Moral considerations in outsourcing to foreign labor
Abstract
This paper argues that the principles of capitalism do not condone the widespread practice of labor exploitation occurring across the globe. Instead, they demand that some countermeasure be enacted to mitigate the structural oppression of laborers in less developed economies. Through heavy use of two scholars, Horace Fairlamb and Robert Goodin, the author concludes that corporations outsourcing their labor to such workers must pay a “sustainable living wage”. Fairlamb's analysis of Adam Smith reveals the potential undervaluation of labor in free markets, and Goodin's ethical theory produces a principle of group responsibility that the author applies to corporations, who are in the best position to remedy the situation.
Keywords
Citation
Pierlott, M.F. (2004), "Moral considerations in outsourcing to foreign labor", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 31 No. 5/6, pp. 582-592. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290410529407
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited