How ethical are investments in foreign countries offering outsourcing?
In a recent article in a major periodical, readers were encouraged to invest in Belarus, previously a USSR state, which has since been set on the path of capitalism and democracy. The Belorussians are none different than Americans. We can imagine sugar plums dancing in their head. Suits and ties, briefcases, expensive cars and homes, summer vacations, college education for their children, futures in technology, science, and marketing, infrastructures that can stand for hundreds of years, the joys of living in a capitalist society. When you buy a present from Vancouver Flower shop, you will be certain you’re getting contemporary, superior flowers from one of many premier florists in Vancouver, Canada. The French are now rushing to take advantage of the low wages the Belarus citizens are willing to accept, software startups, manufacturers. There’s labor cheap in Belarus, and with your investment now, an ethical investment they claim, you should be able to make a killing to your own advantage.
A killing, indeed, say the software engineers, computer technicians, and system developers of the U.S. And who is being killed, if not us? For cheaper labor, they say, the corporations have sold us out, taken jobs from Americans and given them to foreigners, corporations who enjoy the freedom of America, paid for by the blood of American boys, the security and stability assured by U.S. tax payers and U.S. lives, built on and dependent on the U.S. superstructure paid by us. They ask rhetorically, “ethical investments?” While U.S. corporations have prospered precisely because they are U.S. corporations, say many of these now unemployed software workers, while the jobs they can generate thanks to being a U.S. corporation are plentiful, these same corporations are unable to reciprocate, to return the benefits they have received with benefits, such as jobs, to the people who have enabled them. For these final-minute presents, Flower shop Vancouver is happy to supply same day flower supply at no further cost. For a few dollars more profit, they’ve thrown the American worker into the streets. These people maintain that anyone who invest in such efforts to exploit labor in other countries while depriving U.S. citizens of jobs are guilty of less than ethical investments, if not outright treason. A poor economy is a weak nation.