Looks like the USA isn’t alone in facing the issue of outsourcing. As europe is much more protective of its workers than the USA, I look forward to seeing what actions they take on the issue.
And here’s an interesting quote form the article:
*On Mar. 21, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called multinationals that transfer jobs to lower-cost countries “unpatriotic.” *
When I see reports and figures like this, any sympathy I might have for the plight of corporations goes flying right out the window!
Umm, because this whole THREAD has been about an instance of free-market capitalism (outsourcing) being BAD for people??? :smack:
Well, that depends. Should foreigners be considered people?
Look, people, the fact is that you can’t prevent people in China and India from producing goods and services that compete with goods and services produced in North America and Europe.
Why are people in India less deserving of jobs than Americans?
Or are we planning a scenario where North America and Europe remain wealthy, while people in third world countries are forbidden to compete with them? Is the natural position of a third worlder to be an impoverished peasant, while we are middle class office workers?
Lets think for a minute about exactly what would be required in order to enforce this. No exports of capital or education to the third world. No imports of goods and services from the third world. No immigration. Embargo and blockade, seal the borders, shoot on sight. Let them fester in their hell holes while we luxuriate in our good fortune.
And all so some guys in India can’t get jobs answering phones.
Okay, okay, 20 years ago, Unemployment benefits lasted for a different amount of time than they do today.
However, at no time in our nation’s history, so far as I know, were Unemployment statistics calculated by using the number of people being paid unemployment benefits. It’s a popular myth that it is, but it’s wrong, and the song repeated that myth.
I’m unsure what your opinion has to do with anything? Personally, if it comes down to whether I have a job and can afford to live in my society, then I really don’t care what their problems are over in India or anywhere else. While I have nothing at all against Indian or other foreign peoples per se, if it comes down to me vs. them, then I am going to choose me, at their expense, 100% of the time! That’s not unselfish, it’s mere self-preservation.
Frankly, if Indians would learn to practice birth control, then they probably would have 1/4 to 1/3 the population they do now and wouldn’t have so much of their population living in awful poverty. Perhaps it’s time for them to adopt China’s rule of 1 offspring per couple.
When I see reports and figures like this, any sympathy I might have for the plight of the American worker goes flying right out the window!
That’s fine by me. I’m not looking for your sympathy. What I’m looking for is for our politicians to excert some control over the corporations, since most corporations are unwilling to consider the social consequences of their actions.
Yes. Should we consider foreigners’ interests to be more important than ours?
Lemur: *Look, people, the fact is that you can’t prevent people in China and India from producing goods and services that compete with goods and services produced in North America and Europe. *
Of course not, nor would you want to. China and India will go on competing with the rest of the world no matter what US companies do with regard to downsizing and outsourcing, and nobody’s objecting to that.
*Why are people in India less deserving of jobs than Americans?
Or are we planning a scenario where North America and Europe remain wealthy, while people in third world countries are forbidden to compete with them? Is the natural position of a third worlder to be an impoverished peasant, while we are middle class office workers?
*
Total strawman. Nobody is saying that people in India are less deserving of jobs, or that they should all be impoverished peasants. I’m living in India at the moment, and I can tell you that there are plenty of Indian firms competing like a sumbitch. (The actual impoverished peasants, however, aren’t the ones getting outsourced jobs from the US; those are going to the educated English-speaking middle class. In fact, the lofty rhetoric about outsourcing lifting India out of poverty, like the lofty rhetoric about outsourcing destroying the US economy, is pretty misleading. If outsourcing is accompanied by greater trade liberalization in the agricultural sector, as looks very likely, the resulting increases in productivity required for domestic agriculture to be competititve will be impossible for many low-tech rural farmers to meet, so in the near- and medium-term many of the impoverished peasants will end up being far more impoverished.)
The question is simply: in what ways should this competition be taking place, and are there ethical problems with some of the ways that US firms are using it?
I was watching National Geographic’s Ultimate Explorer program on Sunday evening and they had a segment about the selling of body parts (specifically kidneys) by Indian peasants. Apparently, this was outlawed in 1994 but is still widely practiced. They get around $1000 for a kidney and in some villages, almost everyone has done it. Both a husband and wife did it in one family, the husband 15 years ago, the wife, eight years ago, but they are still dirt poor. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any coverage on the infection or death rate from this practice.
