Do you really mean to say the American people are plundering the rest of the world? No. But the fact remains that historically the U.S. economy has been strongest when we have been able to take advantage of huge disparities (either externally with other countries or right here in the U.S.) in standards of living between consumers and producers. That's been the case regardless of whether the "cheap labor" involved slaves in the South, Irish immigrants in the 19th century who worked in the coal mines of the Northeast, and Eastern European immigrants in the first half of the 20th century who filled our textile mills.
In fact, the presence of cheap Chinese labor on oil rigs in Colorado is really a case of history gone full circle. This country imported tens of thousands of "cheap labor" (in the form of Chinese immigrants!) in the last few decades of the 19th century to build the railroads across the western U.S.
historically the U.S. economy has been strongest when we have been able to take advantage of huge disparities (either externally with other countries or right here in the U.S.) in standards of living between consumers and producers.
Lots of people believe that in order for someone to get rich, someone else has to get poor. Countries (like communist ones) where everyone believes that stuff, usually end up being very poor countries. There are other countries (like the US) where we believe that individuals become what they make of themselves -- and that it's not a crime for someone to do really well. These countries get rich.
Americans in general get richer not when everyone earns the same-- Americans get richer when a few successful people make a breakthrough and then everyone prospers. 'Income equality' gets really good when the economy tanks. That's why when the economy is good the democrats make a big stink about "the evil capitalists rich not doing their fair share." As if the poor were better off when we had double digit inflation and double digit unemployment.
People from all over the world want to come to the US not because they want to be exploited, they come because they know that if they hang around rich people that they too can get rich.
