Should We Globalize Labor Too?

Witnessing the quiet desperation of the poor, willing to work hard but lacking resources, often ignites anger and ideas. Neither trade nor traditional occupations such as goat-herding can provide enough subsistence for the rural poor, such as those who live in Nepal. Economist Lant Pritchett proposes “a giant guest-worker program that would put millions of the world’s poorest people to work in its richest economies,” explains Jason DeParle in an article for the New York Times. Critics counter that “an army of guest workers would erode Western sovereignty, depress domestic wages, abet terrorism, drain developing countries of talent, separate poor parents from their kids and destroy the West’s cultural cohesion.” Income equality between rich and poor nations has become so immense that any rationale human being would risk substandard conditions, arrest and even life to cross what seem like arbitrary borders. “I think we should care just because they’re human beings,” DeParle quotes Pritchett in the article. “The arc of human history has been the broadening of the scope of moral concern…. The poverty of the poor is so desperate, it creates a situation that most of us are incapable of looking in the eye….You don’t want to realize they’re human beings just like you.” – YaleGlobal