You’d be interested in last month’s Harper’s, then, which had a piece on the pig-farming business discussion those things.

Anyway, it’s the McArdle Principle: for every argument that can be supported with facts and citations, ‘Jane Galt’ will have met someone who says the exact opposite.

But as usual, the Economist misses the point in their article in many ways. They say “American meat has grown steadily leaner, cheaper and safer” and leave that out it tastes like nothing worth eating.

When I subscribed, occasionally there would be an article in the US section on a subject I know a lot about. The facts were generally garbled or wrong.

That’s exactly what they are doing. Look at the link.

The reason McArdle relies on arguments from authority is she has a great deal of difficulty with any other kind.

the over 500K figure came from adding together ALL workers in the meat industry (including poultry). But that still only comes to (according to link above): 89,860 (poultry workers) plus127,760 (Slaughterers and Meat Packers). Even if you added in all the butchers and other workers in meat and poultry as well, you still wouldn’t get above 250,000.

So unless there is some differing kind of count or definition, or the 500K stat is somehow more accurate in a way in which I don’t understand or know about…the ‘34’ times stat is inaccurate.

This is my final position on the matter until my next one.

(Research done on behalf of the reality based community).

‘Jane’ (Megan?) flat out disputed this in the last thread:

‘And “animal slaughter and meatpacking” is a category for people who slaughter animals, and pack the meat. Management is a separate occupation, so no, they aren’t lumping in the office guys with the guys wielding the knives.’

And no I have no idea where the truth lies. But I would suggest that someone should get this sorted out before wielding the (highly misleading and beside the point) ‘34 times’ statistic.

Since Mexicans do keep coming to the US it is obvious a priori that they in some sense prefer what they get there. It is not obvious that Smithfield should be let off the hook as a result.

I think the sins of the article are quite subtle. Firstly there is statistical sloppiness. That is not falsity and would probably pass a fact check. However the comparison of the danger of meatpacking with taxi driving is not illuminating, as Bernard above points out is probably flawed as a representation of the specific dangers faced by Mr. Q and neglects the culpability of the employers in the danger. Finally the comparison is puzzling because many taxi drivers are immigrants themselves so if the magazine had chanced on a different immigrant they would have had to find a different comparison.

Secondly since millions of Mexicans take great risks to come to the US most probably do prefer to come to the US. After that the article is amazingly incurious. It might have investigated something controversial or poorly understood. For example does the willingness of Mexicans to work in such conditions make conditions in such places worse? What makes life so hard at home? Was Mr. Q a farmer whose livelihood was destroyed by farm subsidies? Does his illegal status make conditions worse or his labour cheaper? What does that mean in terms of economic incentives? Instead we get what we knew from the beginning.

It is precisely because there is no contradiction between the facts of the Herbert article and those of The Economist one yet there is no chance of the Herbert article or anything like it appearing in The Economist that there is a problem.

It also seems rather bad form of Ms. Galt to cast aspersions on Bob Herbert’s article without attempting raise an actual objection to the article.

America is certainly fortunate to have an endlessly renewable source of workers at its doorstep.

For that matter, I’d be quite interested to know how the Economist found Queiroz as a potential interviewee in the first place.

Herbert is interested in the social justice aspect of exploited workers. The Economist is interested in how those workers are still better off than they would be in Mexico.

The Herbert column in fact adds little or nothing to what the Economist said. The Economist quoted a Human Rights Watch report and explicitly stated that “Slaughterhouses are harsh and dangerous places to work, said the report, and illegal immigrants, who form a large chunk of the workforce, find it hard to defy abusive employers…”

The Herbert article only adds explicit statements that the workers are not allowed to unionize and that the management violates labor laws. But both of these facts are rather obvious from the Economist’s own formulation “illegal immigrants… find it hard to defy abusive employers.”

Whether the illegal immigrants can unionize or have the full protection of American labor laws does not prevent them from enjoying a better workplace than they would have in Mexico, which is the Economist’s overall point.

It was the Economist article that told both sides of the story, both that of Human Rights Watch and that of a worker who benefited from his time there.

The Herbert column, on the other hand, does exactly what you criticize the Economist for, telling only one side of the story.

The fact that when confronted with both articles you choose to attack the Economist, and not Herbert, reveals your own biases, not those of the Economist.

Also as an OpEd columnist, I’d say that this happens more than for reporters. Lots of news stories contain factual errors, but unless the error is personally damaging to someone they are generally not corrected. On the other hand, if you want to attack a columnist’s opinions, catching them out in (or, for that matter, simply alleging) an error of fact is an easy place to start.

As an OpEd columnist, my life would be so much easier if I didn’t have to fact check, spell things properly, and had editors who just glanced at column length before signing off on layout.