Why should I feel sympathy for those in the West?

[fujiyama]

Everyday there's a new post complaining about how outsourcing is responsible for the loss of their job, or how they feel like "foreigners are taking their jobs". It's really surprising how similar it is to freeper sentiments. Honestly, some of it is exactly the same.

Now, I understand that most on DU atleast actually simply are upset that they've lost their job and they know where the blame lies -- at the corporations looking to save a buck. I don't blame such people being upset.

However, I am annoyed when people blame foreign governments for attracting foreign investment and capital. These nations are simply trying to raise their standard of living. I didn't know that was so wrong. According to many in the US (and Europe as well), it seems as though only they themselves deserve the highest standards of living and those living in Asia and Africa can go to hell.

I don't hear nearly the same level of resentment at ridiculous farm subsisidies driving down world agriculture prices, which is one of prime reasons for African poverty. At the same time, there are some on this board that claim to have concern for those living in poverty around the world, yet they are most feverishly opposed to any form of globalization.

It's quite obvious that foreign aid and handouts by themselves won't save nations from poverty. Blank checks to NGOs won't solve the problem, and as unequal and frustrating as the world of capitalism and globalization is, I don't see how we can get out of it (though I definetely agree it needs to be reformed).

The US is ruled by a madman. I hope we can all agree to that. However, most Americans have accepted him as the legitimate leader and have supported his immoral and unjustified war in Iraq. With this being the case why should people in other nations care that Americans are losing jobs? It seems to be "reaping what they sowed", economically. And I'm one of those people that absolutely disagreed with the "chickens coming home to roost" comments around 9/11 because NOTHING justified such barbarism and savagry and the murder of innocent civilians.

I still can't help but feeling that most people, especially if they live in red states, are getting WHAT THEY DESERVE (losing health benefits, their job, etc) for voting for Bush. This nation had an offer to elect a decent person like Al Gore, and so many states decided against that. Any other nation would have (and interviews all over Europe and Asia have proven this) voted for Gore, and would vote against someone like Bush.

Also, Britains are also getting their work outsourced. Of all the nations on earth, why should I have sympathy for them? They colonized nations the world over by exploitation and by outsourcing jobs from India, and now somehow people should care about their jobs outsourced?

Outsourcing is something only Americans and other people from already wealthy nations need to worry about. They've profitted from a corrupt system so long, but now that people from "colored" nations are profitting it's evil and wrong.

This nation should be ashamed.

[Bombtrack]

1. and what wonderful country do you represent?

It might help me better understand your hostility?

[burning bush]

2. Because it is the right thing to do

I feel sorry for everyone that lost a job, a home, their savings, or a loved one to Bush and his cronies, whether the victim voted for Bush or not.

Of course, I'm on of those who lost a job to India, but I know who to blame, and he doesn't live on the sub continent.

Becomming bitter over Bush is natural, turning it against the regular schmucks that voted for the guy is misplaced, ignoring the suffering of an entire group of people because of the idiocy of a few, powerful usurpers, is just sad.

Please rethink your position, ok?

[fujiyama]

5. Thanks for a reasoned response...

I myself live in the US (and have my entire life), am a naturalized American citizen, and will be working in the tech field in a year or so (here in this nation), but I was born in a nation that has benefitted from these jobs, and has extreme poverty.

I think my post was partly a rant and partly frustration because of what I see happening in this nation and around the world.

It's just that I see pictures of what's happening around the world (Iraq in particular), what has happened to out of work Americans just doesn't compare. Same with poverty in this nation -- it simply doesn't compare with that in other countries. I also would like there to be a way for those of us living in the US to maintain high standards, but for them to raise in the developing world as well.

I still have a very difficult time sympathizing with someone (for a job loss, Iraq war, loss of benefits) after voting for Bush. While this administration has been worse than most of our expectations, I still can't say I'm too surprised. The administrations' goals were quite clear and were available for those willing to spend a few minutes making a google search before the '00 election.

Once again thanks for a reasoned response. I am sure it is frustating to be out of work, knowing that some people at the top of your corporation is so short sighted to believe he can fire American workers and still have a market here...

[JNelson6563]

13. you've answered your own question

I was born in a nation that has benefitted from these jobs, and has extreme poverty.

