Saving them from themselves

The Wall Street Journal posted a story today about how tourism in the slums of Mumbai has skyrocketed following the success of the now-Oscar laden Slumdog Millionaire (which I've not yet seen). The article closes with these lines regarding the dangerous jobs that many of the locals must pursue:

People disassemble, burn and clean the hazardous material without the slightest protection. I saw a man using filthy water and his bare hands to clean metal barrels that once held industrial chemicals. Mr. Pujari says the government is trying to close the Dharavi recycling operations for health reasons, but residents are resisting fiercely because it is their only income source.

The quotation reminded me of some political commentary I heard a few years back regarding sweatshops. As a moderate liberal, I had always been on the side of those pushing for higher environmental standards and better protection for workers and children in third world countries. And then one day I read an amazing piece by a conservative who posed the issue roughly thus: if one country restricts sweatshops, the manufacturers will simply move their operations elsewhere; instead of making a few dollars per day, the "protected" workers will now make nothing.

I have struggled with that commentator's position ever since. In a perfect world, of course, labor laws would be universal and uniformly enforced. We do not live in anything approximating a perfect world. So is that commentator's position really the best possibility for a person who is fighting for survival right here and right now? Should we let people put their own health at risk if they need to do so, because $2/day is really better than starving to death?

Liberals are often accused of thinking they're smarter than other people and consequently telling those people what's "good for them." Generally, liberals are smarter... and they do know what's good for you. (Just watch Wife Swap once in a while.) But here I think the left (think: Greenpeace and child labor organizations) might be missing the boat. If you're only given two options, something is better than nothing. And while it's horrible to think that someone might be choosing between (1) almost-certain cancer from their high risk job in a third world slum and (2) mere survival, if those are the only two options on the table, who are we to effectively strip them of their jobs while we work out the kinks in a more just global workplace?