Saying that most EPZs resemble forced labor camps would seem unwarranted and even exaggerated (8.8), but in light of the “exceptional” nature of both it is not an misplaced assessment. Viewed at length, the economic model is carefully designed to be this way. The majority of maquila and EPZ workers worldwide are young women, aged 17 to 25, who come to the processing zones from distant regions seeking employment to send money to their families. Like most victims of exception (0.17, 3.3.1), these women are seen as vulnerable, docile and compliant. Most are fired at around 25 because they are considered “old” for the job, thus reducing the risk of having pregnant or young mothers on the workforce.

The list of labor abuses in the processing zones would make a good catalog of infamy: in China the working week is usually from 60 to 96 hours and by the end of the 20th century the hourly wage was between 13 and 32 cents. Meals are deducted from this amount. By the first decade of the 21st century wages had increased an average of 35-40 cents. As if salaries below the minimum wage were not enough, in most zones there are “no medical schemes, no right to sick leave, trade union repression, excessive working hours, sexual harassment, and unpaid overtime.”¹ Regarding these abuses many employers, and economists, argue in an open display of cynicism and callousness that “multinationals regularly pay more than their domestic competitors in LDCs [Less Developed Countries]”² and that such hunger wages are a simple reflection of the fact that the countries where EPZs are located are poor and their cost of living is much lower. While it is true that many workers earn more money in the processing zones than working with their families in the countryside, this argument is predicated on the notion that most EPZs workers are free individuals who can choose their profession or employment like any of us. However, working the fields under the scorching sun or going to the cities to help their families is hardly a choice.

Understanding zone workers as free individuals is a direct legacy of the Rational Action Theory promoted by the Nobel Laureate in Economics Gary S. Becker according to which “every individual is rational, in all civilizations and at all times. This means […] that our individual decisions obey a perfect economic logic, a calculation of costs and profitability: each one of us acts, or better, conducts himself, as if calculating the future advantages that he hopes to achieve with his current effort. To be rational is to try to maximize your advantages according to the culture in which you live.”³ Needless to say, this lofty notion of a homo economicus only applies to places where the free market economy has penetrated to the deepest fibers of society and humans understand themselves as participants of an ever-present market superstructure. Attempting to apply this abstraction to the rest of humanity is preposterous to the point of absurdity, and we would be hard-pressed to find one person working on a EPZ whose circumstances would allow him or her to act rationally or freely.

Unfortunately freedom and rationality are hard-earned privileges, not automatic attributes of an appallingly abusive and wrongheaded economic system.

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1. Sarah Perman, Laurent Duvillier, Natacha David, John Eden and Samuel Grumiau, “Behind the Brand Names Working: conditions and labour rights in export processing zones,” 8. ↩︎
2. Gary Chartier, “Sweatshops Labor Rights and Competitive Advantage,” 151. ↩︎
3. Guy Sorman, Esperando a los bárbaros, 125-26. ↩︎