These nations that have extreme poverty have no standards for their workers regarding pay or working conditions. The governments are in no hurry to change that because that would quell the siren song of dirt-cheap labor to the large corporations.

Now, if some standards were set in place, like livable wages, decent working conditions and maybe pollution controls that might be different. Without that happening jobs will continue to flee our shores leaving American workers no choice but to take continual downgrades in their own standard of living to the point where we are equal to those mired in poverty overseas.

Pardon me but the labor struggle in America has been a long, arduous, often bloody battle and I am not really looking forward to losing so much of the hard-won progress to some country whose government has no problem pimping their starving masses to US corps.

Julie

[sandnsea]

3. Look to the future

We'll never get anywhere with a President who refuses to look to the future and fund research into the next generation of technology, which is obviously energy. He's stuck on his oil and military boys and that's as far as he sees. If we had a President who looked to the future and created the right economic environment and educational opportunities, then these out-sourced jobs wouldn't be as devastating. A country like India would be buying our new energy products and they'd have the money to do it from their economy. And when we get a President who will also put in environmental, labor and human rights requirements in treaties, then that will help these countries improve as well and be a huge step in reducing new terrorists. The world is big and changing all the time, we're going to have to learn to be part of it.

Here's how:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.24A.Kerry.Env.htm

[fujiyama]

6. That's pretty much...

how I see it. That's why I like Clark and Kerry for advocating investment in areas that matter, like education, especially in science and technology. It is absolutely vital to develop an affordable alternative energy source, which will help us make much better choices regarding foreign policy and trade as well.

Good post overall!

[La_Serpiente]

4. I agree with your last statement that

America should be ashamed of some of its prior actions. I only wish that Americans could reflect on the effects of our former foreign policy actions, but I don't think it would ever happen.

What actions am I talking about? I am talking about selling arms to Iraq. I am talking about funding a fundamentalist evanglical in 1983 in Central America that killed hundreds of thousands of people. I am talking about using the influence of the CIA in 1953 to overthrow a sovereign nation called Iran. I am talking about treating the Middle East as a Gas Station instead of Sovereign countries.

I am sure many of us on this board understand the faults of those policies and their disatrous effects. It is the rest of America that does not really.

But America also does a lot of good in the world. We helped shape the framework of the United Nations, and we stopped a ruthless tyrant from taking over Europe during WW II.

My dream would be for every America to reflect on American foreign policy and see how it has benifited or harmed the world.

I would comment on the free trade issue, but I am way too tired to. I am going to bed, good night. :-)

[JailBush]

7. Huh...

I agree with much of the sentiment in the first post. However, let's remember that global industry is ultimately controlled by corrupt corporations which are ultimately interested in enriching themselves at everyone else's expense.

"But America also does a lot of good in the world. We helped shape the framework of the United Nations, and we stopped a ruthless tyrant from taking over Europe during WW II."

Replace "does" with "did." We've also done more than any other nation to destroy the United Nations and start World War III.

[xchrom]

8. you would do well to do

some more research and see how the wealth really flows from these jobs your former country benefits from.
crippling the economy and the lives of individuals of one country to improve another countries isn't a bargain. and that's the contract that the multi-nationals are making everyone sign on to now.
what has been pointed out before is that trade between countries with similar economic circumstances does more to create sustainable import/export growth. countries like the u.s. open factories in a country, say mexico, to avoid certain social compacts and the price tags that go with them. it's not that they don't make profits by staying in the u.s. -- it's the amount of profit they are arguing about.
not sympathizing with the average worker in britain or anywhere else for that matter because of the history of that nations government -- is no way to get my sympathy. all workers today need empowerment in a world being taken over by multi-national corporate facists. they might bring jobs today -- but they care little for the future well being of any country -- only for the well being of the share holder. who makes money not from labouring him/herself but from the labours of others. just another version of welfare. but a welfare system severely skewed to benefit those at the top.

[rfranklin]

12. The truth of the matter is...

We in the U.S. have lived at a higher standard of living than most of the world because we had incredible resources. After WWII we had manufacturing dominance--just about every other industrialized nation had seen their industry destroyed by the war. As we grew fat and happy, other nations--Japan in particular--found that they could manufacture things better, faster and cheaper. And we lost manufacturing jobs as if we were hemorraghing--remember those wonderful Reagan years! At that point, Republicans convinced working slobs that it was the black people taking their high pay, great benefits manufacturing jobs.

