Sometimes the NGOs lobby supranational bodies (the EU, especially, but in principle the WTO or any other body), sometimes they pressure companies like Nike instead, and sometimes they just provide their own solution to a perceived problem. An especially elegant example of NGO liberalism recently described by the New York Times is the group Ten Thousand Villages. It scours poor countries for goods made under working conditions it considers acceptable and then resells them (at no profit) to consumers who are willing to pay a bit more for humanely manufactured goods. And Ten Thousand Villages, showing a degree of discernment rare on the left these days, countenances child labor so long as the children work in a benign environment and have time to attend school.

the earthling