Strange article for the normally Libertarian crowd here.<p>Why would a worker work at one of these farms? Because it's better, or they think it's better, than their best alternative. The same reason that many Chinese workers work at factories now instead of farms.<p>As Krugman would say "Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all". <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...</a><p>Before you think I'm an asshole, I am very much looking forward to the time when everyone has the standard of living that we enjoy in "the West", but you don't get there by charity or boycotts.<p>The main problem is that they probably get lied to, so think it's better than their best alternative, when it's not.<p>What can HN readers do about that? Off the top of my head, you could contact the reporter, and make a website (in Spanish) with the good farms, and the bad ones, so at least a few farmers could avoid the bad ones. Or let the farmers post reviews and ratings. Yelp for Mexican farms. Support cheap internet in Mexico. Support the Mexican equivalent of the ACLU.<p>Better information is the answer.
This injustice is not only happening in Mexico and not only on farms.
The same stories exist in every 'non-western' country which produces stuff for the western world.
Farms, clothing, mining, electronics...<p>Stuff that we throw away once we get bored of it. There's nothing particularly special about us in the western world, our only merit is having been born here.<p>And all this is because we've created and maintain a culture of hedonistic pleasure seeking on a massive scale. We've made 'luxury' the primary object of desire in our society, the path to happiness (it's not, but that's a different story).<p>A 'consumer' is a nice word for 'a person transforming natural resources into garbage'.<p>That's why those people are living through hardship - so we can take the resources and turn them into garbage, while obtaining some amount of pleasure (or comfort) in the process.<p>A person is 'successful' if he can have access to the most exclusive resources. To be successful, you have to be thinking positively, aka. learn to ignore the injustice and destruction that's happening in the world.<p>I know this is very unpopular, I usually get downvoted fast for talking about this, but it's the truth.<p>Our strive for 'success' creates major suffering around the world and we've pretty much fucked up the planet in the process.<p>So what should we do about it ? There's very little that can be done, really, it's the consequence of what we call 'human nature'. The only path is a radical change in our philosophy of life, in which we think as 'we' instead of 'I', some variation of the Open Source philosophy for every aspect of the economy, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
And time is a resource that this planet doesn't have too much of.
> "They want us to take such great care of the tomatoes, but they don't take care of us,"<p>Wow, I am appalled at how the workers are treated. Quite an eyeopening article :O
This is where the US should be sending drones out to liberate the populace. Really gives the lie to "Western values" and America as "leader of the free world".
This is American Empire.