「安い労働力」は劣悪な労働環境を産むが貧困国の現実的成長ルート

Possibly the most hated article I’ve ever written was a 1997 piece for Slate titled “In Praise of Cheap Labor,” which was mainly aimed at left-wing critics of globalization. I argued that much as the sight of low-paid workers producing cheap goods for rich countries may — and should — disturb us, labor-intensive exports are often poor countries’ best hope of progress.

This argument has only become stronger over time. The New York Times recently had a very good article on Bangladesh, which 50 years ago was the poster child for warnings about mass famine driven by overpopulation. Instead, the South Asian nation became, not a banana republic, but a pajama republic, one of the world’s leading clothing exporters.

It’s still a poor country, with wages and working conditions that are appalling by advanced-country standards. But as the chart at the top of this post shows, Bangladesh is about four times as rich as it was in the 1980s, when its exports began rising.

先進国向けの安価な製品を低賃金の労働者が作っている光景は、たしかに私たちを不快にさせる

しかし、そうした労働集約型の輸出産業こそが、貧しい国々にとって最も現実的で有望な経済発展の道である

バングラデシュは今から50年前、「人口過剰による大飢饉の危機」を象徴する存在だった。

ところが実際には、バングラデシュは「バナナ共和国」にはならず、「パジャマ共和国」（衣料品大国）となり、世界有数の衣料輸出国に成長したのである。

もちろん今でも、先進国の基準からすれば賃金も労働環境も劣悪な「貧しい国」

しかし、1980年代に輸出が伸び始めて以降、バングラデシュの所得は当時の約4倍に達している