That work gets money to those developing countries that otherwise wouldn't be there. A person in that country does not have the tools to get the work that the person in the first world country can. They don't even have the tools to maintain that working relationship once set up. The person orchestrating the outsourcing is transferring money from a rich country to a poor country and is essential in doing so. You can say that they should send virtually all of the money they get to that country but it's hard to argue that they're doing something unjust.

But why do you think people in developing countries deserve to be compensated less than others for the same work?

I don't care if their alternative is a worse job, I'm asking why you, citizen of a first world country who lives daily on more than they live on average in a month, should feel ok paying them miserable wages for work that in your country would be paid 10x. Especially when the return you get is exactly the same, as you sell your product in a first world country by first world prices.

Why do you think that compensation should have anything to do with 'deserve'? There is no 'deserving' value for work, it is just about balancing demand and supply for work. The only realistic way to raise average wage is to saturate supply of work by providing enough demand.

It is possible to outsource work tho third countries for less money, why everybody does not do that and there are still work in developed countries? Because it has some costs that may or may not be apparent. Therefore if you require to pay the same wage, you discourage anybody to give work to people in developing countries.

Except usually developing countries are "behind" thanks to western exploitation. It is really delusional to think that you're helping them by giving them underpaid work, while you're just really repeating the pattern that caused their poverty.

But at an individual level, the alternative of not outsourcing is worse for the person that would receive the wage.

At a macro level, I’d also like to point at the China - US outsourcing story, and how it’s going regarding hollowing out of industries, IP and know-how transfer, and plain old money transfer. It’s not going too bad for China for the moment...

All thanks to China's economic policy. They managed to suck out the wealth of the west for years, something they could do because they were and are in a privileged position. It is not the same for many other developed countries. In fact if you don't consider China, since 1981 we have 1 billion more poor people in the world.

They were in the privileged position of earning very little, right? That’s my whole point!

No. Earning very little alone means nothing. Some countries with cheap labor have developed, others have not.

> thanks to western exploitation

I can believe the exploitation part. There is certainly corruption everywhere which is often part of the cause.

But citation needed for the western part please.

Just read any modern history? Of course western is reductive, not only western powers are exploitative. But check what western powers did in Africa for example. Check what they do and did in Latin America. In the middle east and part of Asia too.

What makes us exploitative is the fact that we go in poor countries and buy their best resources/workforce for the cheapest price possible, without caring if the money we pay even goes to benefit the population, (as often it only goes to benefit a few corrupt politicans/corporations). It's exploitation because we don't really help them get out of poverty but rather condemn them to a vicious circle of being dependent from us.

To repeat your point, market economics are the worst, except for every other kind of economics.

I've considered the same question myself. The global per capita median income is a little under 3k USD. If you wanted to make global income inequality better you'd probably start by making the west dramatically poorer.

We can start by stopping exploitation of poverty. Pay western rates on everything you buy from poor countries. It's time companies learn to find their competitive edge outside of employee exploitation.

If you are so concerned about this you could start sending them 50% of your paycheck every month.

Or you could stop exploting them. Points of view.

If you are the rare individual that is actually capable of building something worthwhile by putting in only 4 hours a week, imagine what putting in relatively excessive time could accomplish.

Why is outsourcing unethical?

It distributes more wealth to you by taking opportunities from those with less than you and giving them to someone desperate. Ethical actions are "rising tide lifts all boats" situations where either you help everyone make more money, or instead of taking from others, to make an extra buck, give of yourself. Within reason, of course.

Then there are the second order effects, such as the dissolution of the middle class in your own country that everyone who outsources and automates is/will be partially responsible for.

So as one of those people living in a 3rd world country, let me say we aren’t particularly desperate. Relative purchasing power of money means that even a small amount goes a long way. Ubiquitous poverty means that no one feels particularly downtrodden in comparison to their peers.

Also culturally, we tend to share the wealth, so what is one job in America will become 6 jobs here.

From what I can see, outsourcing deprives one American of a job, makes one American desperate, and lifts 10 of us into the local middle class.

Sounds like a good deal for you. It doesn't really help here or change anything that I said about the ethics of the situation.

This is a zero-sum view.. just because you benefit doesn’t mean the other side suffers. You get the service you wanted, the other person gets the money they wanted. They wouldn’t be doing the job if they had a better option.

It cannot be a zero sum view by definition, since I said that "rising tide lifts all boats" situations are ethical. I'm sure you know, such situations aren't possible in zero-sum.

What can be zero-sum is if no new value is added, but you shuffle around who gets what. If Peter has a way to make $100 himself if someone else helps, and he decides to go from paying Mary $30 to paying Paul $5, he has enriched himself by taking from Mary.

I'm saying it's ethical for Peter to enrich himself as long as he enriches everyone, and it is unethical to take from others to give to himself.

$5 in Thailand might go as far as $20 in Dallas, which goes as far as $30 in New York. So if you take $30 from Mary in NY and give the equivalent of $20 to Jane in Dallas, is that unethical too? Or give $5 to someone in Thailand? At worst you could call it unpatriotic if you hire outside your country, but on a humanity scale its very hard to say its unethical or even truly understand the consequences.

It is not outsourcing that is unethical but to advertise it like a magical way of working less.

The title of the book makes it sound like you can accomplish more by working less, while in fact the remaining 36 hours worth of work is done by someone else every week.

Think of it that way: How would someone from one of the developing countries the book mentions would benefit from what's written in that book?

Easy. He would see that there is a business opportunity for him to sell outsourcing services to a developed country, which he would not have thought so before.

Fair enough, but that's an unintentional side effect. He can't do that by working 4 hours a day, at least not by following the recommendations in that book.

Just answer this question:in a world with no poor countries, would outsourcing be possible? If the answer is no, then outsourcing is based on exploiting poverty and no, it's not ethical.

Giving a poor person a job is not “exploiting poverty”, it’s alleviating poverty.

Giving a poor person an underpaid job is not helping them. Is making them "an offer they can't refuse". You want to alleviate poverty? Pay for their education, healthcare, give them a house. They'll pull themselves out of poverty without need for your exploitative job offer.

So the north Korea model? Free housing, education and Healthcare. Let's see how this will work out with the pulling out of poverty.

I don’t think it’s unethical