Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

The Utility Of Offshoring: A Rawlsian Critique, Julian Friedland

Julian Friedland

Most prominent arguments favoring the widespread discretionary business practice of sending jobs overseas, known as ‘offshoring,’ attempt to justify the trend by appeal to utilitarian principles. It is argued that when business can be performed more cost-effectively offshore, doing so tends, over the long term, to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. This claim is supported by evidence that exporting jobs actively promotes economic development overseas while simultaneously increasing the revenue of the exporting country. After showing that offshoring might indeed be justified on utilitarian grounds, I argue that according to Rawlsian social-contract theory, the practice is nevertheless …