[outsourcing] I'm guessing that Businessweek won't approve this comment.
Joseph Dunphy
I stopped reading when I got to this point:
"Before getting in to the analysis let me mention where I stand
philosophically so you can get a sense of what prejudices I may
harbor. Overall I view outsourcing as something that helps create
economic fairness. I do not think someone has a right to a job just
because they were born in a particular country ..."
It's the same old redistributionist garbage from the bad old days of
the 60s; take from Peter so you can get warm fuzzies from Paul, only
with the difference that Peter is now left utterly destitute and the
one taking from him pockets most of what would have been going to
Paul. Gosh, sorry to hear that trained researchers aren't as common in
a low tech third world country as some imagined that they would be,
but be of good cheer. The corporate community hasn't even begun to tap
other inevitable hotbeds of technological innovation such as the Amish
settlements across our own country, to say nothing of the seminomadic
sheep herders of Afghanistan. I'll bet that you could get them to work
REALLY cheaply, and who knows? Maybe, wrapped up in a lamb's skin, one
of them has the blueprints for that Mars bound spacecraft Bush keeps
hoping to see.
You never know.
Joseph Dunphy
Here's another blog comment that I don't think will be approved, but
one never knows.
Posted to: http://blogs.eweek.com/careers/content001/outsourcing/wsj_offshoring_losing_its_luster.html
As much as I sincerely do wish that I could be supportive of the faint
hint of optimism - the Earth is nowhere near running out of starving
people, it cranks new ones out, most perversely, with the greatest
speed where hunger is the worst, and even if India became richer than
Sweden, these things would all be true. Something probably will end
outsourcing, but it won't be market forces.
As real hunger takes hold here, hitting people who've more than earned
the chance at at least a little modest opportunity and unemployed
engineers discover that all of that talk about discrimination against
the overqualified was no joke, we're going to get an explosive
combination that many seem unwilling to think about: well founded
anger and realistic desperation, among a talent pool whose abilities
have been driven up beyond reason, by the exaggerated demands of the
job market. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was much concern
over what would happen were the Russian scientists to be driven by
desperation to work for some of the shadier governments in this world,
ones which most people really wouldn't want to see acquire
thermonuclear weaponry or any number of other technologies.
Why do so many have such great difficulty in seeing that the same
argument is going to apply with at least as much force to scientists
and engineers in the West, who will see, not only their own despair,
as those in the old Eastern Bloc would have, but the experience of
gross betrayal by their own people?
I'm told, by those better informed on such subjects than myself, that
the ancients once said "those whom the gods would destroy, first they
make blind". It is America's blindness that it will single out one
group or another, violate it until it is driven into rage and despair,
and imagine that a show of belligerence will keep the victims of the
day docile. Such thinking got us into World War Two and has paved the
way for many dangerous men to come into power since, because the
world's only superpower can't bring itself to learn one simple lesson
- that the exercise of any sort of power must always be tempered with
at least a touch of humility and more than a touch of empathy. Whether
that power is political, military or economic is immaterial.
Arrogance, without fail, will bring reprisals from those it is
directed against. The question is never "if", only "when".
This is the destiny that a foolish nation is making for itself - at
least some of the angry and desperate will see past the arrogant
posturing of their countrymen, see a way out of their hardship, and
seeing neither another way out or any real reason to feel loyalty to
their own homes, take that way out, selling their talent to whoever
will pay, and there is always an Al Quaeda, under one name or another,
always somebody crazy enough to be want to do the worst and wealthy
enough to act on the desire. There is always a North Korea, always an
Iran. Perhaps a few dozen shining mushrooms shall bloom, lighting up
the night one day not so very far in the future. I don't imagine that
I'll spend much time mourning New York, but it'll be a d**ned shame
about New Orleans. But then, it always is, isn't it?
This is the future that the American people seem determined to make
for themselves. One need not be a prophet to follow the logic of
current actions and see that this is where we are headed, but the
American people seem determined to refuse to believe that trouble can
possibly come their way, until they actually get hurt. I'm guessing
that losing a number of their major cities may be enough of a wakeup
call to get a few to start asking questions about the wisdom of the
most recent practices, especially when they notice that their armed
forces don't have much of a technological edge over the bad guys any
more, but in the long run?
We live among a people who learned no lasting lessons of value from
what happened in the forties. If one is not humbled by the thought
that one's nations actions helped bring to power the governments that
destroyed so much of one's world, then one is beyond teaching. Some
people will want to think of this post as a Unabomber style manifesto
and a call for mass destruction. It is neither. It is a call to
anybody reading it to open his eyes, let him see what was always there
before him, and ask himself if he really has any reason to stay to see
more of it at such close range.
The world is still a vary big place, and many of you may find that
much of it is eager to open its doors to you, if you have talent to
bring. There are places where the people are still worth caring about,
where pride has not overwhelmed good sense and one's descendents might
have a chance at a decent future. Maybe it's time to start looking,
while the going is good.
Joseph Dunphy
To sum up that last one for the short attention span crowd:
"Think of the United States as an 800 pound gorilla with a fondness
for charging at cliffs. For some reason, he hasn't succeeded in
getting himself killed yet, but you know where this is going. You
can't slow him down, but you can get out of his way, and maybe you
might want to find another hill to go camping on while all of this
gets sorted out."
And if the other hill has a nicer climate and more pleasant campers,
all the better.
Joseph Dunphy
To see if I've written more about this or return to your ring
http://groups.google.com/group/joseph_dunphy/web/businessweek-redirection