This article reminds me of a class I took last year in high school, “International Studies”, where we covered a variety of international topics. One of the first topics was Globalization, and the NY Times article reminded me a lot of the positives and negatives of globalization. Most of the buyers of Cambodian sugar look to be 1st world countries.
A business like sugar production, which benefits immensely from modern machinery and factory line techniques, can provide economic benefits to the country as a whole. Some of those benefits are outlined in the article, such as increasing the minimum wage, and adding roads and schools. Most economists, I feel, would argue that the net good for the country is worth whatever small misdeeds occur. And for me, its hard to argue with the “greater good” ideology.
But its a slippery slope. If you allow one misdeed to happen, how many do you ignore before it becomes a legitimate problem? It would have been better if those farmers were never displaced, but then there’s allegations that locals are denied things that these migrants have access to, like clean water.
A business needs to make sure that anyone negatively affected by its practices is re-compensated as much as possible. Otherwise, the business will be put in a dangerous spot when buyers from 1st world countries decide to go with another sugar, because its perceived to be a more ethical company.