How ethical are investments in foreign countries offering outsourcing?

In a recent article in a major periodical, readers were encouraged to invest in Belarus, previously a USSR state, which has since been set on the path of capitalism and democracy. The Belorussians are none different than Americans. We can imagine sugar plums dancing in their head. Suits and ties, briefcases, expensive cars and homes, summer vacations, college education for their children, futures in technology, science, and marketing, infrastructures that can stand for hundreds of years, the joys of living in a capitalist society. The French are now rushing to take advantage of the low wages the Belarus citizens are willing to accept, software startups, manufacturers. There's labor cheap in Belarus, and with your investment now, an ethical investment they claim, you should be able to make a killing to your own advantage.

A killing, indeed, say the software engineers, computer technicians, and system developers of the U.S. And who is being killed, if not us? For cheaper labor, they say, the corporations have sold us out, taken jobs from Americans and given them to foreigners, corporations who enjoy the freedom of America, paid for by the blood of American boys, the security and stability assured by U.S. tax payers and U.S. lives, built on and dependent on the U.S. superstructure paid by us. They ask rhetorically, ethical investments? While U.S. corporations have prospered precisely because they are U.S. corporations, say many of these now unemployed software workers, while the jobs they can generate thanks to being a U.S. corporation are plentiful, these same corporations are unable to reciprocate, to return the benefits they have received with benefits, such as jobs, to the people who have enabled them. For a few dollars more profit, they've thrown the American worker into the streets. These people maintain that anyone who invest in such efforts to exploit labor in other countries while depriving U.S. citizens of jobs are guilty of less than ethical investments, if not outright treason. A poor economy is a weak nation.

It's a one world economy now, the well-meaning investor says. We're not funding a terrorist effort. Of course it's ethical investments we're making. We're bringing free trade to the world, helping our neighbors, and if we happen to make a profit, so what? Isn't that the American way? These displaced people will simply have to be re-trained, will have to adapt. There's sound economic theory behind outsourcing. You go to the nation that has the resources to do the job. It's cheaper and the product is generally better. People of the U.S. are innovators; that's what we do best. These displaced people should find jobs involving innovations. It's the way the one world order is going to work, so, rather than belly-ache, get use to it. Not only are we engaged in ethical investments; we're at the cutting edge of the investment industry and anyone who isn't with us, is someone on the way down. The smart money is on investments in countries that are prepared to take on jobs Americans once did.

This article isn't going to solve the debate. The homeless software engineer and his wife that the authors recently meet living in a junkyard, living off of food stamps, living in a dilapidated trailer, who recalls how he and his family once vacationed in a large U.S. city and spent his money on U.S. restaurants, hotels, entertainment, who was certain the money he spent percolated down to those who made much less than he, but provided him and his family services, will not be convinced that putting money into outsourcing nations are ethical investments. Neither will the investor pulling in those payoffs that will put his children through ivy league colleges be convinced he is doing anything unethical. As with all things ethical, in the end, you alone must decided, you alone must value. The arguments are out there. Look at them and make a choice. Ethical investments start with thought about what is right and wrong, not with what is profitable. Think than take a side.