By Mike Pankonien
The pen I used to write down ideas for this article column was made in China. The laptop I am typing this on was made in Malaysia. The tech support I called when my laptop died suddenly is based in India.
Welcome to the global economy of the world, folks: in this brave new world, trade that was once restricted to the local market has moved to the colossal market that is the world. Resources move across the planet, products are manufactured on one side of the of the world, so they can be sold to the other, and money changes hands between cultures and people who, a hundred years ago, were not business partners. The world is changing drastically as it works to find equilibrium between the new sources of labor in the East and the new markets of developing countries.
The capitalist system that created this balance is governed by an equation of survival of the fittest; however, as companies work to trim the fat of their own establishments, corporations that were once “American” have all but abandoned their American homeland in favor of paying lower wages and answering to more lenient labor laws in other countries. As more and more Americans watch their own jobs being moved overseas, a cry is being heard across America against the “crime” of outsourcing.
Although this may be the “pro” angle for the general topic of outsourcing, how can one exactly sell that? Tell little Jimmy it is just business that his mother lost her job as an IT manager to a major company because she demands too high a wage? Tell Mr. Smith “tough” that he is struggling to make ends meet because someone in a far off land is a better worker at a better price? No, the tragedy of the last two years for the American economy is a bitter pill to swallow, despite any kind words.
But I can say that, despite its severe effects, outsourcing (which is essentially just competition) is the natural outcome of an economic system the U.S. has followed for years. America’s position as an economic giant notwithstanding, the American worker has been undercut not by greed nor his own failing, but by people who have come from nothing and are seizing their chance to have everything…at 25 cents a day.
Despite these troubles, the last thing the U.S. should do is fight outsourcing unnecessarily; the economy is going to shift to better fit the world’s own situation (i.e. cheap labor in the East), and not much can be done about it. A better move than struggling against it would be to work with it. Major manufacturing has long since been lost in the U.S.; it is simply bad business for companies to produce goods in the U.S.
Instead, America must adopt a new style of economics based on the service of the American people instead of what those people can produce.
Outsourcing is still a source of pain for many, both financially and emotionally. But it does not have to be a source of pain for America as a whole: clever and innovative changes to the American economy can easily move to make outsourcing something better for our children rather than something to fear.
