In Praise of Cheap Labor?

During my grad studies, I made a presentation with two friends on the book No Logo from Naomi Klein. Instead of doing something formal, we played the roles of Phil Knight, from Nike, an activist (my male friend refused to dress up as a girl however) and a journalist. I had a blast impersonating an evil Phil Knight (I was wearing a black suit, black shirt, black tie - white running shoes) as cocky as possible.

As you could expect from a young political scientist in the making, I had little sympathy for my character - and I was in a very friendly environment in that classroom. I don't think I could have believed back then what I'm about to say.

Maybe I was wrong.

I use to think that using cheap labour in developing countries was shameful. Now I think: do I really want to curb job creation in developing countries? This same idea is expressed in this post from Minpundit, who also refers to an article (In Praise of Cheap Labor) by Paul Krugman. And no need to make a very complicated study, or to focus once again on US national security, to see that trade is pacifying: the European Coal and Steel Community has pacified Europe at last, after centuries of fighting. France and Germany hand in hand? Impossible to imagine just 60 years ago.