Is Setting Up an Offshore IT Help Desk Ethical?

theodp writes "Except for a few odd jobs,' wrote an advice seeker to The Ethicist (NYT, reg. may be required), 'I had been out of work for nine months when I was offered a job setting up an [IT] offshore help desk. Would it be ethical to accept the offer?' Randy Cohen, who pens The Ethicist column for the Times, not only advised the job seeker that it was indeed okay to help co-workers lose their jobs, but also seemed to suggest that it would be unethical for him not to offshore the jobs, saying: 'Some people feel we have a greater ethical duty to those closest to us — our neighbors — but in an era of global trade and travel, that is a recipe for tribalism and its attendant ills.' The job seeker, who noted his father's auto-industry job was outsourced, chose to ignore Cohen's ethics advice — as well as his own wife's — and declined the job out of principle. He continues to seek work. Comments?"

Comments

Re:Any time you need to ask the question...

[hairyfeet]

The problem with that is they don't play by our rules and therefor the whole argument is bogus. Let me spell it out: FREE TRADE IS A LIE. It is a lie spread by multinationals that want to pollute, that want to pay shit wages, that want to dump toxins and leave superfund sites. Why in the hell would you think that is in any way, shape, or form a good thing?

Look at the air in China, look at the water in India? Are we doing them a favor by poisoning them? All this is doing is creating a "race to the bottom" using people's lives instead of products, and it is sickening. If it were free trade it would work both ways, hence the word "trade". But China and India don't buy from us, do they? Hell India is even building an entire aerospace industry from scratch, all to keep from depending on us for planes and arms. You see that is what is called "being nationalistic" which to hear the media is hunky dory for them and bad for us. Why?

Because in the end you and all the "free traders" are missing the elephant in the room: All we are doing is passing on misery by allowing companies to pay ever shittier wages and to depress markets than allow everyone to rise with demand. Is it any wonder our middle class is DOA? Should we tell the corps here to dump lead and mercury and other toxins in our water, just so we can compete? Maybe you should look at some stats about what has been happening in this country then maybe you'll see why this "race to the bottom" leaves everyone but the 1% at the top losers.