Now they are trying to make us believe that Osama bin Laden took all the tech jobs and the economy of the 1990's--"terra-ists, terra-ists, 9/11!" We do have to look ahead and use our brains because the bean-counting MBAs will always try to make a buck by squeezing a dollar until it bleeds--and they think its a virtue.

Republicans are conservatives in the sense that once they find a way to collect their greens fees from employees, they will keep doing it that way until they bankrupt the company (the Bush school of business) and the nation.

[xchrom]

18. not my point

workers all over the world should be in fraternity is. workers even in so called rich nations do not really reap the benefits of those jobs. and they lose those jobs because they are not ''invested''. people who don't work for those benefits reap the most.
and that's the system all over the world.
people are aware that jobs were going over seas before osama -- there have been many lengthy conversations here around globalization and the mythology about said benefits of globalization.
the original poster doesn't have to care about the west -- but one should expect the same in return if that's what the writer feels. i would contend, given what he/she is talking about that's what got everybody in this position to begin with.
btw -- japan was never really a third world country -- it took them about two seconds to jump on mass production and incorporate it into their society/culture.

[Kolesar]

9. The poor nations don't attract the capital, US corporations just go there

I recall that one name brand shoe company (Adidas, Nike, etc.) has a plant in Asia where the American plant manager has a higher salary than the pay of all of the employees--combined (!).

Corporations are driving cost out of products to increase their margins. They move operations to other countries. It is such a trend that they must move to stay competitive.

Where do you think the large corporate profits in the 1990s came from?

However, there are perverse incentives to move offshore. Reagan/Bush used to hold seminars, paid by the US taxpayer, instructing US manufacturers how to move jobs out of the US (creeps).

There are tax structures that keep energy prices artificially cheap to make global production cheaper. That will end when we hit "Peak Oil" in just a few years.

The US sends convicted criminals like Iran/Contra thug Otto Reich to Latin American countries to "orchestrate" globalization progress like FTAA. The message is clear, turn your government over to corporate control, or we will overthrow your government.

The US had the leader of Chile murdered in 1973. The US overthrew the government of Guatemala (to aid United Fruit Company, I recall). The US invaded Nicaragua four times in the 20th century. The threat is real.

[Kolesar]

10. Are union organizers permitted, or are they murdered in the night?

Are there air pollution laws in these countries, or do the corporations move there to evade the cost of pollution control?

No wonder we call it "the race to the bottom".

[ibegurpard]

11. I certainly don't blame ANY country for doing what they need to do

to attract investment and jobs. However, I am EXTREMELY angry when MY OWN government enacts policies that allow corporations free reign in exporting jobs to other countries. I am certain that people in India would react the same way.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. I'm not against globalization

as a concept, but I am against globalization if it only means heaping benefits on multi-national corporations who jump from country to country to find the most exploitable work force. Globalization must mean equal rights for all workers; that is, all should be given a living wage (which will vary from nation to nation, of course), none should be forced to work in unsafe conditions or in conditions that amount to slavery, children shall not be exploited as workers, but allowed to get an education,and workers should have a right to organize. Globalization also must mean the careful use of the environment so that we, as a planet, can survive.

Right now, I see globalization benefitting only a few wealthy individuals at the expense of workers and the environment. I am certainly willing to forego farm subsidies in this country, but hope that this won't mean factory farms are merely exported to Africa. We are all one people and one planet, and we need to start remembering that if one person, one plant is exploited or hurt, we all are.

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. No. Societies make choices. The west has the culture it has chosen

If you would feel sorry, feel sorry for the ones who never had a "tech job" to lose, who live in that 75% bottom income tier, who don't have either internet access or the discretionary time to post to message boards, for whom voting is not practical, and by design - if poor people voted in the US, it would be, for all practical purposes, a revolution. You won't see either Dem or Repub candidates calling for having the polls open for 10 days, taking the polls to the people, etc. - It would not be in the best interests of either the politicians themselves or the corporations who fund them.

