Wage arbitrage driving down inequality

[x-punk]

I saw this subject mentioned on another forum and i wasnt sure how i should reply to it. The gist of it was that wage arbitrage is driving down inequality by providing the poorest people in the world jobs at the expense of the richest. Thus, because of this wealth flows towards these poor countries driving up their living standards and wages and closing the wealth inequality gap across the world.

I understand that these workers are exploited by the bourgeoisie as they dont hold capital but what other arguments are there against this idea that the market will allocate wealth in such a way as to equalise living standards due to wage arbitrage.

I apologise if this seems like a basic question but I cant really find any responses other than these workers are grossly exploited which in itself should be reason enough but other people seem to think this is acceptable in the pursuit of pushing up living standards in a capitalist system.

[Rational Radical]

By other people you mean capitalists,who if I were you as a socialist,wouldn't trust. That concept is simply false and just sounds like a capitalist justification for the brutal exploitation of workers in 3rd world countries .The only people benefitting in those poor countries are the bourgeoisie not the workers as they have to continue to work under those terrible conditions to barely survive. By doing this it also is going to cause inequality and lack of jobs in the richest countries.

[Positivist]

The colonization of labor forces in the third world has not driven up the living standards to any reasonable extent as purchasing power really is not significantly improved whereas working conditions are substantially worse.

Capitalists will often pull out the strawman that urban slums are popular because despite their awful conditions, they're better than the alternative of rural poverty. This is false because rural poverty is mostly the result of capital forcing peasants and tribal communities from their land, and simultaneously freeing up natural resources, space for construction and setting up wage-labor as a preferable alternative to the previous occupation ls they held.

[x-punk]

Thanks for the replies.

Many capialists i have heard this from cite countries like China which has developed rapidly and has had a massive rise in its GDP and think that once its economy develops to a certain level, investment will move away from places like this and into 3rd world countries having a similar effect of rapid development, growth and assumed increases in living standards. I dont have any firsthand knowledge of the current, actual living standards in countries like China so i really cant say whether this rapid development has had any effect on living standards of the average worker. However, i have read plenty of news stories which say that for many the conditions are appalling. And as has been said about 3rd world countries, the conditions are appalling and the western investment has done nothing to raise the living standards for the average worker.

I think many capitalists, especially those in investment and trading, see the world as just a game of numbers without seeing or even caring about the atrocious underlying social conditions. I guess when you work in a high paying job such as this you are sheltered from this reality.