"The Noble Feat of Nike" by Johan Norberg

How do multicultural corporations such as Nike affect poor countries such as Vietnam? In "The Noble Feat of Nike" by Johan Norberg, Norberg informs the reader how Nike is helping the Vietnamese economy by providing jobs for citizens of Vietnam. Though you may think that these factories are just working innocent people for small profits, the actuality behind the fact is that in comparison to working on the farm, Tsi-Chi, a Nike factory worker in Vietnam, says that she not only makes five times as much as she used too, but also that she does not have to work 10 to 14 hours in the hot sun. By working as a Nike factory worker, she gets regular wages, free meals, free medical services, training, and an education. People working at the factories wish that Nike would expand so their relation could also be provided a job.
As Johan Norberg writes, a generation ago, if he asked the Nike worker Tsi-Chi what she wished for her son, she may have said that she wants him to work on the farm, but now after the creation of the Nike factory, Tsi-Chi says that she wishes that he is able to get a good education. "In recent years the number of children who have gone from child labor to educated children has increased to 2.2 million," says Norberg.

Many people, especially in the United States, believe that the only reason factories such as Nike are moving to foreign countries, is so they can produce the product at such a lower cost. However, for many factories like Nike, the reason as to why they produce their product in a foreign country is so that people like Tsi-Chi can send her child to school to get an education. Before I read this article, I was one of those people who made that assumption. Now though, I see how these factories have improved the living styles of several Vietnamese people. The little things that we are provided daily, such as food, an education, and housing, are a reward for Vietnamese factory workers at Nike. Now we may ask ourselves, why are we so selfish when we have everything we could ever ask for? I hope that the Nike factory will be able to improve the economy of Vietnam and provide more jobs to the Vietnamese. Every time we buy a pair of Nike shoes, we are contributing to the money that all those Vietnamese people are making. The more shoes we buy the larger the Nike factory is able to increase their profit. I think that if more people read Johan Norberg's article, they would all have a different look on companies such as Nike. Norberg has truly shown how sometimes we are uninformed about the things we say.