It kind of does, when you consider that we're forcing local workers to compete with people who are just desperate to get out of the same crappy apartment with 12 other relatives.
Do I owe the local worker a living? Of course not. But we both pay taxes to the same government, and he is getting shafted due to China's MFN status, and I as a professional who can afford iPhones am getting an awesome deal.
Do you owe anything to the people who are just desperate to get out of the same crappy apartment with 12 other relatives?
The local vs remote worker argument works when there's something inherently preferable about the local worker, like you and him are cousins or form the same tribe, or something like that. But nationalism aside, isn't everybody entitled to the same opportunities?
Also: it sounds like you are advocating a sort of internationalism. That would be fine with me, as long as we had similar rules for global labor as we do for global capital.
Free trade agreements are negotiated painstakingly to make the treatment of investments uniform across countries. In the process, they usually accord some special treatment to professional classes. I myself am a beneficiary of such rules -- as a Canadian professional, I can skip across the border to the USA with just a little bit of documentation.
We don't have anything equivalent for labor. This seems to me to be a great omission, if not an outright scam. Even after free trade between the US and Canada and Mexico, we don't allow workers to cross borders. Nor do we have uniform standards for the treatment of labor like we do for capital, either.
It seems to me to be deliberate -- they want the workers to be stuck with the local situation, and they want local governments to compete on lowering benefits and labor standards.
Uh, what? We are in the same tribe. That's what being a citizen of a country is supposed to be about. We're all paying into the same government, through sales or income taxes they tend to take a similar bite whatever the income level. Even if you regard local solidarity as mere sentimentalism, there are very pragmatic reasons for me to be concerned about the welfare of my neighbors -- crime, public health, and so on.
I live in San Francisco. When the big earthquake hits and someone has to pull me out of the rubble, they won't be outsourcing that job to the Philippines. It'll be some guy who lives near me, probably the kind of guy with a broad back and an unironic mustache, who has to make do with underemployment since all the local jobs seem to be for douchebags with iPhones.
How do you mean "we are forcing"? I don't think "we" create the economic realities. We don't live in paradise where we just have to lie in the shadow of a tree all day and only occasionally have to reach up to grab an apple. Life isn't easy.
Competition is driving down prices. Tariffs and minimum wage laws are just ways of redistributing wealth. If there were no tariffs or minimum wage laws, there would be more healthy competition which would raise the world's standard of living, not just local workers.
Do I owe the local worker a living? Of course not. But we both pay taxes to the same government, and he is getting shafted due to China's MFN status, and I as a professional who can afford iPhones am getting an awesome deal.