If progress was equal everywhere we wouldn't have all these laggards willing to work for peanuts to improve their life (because the peanuts they were working fo

If progress was equal everywhere we wouldn't have all these laggards willing to work for peanuts to improve their life (because the peanuts they were working for locally are even smaller than foreign peanuts). ~5% of the population currently not getting the job done doesn't invalidate any part of my argument. It just means that 5% might be the last guys left in the dark ages if progress continues and the policy of offshoring doesn't reverse (either for political reasons or because we cracked the full automation code and labor costs no longer matter because we aren't using much labor to produce things. If that happens the dirty stuff will still be offshored but the calculus will be different for the foreign country).