A while ago, I was sitting in on an NTAP training - Policies and Protocols and there was talk about outsourcing tasks abroad. Someone said that they'd hired someone to do a basic data entry task for $3 an hour and wondered if that were exploitative. After that, I heard quite a few people say that they wrestled with this dilemma. Here is a way to think about it. Of course there are other facets (sociological and political) but this one is just economics and numbers.
This is an example. You found someone to do the administrative work for you on an outsourcing listserv for 3 dollars. That person was in India. There is an economic/monetary "index" called Purchasing Power Parity that is calculated by the World Bank and similar other organizations/publications like the Economist. (I think the one that the Economist publishes is more famously called the Hamburger Index.) The one for India on that says approximately 15. This means that 1 US Dollar has the purchasing power in India the same as about 15 Indian Rupees. Now if the current exchange rate for the USD is about 45 Indian Rupees this means that the purchasing power of 1$ in the USA equals nearly 45/15=3$ in India. So if you accepted a bid from India to do your work for 3$, it is as if you were paying a US worker 9$ for that work. If you think that is reasonable, then you can feel that you are not exploiting anyone (by the numbers).
In a tabular form, a hypothetical situation would be:
| PPP(India) | Exchange Rate | Ratio | |
| 1 USD | 15 | 45 | 45/15=3 |
These are still approximate, although fairly reliable as indexes go. Very interesting to think about especially while traveling abroad or outsourcing.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPINT/Resources/ICP_final-results.pdf (Table 2 has most of the Purchasing Power Parity Information).
There is a book which was gaining traction in the GTD crowd called the 4 Hour Work Week in which the concept of a virtual assistant at a low wage could handle the tedium of everyday tasks.
I was appalled at the notion of having some tasks sent abroad so that I could continue to revel in my first world diet of veal, abalone, and polar bear meat while driving the humvee.
Then I realized that the book is effectively advocating an economic system of exploitation which has worked well for big business since the early 1990's. Namely, transnational capitalism. Now the knowledge worker could do the same by sending the more tedious of his/her tasks abroad at the cost of $5/hour or so. . .which is not too bad if you're in the >$20/hour range.
Personally, as 1st generation here in the United Snakes, and in a family with war veterans in it in spite of our short time here, I see the practices such as the above as modern colonialism with none of the physical chains.
Finally, from a professional perspective, I guess we ultimately must answer the question of practicality in terms of time zone differences and cultural pathways. I was suprised to hear that IBM has call centers in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon where most of the cultural context is U.S. pop culture and the time zone and accents lull customers to believe they are speaking with an "American".
I'm conflicted about it.
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