Forty or fifty years ago outsourcing began within the states when the South lured northern manufacturers with the lucrative promise of lower or no taxes and cheaper non-union labor. This initiative unquestionably brought modernization, prosperity and greater population to the southern states. Aside from the unions, there was little flack — after all, in a nation united, prosperity should be available to all states. Still the unions had a point in that it resulted in depressed wages, putting them at a disadvantage. But because the nation still flourished by being the suppliers of the world, it was not at a crisis level.
Now, however, with outsourcing affecting virtually all of the states, politicians are beginning to sit up and take notice. On the other hand, if one were to be logical, why not give other poorer nations the opportunity for jobs and a better lifestyle? The problem is that unlike the corporate migration to the south when the nation was flourishing and able to absorb such a move by the seemingly endless production of inventive commodities, the nation is in the grips of war and huge deficits precluding inevitable expansion of goods and services to maintain a viable economy.
Though there does not seem to be anyway to end outsourcing altogether, it can be curtailed — rather insignificantly, I should add — by proposals being offered during this campaign year. What really has to be done is to develop a trade policy that is primarily designed to help the foreign nations to help themselves through developing modern infrastructure within their own borders. Exports from the United States, Europe and Japan should be in the form of heavy equipment and engineering skills to meet this end, rather than weakening their industrial base and ultimately their own wealth by exporting jobs.