Outsourcing

After recently posting on why I have not written much on politics recently, I want to say a few things on where the policies that Democrats tend to favor that are in error.

Please note that I write this as somebody who very strongly supports Obama over Romney and somebody who wants every Tea Party Republican and theocrat voted out of office at the earliest possible opportunity.

However, one area where I think that the Democrats make a serious mistake - one which betrays the same moral qualities that they are fond of condemning in others - is on the issue of outsourcing.

I hold that outsourcing tends to benefit the average American and, even if it did not - at its worst, outsourcing lifts people out of poverty, giving them better access to medical care and education and greater opportunities in their own lives at a small cost to those in the top 10% in terms of global income.

Democrats, at least in principle, speak as if they favor lifting people out of poverty and seeing that they have better health care, education, and opportunities even at the expense of those in the top 10 percent. However, put the word "Outsourcing" in the statement, and suddenly many Democrats loathe the idea of seeing the top 10 percent suffer any type of economic setback, even if it results in large numbers of impoverished people obtaining these benefits in health care, education, and opportunities. We see them pointing to those living in impoverished reasons in the world as a threat and using arguments defending the status quo that would make a Republican supporter of the top 1% beam with pride.

I have mentioned in the past few days the fact that China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, gaining access to levels of health care, education, and opportunities unimagined a generation ago.

It is impossible to separate this fact from the economic practice of outsourcing. What lifted these people out of poverty was American citizens purchasing goods and services that they produced.

I do not think that America has suffered from this development, any more than the top 1 percent of the population suffers by living in a world where the other 99 percent are healthier, better educated, and surrounded with opportunities.

With respect to oursourcing, Americans have obtained the benefit of lower-priced goods. In terms of overall economic status, there is no difference between cutting the prices of particular goods by 50 percent and getting a pay raise that would have allowed one to purchase twice as many of those goods at their original price.

Furthermore, increased wealth in other parts of the world means greater demand for American goods and services. It gives those people the means pay for things that people living with starvation and disease cannot buy.

Americans have suffered some economic downturns. Certainly, those people who were responsible would love it if we targeted the Chinese and blamed them for our troubles rather than blame those who were actually guilty. However, the guilty party in this case was not Chinese factory worker. It was American bankers.

Those bankers robbed the American people twice. First, they robbed us by selling sham mortgages - promising great benefits and burying the risks and costs. Then, when their financial slight-of-hand ruined their industry and their companies started to suffer, they robbed us again by collecting tons of government money and passing the bill on to us, our children, and our grandchildren.

The heads of these financial companies are the people who drove many Americans out of their jobs and homes - not the Chinese factory worker. Yet, they certainly do not mind the fact that Americans are blaming the Chinese factory worker and insisting on driving them back into squalor and starvation than meanding that these corporate executives lose their jobs and their multi-million dollar homes.

As I sit here in Colorado, I see nothing but benefit in the fact that people in Iowa or Florida or Washington state are doing well. I ask myself, "Would I be better off if California was a land of poverty, squalor, starvation and disease with no factories and no jobs and a population with no hope or opportunities? I do not see even the beginnings of an argument that says that this would benefit me in any way.

Similarly, it would be hard to make the case that my life would be better if only it were the case that Europe and Japan had the level of poverty and disease that we now find in Africa. I do not see how a case can be made that when 20 million to 40 million people starved to death in China from 1958 to 1961 that this was such a huge boon for - well, for my parents, in this case, that it was to be celebrated. I do not see an argument for attempting to arrange for a second great famine because of the economic benefits I would enjoy.

This latter point not only illustrate some of the economic aspects of outsourcing, it illustrates a moral issue. Even if it were the case that American workers - who are almost all in the top 10 percent in terms of income in the world - were to suffer a loss of a few dollars per hour due to outsourcing, there are moral problems with demanding that a couple billion people live with starvation and disease just so that those few Americans can purchase a few more sports tickets and beers.

In saying this, I am not claiming that all outsourcing is necessarily virtuous.

There are cases in which corporations go to foreign governments and say, "Let us build a factory and 'hire' your citizens as . . . well, as slave labor, though our marketing department tells us we cannot call it that. We will ensure that you and your military supporters obtain some of the benefits of this slave labor."

There are cases in which the corporation says, "Let us build a factory, poison your air and water, destroy your land, and spread disease among your population. We will profit from the goods we sell elsewhere and, again, make sure that you and your military backers are properly compensated for your support."

There are cases in which the corporation says, "Pass laws keeping my competitors out of this region, allowing us to better exploit the local population and circumstances by denying your people the opportunity to pursue alternatives to what we provide, and we will see to it that you and your military supporters share in the profits."

However, the problem here is not "outsourcing".

In these types of cases, it is important to focus on the actual evil. Mis-identifying the evil results in cases in which some good is inaccurately branded as evil while also increasing the chance that some evil will be missed because it does not contain this mis-identified property. In this case, it means that good outsourcing is inaccurately condemned, and domestic production containing the same evils are ignored because they do not qualify as outsourcing.

When I hear Democrats condemn outsourcing, I hear people making the same types of arguments and defending the same types of economic injustices as Republicans defend when they seek to protect and promote the interests of the top 1 percent at the expense of everybody else. I see people condemning in one sentence the very same set of principles and practices they embrace in the next sentence. It makes no sense to me.