much ignore the building collapse that killed at least 70 in Bangladesh and we'll pretty much ignore the accident in Texas too, because to question the wisdom or more importantly the expense to industry of safety standards or building codes or zoning, just isn't the sort of thing we devoted Capitalists like to do. We're not Muslims, after all.

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