>>Something else is bothering me: when I learned these things, the definition of free market included three basic freedoms of movement: of money, commodities and workforce. Now money moves freely across the world (anyone can invest anywhere, almost), commodities are traded in all directions... but somehow globalization fails to include the freedom of movement of workforce. I have some ideas on how that came to be overlooked, but you probably wouldn't like it.
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>Fire away. You are always worth listening to.

Thanks for the kind words - but you'd probably revoke them if you heard me singing :).

Anway, free movement of labour won't happen anytime soon, simply because it'd lower the profit margin. It'd pretty much equalize the level of income all over the world, and people would actually stop migrating in any significant numbers, because the grass wouldn't be greener on the other side. That'd mean they'd be earning enough where they are - which would then mean the labour cost would be pretty much the same wherever you do business, and it wouldn't be profitable to pay transportation over half the globe. I'm not saying everyone would live well, but the differences between standard of life in, say China, Africa or India vs USA or EU wouldn't be so drastic anymore to be a sufficient magnet for migration.

And then your favorite corporation wouldn't make so much money by outsourcing, or by building their sweatsh production facilities on a different continent. Which is precisely why it won't happen.