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Outsourcing is possibly the main thing wrong with the structure of corporations, and perhaps with civilization in general.
On this website, I sometimes use the word "outsourcing" to refer to Western exploitation of third world countries-- because this is merely an outsourcing of local exploitation.
Laissez-faire capitalists usually argue that outsourcing gives low-talent jobs that are unsustainable in the U.S. to people overseas for whom they are a financial blessing. There are a number of things wrong with this argument:
- If the companies were co-operatives they wouldn't outsource, because they wouldn't want to give away their own jobs. Instead, if the jobs truly were unsustainable the companies would naturally fail, and overseas companies would take their place.
- In this perfect world, the overseas companies would be producing their own stuff. Think about that. Would you enjoy doing tech support for good software you wrote yourself and were proud of, if you were getting paid for it? Now, compared to that, would you enjoy doing tech support for a product you had no hand in whatsoever?
- What outsourcing does instead is allow companies that should no longer exist in the United States to continue a parasitic existence by hiring overseas workers who really don't care about the product but need the money. By doing this, they prevent parallel overseas corporations from forming.
Random Thomas A. Friedman Style Anecdote: I thought of this article while taking a shower, when I looked at my imported soap and saw that it had the words "Made in China" in Chinese imprinted on it. How often do you see that written on a product? Chinese people ought to be proud of what they make. They ought to sell it to their own market and write "Made in China" in their own language. Oh well.