Nick Kristof's column today isn't an enjoyable read. His subject is the Cambodian children who live atop vast garbage dumps and scavenge for plastic bottles and other recyclable refuse that can be exchanged for paltry sums. And his point is an uncomfortable one: These children dream of working in sweatshops. Their parents see sweatshops as a glittering ambition, an escape from poverty. As Kristof puts it, "the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough." It's a troubling point: The implication is that labor standards are zero sum. Keeping them high means fewer children offend our conscience by working in sweatshops and more children spend their days in the stench of the landfills. Lowering them means the American working class loses jobs and the Burmese poor gain them.