- Capitalism and Alternatives -
Exploitation of the mentally retarded by McDonald's
Posted by: R Rockliff on September 07, 1999 at 22:07:38:
Since this debate room is part of a web page that is critical of that archetype of modern capitalism, McDonald's, I shall mention one more thing about McDonald's that is, in my opinion, grossly unethical. McDonald's exploits the mentally retarded, and the terrible irony about it all is that the average consumer thinks that McDonald's is doing the mentally retarded a kind turn. Many McDonald's restaurants in the US hire mentally retarded young people to perform the more menial and degrading daily tasks. This looks like kindness, but it is in fact a monstrous practice, cruelly indenturing these helpless people, essentially buying their labor from public agencies, agencies which, instead of educating and enriching these people, auction them off as slaves and pocket the money. McDonald's gets incredibly cheap labor, virtually slave labor, labor that will not know if it is being treated with fairness or dignity, labor that will not even know that it is being exploited, and McDonald's manages to look benevolent in the public eye, while the government agencies receive the wages and are free from the expense and responsibility of taking proper care of their charges, proper care being special education which expands and enriches the minds of these specially challenged persons. The practice is a complete and utter betrayal of the trust that the mentally retarded person has in his or her guardians, and of the trust that the public has in the government to protect these people from the predators who would exploit them.
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