But will they improve with the jobs there?
What we've done is effectively destroy the peasant lifestyle that has existed for centuries, even millennia in some nations. Now there are third world countries with massive slums that are growing faster than we've ever seen urban areas grow. Interestingly, the growth doesn't match the economic situation in most of those cities, which are facing high unemployment and economic recession.
If this were the industrial revolution and there were a force fighting strongly for the workers in the form of Trade Unionism, socialism, and Marxism, then I would most certainly agree that the manufacturing jobs will bring improved working conditions because the workers movement will demand it.
But this is a time of neo-liberalism, the IMF and World Bank set the rules for many countries. There is no government support for the poor in most of these countries. Most of them have no voice, no right to assemble, to form unions, to collectively bargain. So where are they going to turn? Why are their conditions going to improve? Because you keep purchasing cheap crap from them and Milty Friedman made up some bogus theory to hide what he really espoused?
I know you really do care UP, which I admire a lot. Also, I tend to think that free trade gets a bad rap on the left. Yet, I don't see where many of these companies are really helping the people at all. Many of them don't seem to give a damn less what happens to their employees. They sure as hell don't want them to have higher pay, better benefits, or god-forbid a decent (or even safe) working environment. Look at the slums outside Manila, Lagos, Mexico City, Lahore, Calcutta, Rio, Bangkok, and so forth. Are those lives really improving? Is your consumer choice making those people better off? Or are you really making someone else wealthy?