Sweatshop Opression Essay

261 Words2 Pages
Rajeev Ravisankar describes the human cost of consumerism in the West in his article ‘Sweatshop Oppression’. He uses various strategies to persuade his readers, whom he assumes are poor college students. He uses numerous means of persuasion and rhetorical strategies to appeal to college students to try to bring about change. To begin, the author identifies the problem by highlighting America’s obsession with a great bargain which in turn leads to extensive use of cheap labor. He uses logos to point out our moral responsibility to make sure workers receive fair compensation and sanitary working conditions. He uses pathos when describing unsanitary conditions, child labor, and unfair worker compensation. He states his thesis in the fifth paragraph after he describes the poor working conditions created by corporations whose sole interest is increasing profits. He organizes his argument by first describing the consumers and then describing sweatshops. The main argument against increasing the wages of these workers is that it will have a negative impact on the developing world because workers will lose their jobs. He refutes this argument by stating that companies, rather than anti-sweatshop protestors, make the decision to shift the locations of their factories. He concludes by appealing to college students to pressure universities to purchase products in factories that are respectful of workers’ rights. He provides information about student unions that support this cause. Although he states many arguments about working conditions he provides very little evidence to support these arguments. Otherwise, his use of logos and pathos provide very persuasive reasoning for his intended
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