Leaving the Sphere of Exchange with David Houston,Karl Marx,and Even Adam Smith: Insights into the Debate about Sweatshops

Today most economists are critical of the antisweatshop movement. But that was not always the case. At times even the leaders of the economics establishment condemned sweatshop labor or its equivalent and lent their support to social movements intended to eradicate it. My paper traces the change in consciousness about sweatshops and antisweatshop movements among economists by examining what Smith, Marx, and earlier neoclassical economists actually wrote about sweatshop-like conditions and antisweatshop movements.