Response to "The Ingredients of a Shirt"

In response to Sims’ post, I definitely agree that if people stopped to think about the connections a product like a shirt has to the rest of the world, they may in fact not be in support of the actions taken to produce the shirt. However, I’d like to play the devil’s advocate on this one. Would people be in favor of child labor making the shirt that they wear if they knew that the little money the child receives is more than they would receive at any other occupation? I think that child exploitation is awful but in most cases these children want to work and would otherwise starve without the income they receive. I find it very interesting that several mainstream economists are actually willing to take the controversial position that sweatshops and cheap labor are actually necessary for a developing economy to progress.