but you should know that the study you are quoting was commissioned by Nasscom, a group made up of Indian tech companies as well as IBM's Indian services unit (as they are trying to spin the transfer of 40,000 out of 160,000 jobs by 2005)
Well an interesting attempt at "poisoning the well", but McKinsey Global has an excellent reputation for its scholarship, and no need to pander to special interests. Why not see if the study itself stands up?
What is more likely to happen is that US companies and the small number of people will benefit big time from lower costs and increased profits.
Lower costs benefit consumers. Consumers make up the vast majority of society. Increased profits benefit shareholders and investors. In today's Western societies, this is again a very large segment of the population. It shouldn't be forgotten that while companies are seperate legal entities, they are still just mechanisms to achieve a purpose. They are owned by people, frequently large numbers of people.
Ultimately, in a globalised economy, prices and wages will have to become closer aligned so after a while you wont see Chinese / Indian costs and US prices which will mean cheaper prices for consumers ... and lower income for the companies ... and lower wage packets for the workers.
Yes the wages and prices will become closer aligned. That's good! It means that China / India and other equivalent nations will have advanced. Their economies will have developed closer to Western standards. That will be good for their populations, reducing their grinding poverty and health problems. Isn't that a good thing? Why is it that the same people who protest about the West creating poverty in the third world also protest against the methods of developing third world economies? This is just protectionism: one of the greatest causes of frustration to third world governments at trade summits.
Also your statement contradicts itself: if wages become closer aligned, they will rise in the third world. Thus there will not be lower wage packets for the workers there. In the West, workers will relocate to other more advanced employment, because they will have to. Greater skills = higher wages. This is one of the strengths of free trade: it tends toward meritocracy. A few will no doubt not be able to make the transition, a meritocracy seperates the smart and industrious from the stupid and the lazy, and provision should be made for them. But to hinder the majority for the benefit of the few is madness.
This isn't good for India either - university graduats now make more working in a call centre than training to be a doctor which means the best and brightest will be lost to less important areas.
Have you seen evidence of this happening? It may, but then again, it may not. And why shouldn't people have the freedom to make decisions like this which benefit themselves?
What the real problem is, is the unfettered and poorly controlled greed of corporates at the expense of the little people.
Oh come on! This "greedy corporations vs. the little people stuff" is old and tired. Economic class hatred. Corporations are merely mechanisms, legal entities for a purpose. That purpose is to make money. The corporate mechanism has created much of the wealth we all enjoy. There is no such thing as "the little people".
Expatbrit