So is it taking advantage, or not?

I heard another person bemoaning that fact that if we didn’t have illegal immigrants around to pick produce, clean hotel rooms, landscape lawns, and any number of other menial jobs, that these things would not get done. Apparently, the lazy citizens of this country will never be willing to work for that little money, and the market will not bear the cost if even minimum wage was paid to do these jobs. But apparently it is OK to allow this to continue, because after all, it allows the illegal immigrants a means to make money to support themselves (and send money back to the motherland).

All I have to say in answer to the question of “Who would do X” is, “Someone, no one, or a machine.” (In giving credit where credit is due, I believe I first heard this quote on “Armstrong and Getty”, a radio talk show.)

Now for a different, but related, topic. Sweat shops, the bane of the earth, taking advantage of workers in under developed countries, making them work in substandard environments, paying them very little money, and not giving them the benefits (health insurance, time off, etc) that we expect in our country. Evidently this behavior by the money grubbing corporations of America must stop or else, or else…

Now lets compare the two situations. In both cases, the workers are paid substandard pay (compared to what can be made in America), have a substandard working environment (compared to working environments in America), and no benefits (compared to benefits in America). But here is the difference – the workers here have to live here, and the workers elsewhere have to live there. This may seem like stating the obvious, and yes it is, but I do so to make a point.

Working and living here in America, the illegal immigrants live in poverty, and I doubt that anyone would argue otherwise. But for the workers that work and live in under developed countries, many of the things that we consider substandard, are actually above standard for the place that they live. It does not really matter to them that their entire years wages might buy them a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk here in America, because they do not live here, they live in a place where they are, many times, making more than anyone else in their community, and they can buy much more than a loaf of bread and half gallon of milk in their local market.

So can someone please explain to me why it is considered OK for them to continue living and working in poverty because if we do not the economy will apparently collapse, but we should stop corporations from giving people living in third world nations a better job, with better pay, than they could possibly get doing any of the (few) other jobs that are available to them? Is this really the end justifing the means? Is this, by any chance, yet another hypocrisy of the left?