On 60 minutes, they had a segment on AIDS Out of Control in India. I was astounded how caviler some of the truck drivers they talked to were about this.
I don’t think outsourcing work is going to put much of a dent in helping India solve the problems that it faces. India needs ot get its population under control, bring free education to the teeming masses, revamp its government, etc., etc.
Ah, but remember, your original question was:
If foreigners are still people, as you later acknowledged, that it’s not at all clear that free market capitalism or outsourcing are “BAD for people.” This was the gist of your original question, which is what I was addressing.
Indians would have had to learn to practice birth control a few generations ago to have that many fewer people now. You can’t solve an overpopulation problem in one generation. The West is at least partially responsible for the Third World’s population problems, since we bought them life-prolonging Western medicine without recognizing the fact that a healthier population requires fewer births to sustain itself. We, at least our U.S. government, continues to be implicated by making family planning aid to foreign countries contingent on not mentioning abortion.
Years ago, when it was more fashionable to talk about overpopulation (remember Ehrlich?), we thought in terms of food and living space. MOst of us didn’t even think about the effect of a vast pool of dirt cheap labor.
Good point about dirt cheap labor. Given the practice of selling body parts in India (and other poor countries), it shows to to what extent people will go to continue living, even if they have little to look forward to.
While advances in medicine would be a good example of the rule of unintended consequences, it is really up to the government of the country to recognize that they have a problem and to find a way to solve it. China took the bull by the horns and restricted people to one child per couple. India could have tried to do the same or make birth control pills more widely available or enhance education for family planning or whatever. Over-population isn’t a problem that happens suddenly.
OK, it’s bad for people in the U.S. and I think, perhaps selfishly, that we have a right to consider our own interests.
Yes, people have a right to consider their own interests, but it it morally required that managers consider the interest of their workers above the interests of the business and investors? Also, does downsizing hurt the nation as a whole or just the displaced workers? Does anyone have a cite that downsizing and outsourcing have hurt any consumer markets in the US?
“We”?
And just who is this “we” of whom you speak? Company owners? Managers? The lowly worker who is in no position to employ anyone, and who is not accountable to the company shareholders?
Indeed, if it is indeed a virtue to act selfishly, then company managers are doing the right thing by outsourcing labor. After all, they are merely acting in what they consider to be their own best interests!
See, I think that’s the contradiction in your stance. It amounts to American workers demanding sheer benevolence from their employers, while simultaneously denying that same benevolence toward foreigners – many of whom need the employment far more desperately! It’s easy to say “We should be selfish,” when one expects to receive benevolence, rather than give it.
Lot’s of good discussion going on here. As an IT professional, I expect my job to be in jeopardy from outsourcing sometime in the next 5 to 10 years. Here are some thoughts:
The outsourcing workers in the overseas countries may have quailty problems now but they will get better over time. They’re not going away and will only get better.
There is no written guarantee that says the US will always maintain it’s leading position in the world, and it’s people will enjoy a high standard of living. We can blow it if we keep giving away our knowledge and jobs. Most Americans have a very hard time swallowing the concept that our standard of living could go down.
We can’t assume like the economists say, that the US will just create new industries that the laid off workers can transition into. What if it takes 10-20 years to develop them? We are now operating in a much more competitive global market. What if other countries develop them first?
The difference between today’s white collar outsourcing and the textile manufacturing bust is that we are not losing repetitive, manufacturing jobs, but creative, high skill jobs. One you empower the other countries with knowledge and infrastructure, they are our equal and can surpass us.
The Japanese car manufacturers are operating in our country to reduce shipping costs and avoid financial accounting / taxation / currency translation issues. Those problems are smaller with ‘knowledgeware’ products.
The pursuit of short term profits through outsourcing is going to cripple this country (middle class) starting 10 years from now. We all can’t open up bookstores and bagel shops or be plumbers. If we’re lucky, one good terrorist attack overseas will cripple an outsourced US company’s network and corporations might start waking up to the risks.
I’ll just let this statement bask in its own warm glow.