Financial Times Discovers 'Second-Class Citizens' — Overseas
The Financial Times warns Europe might be 'edging closer' to its own 'kafala system,' a model of indentured servitude prevalent in some Gulf states. Meanwhile, the very same news cycle often sanitizes the US record on migrant labor, an economy built, in part, on the exploitation of undocumented workers who are, by any measure, 'second-class citizens.' One might wonder why the plight of workers
thousands of miles away garners such attention, while the systematic exploitation within Western borders, often enabling vast corporate profits, remains a polite afterthought. Perhaps the FT 's concern for fair labor is deeply influenced by its ownership; if it doesn't directly impact the bottom line of its parent company, Nikkei, or its advertising partners, then it's simply a humanitarian
crisis. The sheer irony of an institutional publication, historically linked to global capital flows, now critiquing labor systems that mirror historical patterns of exploitation feels less like a breakthrough and more like a carefully managed selective outrage.