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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

I have asked lots and they would LOVE for foreign countries to stop exploiting them.

I guess it makes one sleep easier if he thinks "at least we're giving them jobs" -- forgetting the part where foreign companies behave like colonialists, making pacts and keeping their lackeys in power in those countries, influencing local laws, stiffling development of local initiatives -- down to employing thugs and/or private armies in some countries.

So the "we're giving them jobs and spend money on the place" mostly amounts to "what would those slaves do without us" of the Southern slave owners of old...

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Jobs created in third-world countries by globalization are sometimes preferable to the local alternatives. It isn't a given that they're inherently worse.

Having lived as a volunteer in some pretty poor places, I've seen it firsthand. Not saying that's true everywhere, or in every situation, or that there aren't terrible abuses, just that the world is considerably less black-and-white than we sometimes think.

> foreign countries to stop exploiting them

Most developing countries need/would benefit greatly from foreign goods. The only way to get those foreign goods is from foreign currency, which can only be gotten from foreign companies. The main reason WHY companies are motivated to move operations into underdeveloped countries is because said workers are so exploitable.

Imagine if, from the dawn of capitalism in China, China mandated pollution and labor laws equivalent to the US's. I don't imagine that China would not be anywhere near as developed as it is now, and it's possible the current standard of living would be even worse. (just a thought example, elucidation from actual cases/examples appreciated)

Perhaps an even easier to imagine example: would the Industrial Revolution have happened if we had the same pollution and labor laws then?

Or looking at the other side, if China had the same laws as us, if we had nowhere to outsource our externalities, would it still work? In other words, is outsourcing the reason we can maintain our higher standards locally?

You have asked?

I live in India and have been poor most of my childhood and I can say with some surety that - globalisation or not, working condition of poor workers WILL not improve just out of blue.

There was a story recently in Bangalore about - labourers working on Army Contracts are not being paid minimum wage and their salary being held for months. If anything I am pretty sure, people working at Suzuki or Chevrolet assembly plants are being paid better than those labourers.

The question being asked is - "Does Globalization encourages exploitation of poor workers"? Answer is most probably no.

So why doesn't the Fisher company seek ethical employers overseas?

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