Feel sorry for those in the top 25% affluent voting tier whose knowlege of the world comes from CNN and Fox, those whom neither formal education nor culture has encouraged independent thought, who see ignorance as a luxury indicative of perceived status, superficiality as desirable, empathy as a weakness, and self-absorption as an art form.

Feel sorry for the people in the East, in Latin America, working 12 hour shifts without overtime for a fraction of the pay the corporation would have to part with in the US, so happy are they to be able to afford even a little food, they do not realize they are the new Serf Class, that there will be no "advancement," no "upward mobiity," that this is it. The closest they will get to their dream of western affluence will be that little bit of food, which will increase in price before anyone gets plump.

Feel sorry, too, for the ones who come to the US, with or without papers, to become a slave to the clock, a disposable, replaceable unit of someone else's profit, to feed a family they will no longer see, on salaries that will barely feed themselves.

But at the same time that you feel sorry, understand that all have, in one way or another, opted in to a doomed thing.

Only when the inevitable happens, and they themselves feel sorry enough to opt out, can they demand anything more than the sympathy one feels for a willing victim.

[jonoboy]

16. and once the usefulness of those with the outsourced jobs

has been reached they will be ditched just like everyone else.
Your anger should be directed at the corporations who have no loyalty to anyone but their shareholders.

[spooky3]

17. thanks to everyone for an interesting and civilized thread on a difficult

issue.

[ethimtemp]

19. Outsourced jobs to India vs. Constitution

One of the reasons why folks are upset with the outsourcing is not due to our feelings of "entitlement" or other nonsense.

The preamble of the U.S. constitution specifically states that one of the five purposes of forming this country is to "promote the general welfare" of it's citizens and the following generations. It is NOT the purpose of our country to take care of India. It is the Indian govt. job to look after its citizens.

The wholesale outsourcing (not just a corporate location in a foreign country) of American jobs is not in line with "promoting the general welfare" of U.S. citizens.

It is bothersome to pick of a U.S. magazine and read about Indian workers mocking and ridiculing the misery that U.S. workers are enduring.

It's just a matter of time before something will be done about the situation. Just my 2cts.

[lostnfound]

20. After NAFTA, Mexico exports people not corn. Ag jobs lost > mfg job gain.

I used to think that Americans who believed in 'buying American' were short-sighted, narrow-minded and selfish. (In other words, I agreed with you! ;) )

But now, after learning that Mexican poverty has doubled, and that entire communities have been destroyed as US-subsidized ag products forced their way into Mexico, and that the manufacturing jobs were quickly moved on from Mexico to China, Korea and Vietnam, I'm not sure that ANYONE is benefitting except for the wealthiest.

I don't know the answers, but I do know that the questions are NOT being asked of the citizenry or in public, but only being posed to the heads of large corporations. And I believe that job migration is in many cases accompanied by increased pollution and decreased worker benefits. If workers in India start trying to organize to get better benefits, won't the jobs simply move again?

[Liberal Veteran]

21. It's not a sense of entitlement...It's a sense of betrayal.

I am a worker who had his job outsourced to India. I spent close to five years before that giving the company I worked for a good bargain for their dollar and in doing so I (and my co-workers) helped make the company one of the most profitable and successful corporations in the world. Perhaps I could have taken this better if my company had been in financial difficulties and this was a move to save the business, but it wasn't. The company I worked for was, at the time my job was outsourced, literally making money hand over fist and still is.

Do I blame the workers in India? Of course not. I blame the corporations and the culture of greed that caused them to literally betray the people who helped make their company a success.

I didn't ask for a lot in return from my company. A safe working environment, health care, enough money to support my household, and maybe a few days vacation a year. That's something that every worker should have, whether they are in India or the US.

[dkamin]

22. truth is

this country has been depending on "foreigners" for many years now. as others have pointed out, this country has enjoyed an incredibly high standard of living, despite a subpar infrastructure and educational system. i personally think there are two drivers for this: 1) immigrant knowledge labor; and 2) foreign investment.

as immigrants are staying away, going elsewhere, and/or being denied entry into the US, and as foreign investors start to seek better returns elsewhere, I fear that we will collapse as an economic superpower.

europe is the model for the 21st century.