Globalisation cartoon analysis
The cartoon was drawn by Matt Wuerker with unknown title was published on the 7th July 2011. The subject of the cartoon is outsourcing.
On the left side in the foreground, of the picture is a vending machine. The vending machine is silver and offers american workers. Through the window of the vending machine you can see different figures representing the american workers. Above the window a title says „AMERICAN WORKERS, hire us!“. Across from the vending machine a male figure is shown. The figure is small and a bit chubby. His skin color is slightly red. He also wears suit and glasses. He stands with a open mouth and open arms in front of the vending machine. In a caption the figure says „I'd love to give 'em jobs. I just can't afford to!“. Behind the figure is a case with the imprint „Corp. Sector“. In the background are mountains of dollar bills stored in wheelbarrows. The wheelbarrows are coded with „profits“ and „bonuses“.
The cartoon deals with the problem of outsourcing. Firstly the cartoonist symbolised the corporations and factorys as a figure in a suit. The industry are those who hire and dismiss staff. Corporation often want to pay the lowest possible wage to make more profit. Cheap wage workers are mostly found in developing countrys. To gain more profit factorys search workers in developing countrys, for that they produce their goods abroad. While global players produce their goods abroad, many people can't find jobs for example in the USA. The USA still can't recover from the rust belt, which made many people lose their job. In the cartoon we can see the lack of workspaces
in the USA because the vending machine is marked with the title „hire us!“. It clearly shows the need of work places.
The cartoonist exaggerateted with the amount of money to suggest how much money the industries gain world wide while people in developing countrys have to suffer exploitation and hunger even they are working a lot for low wage. The caption of the figure shows that industries still would take low wage workers instead of qualified workers in the US to make more money.
I partly agree with the artist's statement because i think it gives people, who are living in developing countries, the oppurtunity to earn some money and maybe to learn new abilitys which they can use in their further professional life. On the other hand the workers don't gain enough money for their work. For the customer it's better because the goods are much cheaper.