ART CARDEN: On Sweatshops: They’re Better Than the Alternative. “I think a lot of sweatshop critics misunderstand the economist’s argument. The argument isn’t that sweatshop conditions and wages are good in some cosmic sense. Rather, they are better than the available alternatives. By passing laws to regulate and restrict sweatshops, we take away from people the best of a lot of bad alternatives. If we genuinely care about people, we should work to give them more and better options, not fewer and worse.”