Cheap labour is a transient economic factor and exists only in rudimentary economic state. As the economy takes off, the labour factor as being a variable factor will always tend to move upwards. Labour as one of the fundamental factors of economy is more relevant to productivity, skill and quality of produce as it makes labour more competitive and acceptable in the dynamics of economic growth. Social scientists and political activists in a rudimentary economic state generally misperceive “cheap labour” and tend to define it as an advantage for production and as well as for attracting investments. But in reality, skilled labour with higher productivity will always be more competitive than “cheap labour”. In a less developed society where poverty is prevalent and more or less in chronic state, “cheap labour” may become a political or an ideological tryst and false cause to gain support to hold on to power. In fact “cheap labour” is an indication of an unmanageable state of economy and fractured state of political and business management in a country. However, “cheap labour” is not an attraction to the investors. Skilled labour with higher productivity and good quality of produce will indeed be more competitive in an economy. Since the industrial revolution labour has been a constant factor along with land and capital in any economic activity. While we are constantly trying to innovate capital inputs and create various products for capital utilisation and even reclaim land from the sea, we use labour very willingly in its primary form. Unless labour is trained and made creative, it will not be compatible with capital and land use and most certainly cannot achieve result as expected. Investors will shy away from “cheap labour”, if it is the only attraction offered to them. Economy is developed initially by developing infrastructure, establishing internal network of communications and in the present days by developing IT technology. Along with this local skilled labour and land become necessary. Capital and technology may come from anywhere, but technology will only come if skill operators are available to use the technology.
This labour cannot be cheap nor should it be. The emerging nations are all in dire situation as the colonial rule sucked resources, built no infrastructures, and left the nation saddled with ever-increasing population without having any experience in governance or in developing institutions. Initially all these nations were subjected to leadership mostly connected with national liberation movement and in achieving independence from colonial powers. The colonies historically only raised untrained, uneducated and undisciplined labour which only contributed to colonial interest in maintaining a supply chain to home-based manufacturing. It is indeed a very difficult task to train and equip this vast majority of population into a disciplined, skilled, politically concerned and productive manpower to contribute to socio-economic and political management of a nation. Population as such is not an asset as it damages the nature’s balance and equilibrium and constantly perpetrates an aggression to establish its own habitat excluding all others in the environment. It had never been economically viable to sustain any population that exceeds optimisation of need and natural supply chain of the environment. Earth’s resources are finite and over-utilisation of it will put the vast population into such challenges as to survive from catastrophe caused by natural imbalances of the environment. Nations which succeeded in becoming developing ones, particularly in the South-East Asia region, undertook massive plan for skill development and sustained efforts to develop political institutions and corporate management that enabled them to become potent economic powers. “Cheap labour” was never offered nor politically perceived to become a relevant factor in the economy. Leadership in those nations was more known to have instilled in the population a sense of pride, accountability, social discipline and, above all, a sense of competitiveness. They acted almost as the “Philosopher Kings” as envisioned by the ancient philosophers. Labour in modern economy is a more complicated element than originally perceived by the economists and social thinkers. In the present time menial form of labour adds cost to the product and in many ways deters developing use of technology and become less competitive and unsustainable in the supply chain. However, a market demand has developed over the past forty years where a scope for unskilled labour has been created. Some nations which suffer from resource constraints, use export of raw labour as an economic activity. Experience of this is not very happy as it has a dehumanising impact and often culminates into catastrophic consequences. Citizens of any nation deserve and have a right to “autonomy” which should be supported socially and politically in providing an environment of freedom, protection to life and property and in developing his/her talent to contribute to the growth of the nation. He/she should not be condemned to poverty and depravity that will subject him/her to put life at risk and dehumanise him/her in the process. It was a medieval feudal idea to have “cheap labour” and in modern time, it has been a succour in dire poverty-stricken situation that compels any one to accept dire conditions of exploitation to survive. It is as well a very effective way to sustain exploitation and extortion in a society. Thus argues Toby Shelley in Exploited: Migrant Labour in the New Global Economy. Shelley, a journalist with the Financial Times, provides superb reporting and horrific anecdotes to describe the unfolding tragedy. “The ambitious poor in this unequal world are willing to risk their lives to improve their lot. Haphazard enforcement that includes fines or jail time, employer abuses and public resentment do little to dissuade jobseekers. Most voluntarily set out on long journeys, counting on jobs nonexistent in their homelands and anticipating tedious, revolting or dangerous work. A teacher from Peru cleans toilets; a doctor from Poland does heavy lifting in a warehouse – both examples of drastic underemployment that delays progress in their homelands. All the while, such immigrants hope that their sacrifice is temporary, that luck is on their side in avoiding theft, bullying, rape or death.” Terse and angry, Shelley reveals how time and time again, “people jump through hoops of horror to live in lands that offer opportunity. Jobs mean survival in the modern world.” Communities can no longer throw up their hands, accepting tired excuses that industries depend on cheap immigrant labour and human rights have less priority, because the entrenched inequality – hardly temporary – brutalises the controllers and controlled alike, as observed 125 years ago by US writer and one-time slave Frederick Douglass: “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
