It seems like there's a contradiction between protecting labour in one's own country and having solidarity between the working class.
This was inspired by this fast food chain outsourcing their cashiers to be Zoomed in digitally from Nicaragua for $3.75/hr CDN.
Canadian labour is against this, but $3.75 is an incredible wage in Nicaragua and surely this is a net benefit for labour?
I know there are often environmental issues with internationally shipping outsourced goods, and exploitation opportunities to put global south workers in dangerous positions or to pay them even less (taking into account PPP) because of lax labour laws in said country, but for now I'd like to set those aside. They are important, but even if they can be resolved there is still a central contradiction I think.
Also obviously a major problem is that all this does is increase usurped surplus value by the capitalist class, these gains are not distributed among the population of workers who are now unemployed.
But sometimes we have to take positions on things being better or worse assuming capitalism will remain in place. Assuming global capitalism is held constant, is it a net good if a Canadian worker loses a job that doesn't pay a living wage so a Nicaraguan worker can do the job and make a decent living?
I'm sure there's a lot written about this dichotomy of labour support and internationalism, I just don't know where to start thinking about this.
This is a bit of a weird ask because you're identifying the main reason outsourcing exists in the first place (labor costs/rights), but asking us to not talk about it. If all things were equal, capital wouldn't outsource in the first place. The job has been exported virtually, it will stay virtual until it becomes too difficult to maintain or until domestic labor is more cost effective (i.e. cheaper for capital) and moving a job back to Canada doesn't eliminate the exploitative conditions in the global south. In the liberal moralism sense, it's "good" that Nicaraguans have access to a new (relatively) decently paying job, but it doesn't solve any systemic problems.
tldr; it's imperialism it's always imperialism
It's only a contradiction if you think wage relationships are some boon given by capitalists to their employees, or some kind of redistribution of wealth. The international bourgeoisie are making money off of this arrangement, at the expense of those third world workers.
This is no different from neoliberals saying sweatshops are good for the global poor, or that Uber is good because it employs lots of POC.
Sweatshops are dangerous not the case for a job over zoom
Sweatshops being potentially dangerous is not the reason why they're bad.
To be clear I am not asking if this is good, I know it is not. I am asking if it is a net good for workers.
Outsourcing is bad. If you think that a Nicaraguan worker getting paid a high wage to be a service worker in a Canadian restaurant chain is some kind of win for the Nicaraguan worker, you're thinking too short term. As :parenti: once said, there are no "poor" countries, only overly exploited ones - and an important element of that over exploitation is the system of dependance on wealthy countries that outsourcing is a part of. Workers in the third world need their own institutions, not to be chained to the institutions of imperialist powers. They need to grow their own food, not import it to make room for cash crops. They need infrastructure that supports their own development, not the exportation of their resources and labor.
If you rule out the destruction of global capitalist hegemony, the next best thing at the national level is economic protectionism. Which is why third world leaders who try to do protectionist economics tend to get assassinated.
Under capitalism, outsourcing is premised on paying less for labor by underpaying people overseas - and also is a tool used to bust domestic unions.
Underpaying for labor is baked into the goal and it remains in capitalists' interests to underpay the new workers, including supporting all of the mechanisms by which to this is made systemically viable. In other words, you must ask the question: why are wages lower in another country and why do they remain low? That arrangement is forced on the global south by American hegemonic interests, as they are forced to be, more or less, export economies premised on extraction and workshops. Without depressed wages - and exchange rates - those countries would cease to function outside of some arrangement like Juche, as any country attempting to become less dependent on the US via this economic regime is targeted for destruction. Look at the SocDem-level reforms of Venezuela, for example, and what the US response was.
Outsourcing under capitalism is therefore premised on coerced poverty, precarity, and serving bourgeois interests.
Under a less capitalist international order, outsourcing could be a way to reallocate capital and redistribute wealth and productivity. But we don't live under that order.
Paying someone $3.75 to do work which likely nets 10-100x that amount in the same hour is worse exploitation than the Canadian worker at $14 per hour
At best you will get a labor aristocracy. Wages will be set below any level which would allow capital accumulation so at best you will have call center workers living neoliberal PMC lives. PMC cashiers won't be able to relate to in-store workers, but I doubt they'll be able to relate to their treat seeking customers either, so enjoy further resentment and alienation all around.
The internationalist position is that outsourcing contributes to the global depression of workers' wages. A race to the bottom.
Seems working class interest in making wages equal between them and global south. It’s “easily” legislated by “outsourcing minimum wage”. Requires some forward thinking though
How is it neoliberal? It’s good for international workers and domestic ones, it doesn’t collapse into xenophobic hatred of outsourcing, and points to employers as guilty party
It does nothing to change the workers relation to the product of their labor. It's open to means tested, neoliberal administrative bullshit. It's pure ideology.
It does change conditions of exploitation (le sl/nl ratio) which gives power to porkies. If minimum wage in usa was 50 bucks, and productivity is 50 bucks capitalism would explode into smithereens with price controls or hyperinflation
If it is not a universal minimum wage, all it does is reduce the rate of exploitation/rate of surplus-value to a level where neoluddites won't arise to smash networks and kiosks.
Not when it's just a function of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
I've been thinking about this with the whole "made in america" thing, like is it better to keep the exploitation at home or maybe help economies in the global south. The latter
seems likeis neo-clonialisum but is it actually worse then the extreme exploitation of "local" labor?maybe help economies in the global south
This assumption is wrong. Outsourcing doesn't help economies in the global south, it in fact traps them in a relationship of interdependence not unlike the explicitly colonial relationships that modern capitalism mirrors. What would help economies in the global south would be protectionist policies in global south countries, but leaders who do that tend to get assassinated.
The assumption is usually that local labor is unionized, though that doesn't apply as much anymore
This was inspired by this fast food chain outsourcing their cashiers to be Zoomed in digitally from Nicaragua for $3.75/hr CDN.
as though capital hasn't rendered industry fragile enough with just-in-time-supply, now anyone with a pair of garden sheers and 411 call can disrupt whole markets.
