Capitalist economists frequently try to explain why work is done overseas, rather than in developed countries, by recourse to the bankrupt notion of "comparative advantage." In this neat little bit of sophistry, they argue that countries should produce those goods and services in which they have an "advantage" over other countries, and then trade, to the benefit of all. The classic example (cribbed from Wikipedia) proceeds:
Suppose that in a particular city the best lawyer happens also to be the best secretary, that is he would be the most productive lawyer and he would also be the best secretary in town. However, if this lawyer focused on the task of being a lawyer and, instead of pursuing both occupations at once, employed a secretary, both the output of the lawyer and the secretary would increase, as it is more difficult to be a lawyer than a secretary.
Lovely! However, the world doesn't work in any way that remotely resembles a capitalist economics textbook.
As the documentary so movingly demonstrates, the "advantage" enjoyed by developing nations is nothing more than conditions of poverty and inadequate regulation that enable staggering exploitation and immiseration of workers. Is this just? Of course not. Is anyone made better off? Not the Indian workers who lose their lives, the citizenry of nations polluted by the offshoring of heavy industry, and not the working class of developed nations, whose wages are depressed and livelihoods vanish. One group of people, however, is vastly enriched: the capitalists who own these industries and reap all the profits of this increased rate of exploitation.
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