The Miracle of Globalisation: Most of the World has Never Had It So Good

Could life in Bangladesh be better? Of course it could. Is life in Bangladesh getting better? Of course it is. The horrific death toll after a factory building collapsed in Dhaka last week encourages us to forget this second point. But we should still try and remember it.

Sensible advocates for reform and improvement know that globalisation has made an enormous difference to Bangladesh just as it has in many other poor countries. That more could be done to provide safer working conditions is scarcely in doubt. Similarly, you can be in favour of globalisation and still think Bangladeshi textile workers should be able to organise themselves in Trade Unions.

Sweatshops are not Bangladesh’s destination but they are a staging-post on the road to wealth just as comparably hard working conditions were once a feature of working life in this country. In the context of a country in which opportunity is in short supply factory-working, however grim, is surely preferable to a realistic alternative which in many cases is likely to be little more than subsistence farming.