Outsourcing - Jobs Moving Abroad

[kerrywins]

I know everyone hates it when jobs move abroad...and companies outsource.
But at the same time, the people in very poor countries need work too....I guess its the bleeding heart in me that says....some, not all of them may need it more....
aside from the sweatshops....is it so bad if very poor people in the world get jobs from outsourcing?

[MisterP]

1. what's bad is that the policies encourage a race to the bottom:

Malaysia says "We can offer 10-cent wages and no compensations!"
Indonesia says "7 cents and no pollution restrictions or taxes!"
Bangladesh says "3 cents, no laws applied at all!"
China says "We have 30,000 prison workers for free!"
Nobody wins (except the CEOs).

[B Calm]

6. How can anybody not see what's going on?

[MisterP]

8. when people find out that plutocrats lie at the expense of pensions,

or big corps push tort reform and then get even richer as a non-problem is "solved," they are utterly flabbergasted, gobstruck, and fall off their chairs.
It's a babes-in-the-wood thing that gets tiresome after a while. Then, of course, there are the boosters...

[lovuian]

2. No Outsourcing is bad for Americans who are the only

Big free economy if the Middle class is loss here it will bring great hardship to the rest of the world who are under tyranny

Bush is destroying America plain and simple as well as our corporations

if they want to move to that country go for it but be ready when their government says hey we want to take your Business over they can't say anyhting about it

[ranosgol]

3. Most getting these jobs overseas work at sub par for them to live.

Some people think when they transfer a job to a third world country those people somehow live better but in fact most only make the minimum wage of that country or less and still live in desperate poverty.

[lanparty]

4. Your bleeding heart is getting it's chain yanked ...

There is plenty of work for people in developing nations. They need to work for THEMSELVES and their own nation, not for exploitive US companies.

News flash, globalization doesn't help poor people in poor countries. It helps RICH people in poor countries and rich people in rich countries.

People in those countries have no labor, health or environmental protections. They are being used as pawns to depress wages domestically and destroy the political power of the American middle class.

Under the current WTO plans, there will be no middle class ANYWHERE!!!! Just serfs and corporate lords.

Lets put it this way. During the civil war period, there was a lot of animosity amongst working people on slave labor. The reason is simple. The presence of an indentured workforce depresses wages for free workers.

Well, the same can be said for workers with no rights. Their presence reduces the living conditions of those people who DO have rights. In essence they take those rights away.

Free workers should not be forced to lower their standard of living in order to "compete" with captive labor sources. Buying "cheaper" goods from captive labor does not help the captive laborer. He has no rights and no bargaining power. He is reduced to the lowest possible living conditions to sustain his working capability. Only the man holding the chain benefits. And he uses it to finance the captivity of more workers.

Exploitation of no-right workers is only marginally better than buying slave-made products. The slave does not benefit. Only the slave MASTER benefits.

[B Calm]

5. Cheap Labor CONServatives love outsourcing!

When you are unemployed and desperate for a job, you'll work for pennies or starve. Cheap Labor Cons love having the working class over a barrel.

[Dark]

7. No, because

let me put it this way:

Many experts have compared the third world countries' situation to ours during the industrial revolution. This is true, that they are in a similar situation, but there are two main differences:

1.) Their governments are despotic, not free as ours was during that time. This means that the people cannot freely demonstrate nor have a voice in the government. It doesn't matter what they do, no one has to listen.

During the industrial revolution, we had a representative gov't. That meant that the labor movement was heard by politicians who campaigned for them in exchange for their support.

Third world countries have no one to stand up for them in their regimes, no one who will listen to them. Why let corporate money flow into these dicatorships to fund even more acts of Terrorism against these same people who would be in a sweatshop.

2.) Corporations do not want these people to improve their lives, and unlike the America of the 1800's, they have a government which has the same goals toward their proletariat. Despots don't want their people to become successful and educated as then they demand rights, and Corporations don't want the people to become successful and educated because they lose their cheap labor.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Actually, the countries that have risen from poverty most successfully

and with the most economic equality (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia) did so not by inviting foreign sweatshops to exploit the population and resources as they pleased, but by insisting on keeping control of their own economies and resources, investing heaviliy in education, technology, and infrastructure; insisting that foreign companies train locals for positions of responsibility, and insisting that foreign companies share their technology.

(Oh, and may I add that they've ignored the recommendations of the IMF and the World Bank.)

The model that today's corporate giants insist on, namely going into a country where the government imposes no restrictions on business (no labor protection laws, no environmental laws, ridiculously low minimum wages, no requirements for anything except bribes to the right officials) has had one of two results:

1) The country just plain stays poor, with a hereditary rich class lording it over the peasants as always (Central America and the Caribbean)

2) Development is extremely uneven, so that yes, large numbers of people become rich or middle class, but even more fall into worse poverty than before (China, India) If you get a chance, see the PBS Wide Angle documentary on what development has meant for China: a new class of millionaires, but poor people losing even the meagre safety net they had under Communism and the construction workers who build the magnificent new buildings being so poor that they are homeless and have to camp out illegally in the buildings they are building, not to mention children who can no longer afford to go to school.