Bangladeshi garment factory workers protested that cracks had appeared in the building and the police had declared that it should be evacuated. But the factory owners insisted they must work or they would not get paid.

So they went to work, and the building collapsed almost literally like a pack of cards. The count of the dead is more than 640, with an unknown number of workers unaccounted for in the world's worst garment factory disaster. The tragedy that — yet again — killed hundreds of Bangladeshi garment workers poses important commercial, political and moral challenges to the country and to the global leadership of politicians and business executives alike.

It will not be easy because the difficult questions include what is the value of a human life? How much — or rather how little — are the people of the West prepared to pay for clothes? Do giant multinational companies, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Gap, H&M, and Inditex, have a responsibility to insist on — and pay for — safe working conditions in the factories in which their goods are produced?