The Problem With Anti-Outsourcing Rhetoric

[liberalpragmatist]

The recent kerfuffle between the Hillary and Obama campaigns over his anti-outsourcing memo laid bare an issue that needs to be addressed.

Let me be clear - I don't want this thread to become another Hillary vs. Obama slugfest; my own preference remains Obama, despite my South Asian heritage, as I highly doubt this document was his work and even if it was, I'm willing to overlook it's distastefulness in favor of a larger picture.

But the problem the memo displays is a common one I see around DU and in a lot of anti-outsourcing sentiment. I'm not attacking those who criticize outsourcing; rather, I'm attacking those who attack outsourcing by consistently linking it with the association with India. People need to make a clearer distinction between criticizing outsourcing and criticizing a nation and its people. And it is racially sensitive to emphasize "India" and "Indians" in a pejorative context. And no, I'm not just talking about the "D-Punjab" line but the letter's tone of hostility to Indians and India.

Plenty of DU'ers, even those who have no racist sympathies, will defend such remarks by saying they're just attacking dual loyalty and the beneficiary of outsourcing. But those who claim that consistently repeating "India" or tarring people with guilt-by-association isn't racism need to consider the rhetoric of, say, the Minute Men or people like Tom Tancredo. They don't employ literally racist language, but they consistently discuss the "threat" that "Mexicans" represent. Or consider the Willie Horton ad, which didn't do anything explicitly racist but clearly played on people's fears of Blacks in its gratuitous use of his picture.

And frankly this gets at a larger issue - all too often on DU, people go from simply criticizing free trade to demonizing other countries; you can do the first without doing the other. Other countries are simply trying to compete on the terms the world powers have laid out. Criticize the terms on which competition takes place, not the countries and not the people.

[Deja Q]

1. Only because nothing clear nor concise has been said.

We're left to guess if offshoring is a state in an eventual one-world, one-government, one-economy that we will prosper in... or if it's greed... or if it's dismantling and ultimately discarding a used up country (and you should read some of the ideas fundies are coming up with. The EMP one is the best, and most popcorn-deserving...)...

We can only have faith that it's about evening the playing field... but as I've said before, how come the cost of living in America hasn't matched India's, China's, Japan's, or anyone else's cost of living? ;) And why do the executives transfer their wealth to other currencies, such as the Euro as if it is about leveling the entire playing field, they're going to have take a hit.

How much longer are people going to be left to make blind inferences, which can lead to wrong actions as well?!

You tell me where the truth is.


Edited: Minor clarification (popcorn)

[ananda]

4. It's bypassing labor laws and practices.

Outsourcing is about using cheap or slave labor
without any rules, in a place where many people
are so poor that they'll do anything.

Sue

[Deja Q]

5. Yet, for example, India is building a middle class and China has pulled 1/3rd its populace out of

poverty.

That doesn't sound like slave labor to me.

I'll agree, there are lax or even non-existing regulations in those countries. So it's up to their governments to do something about it.

Unless we're becoming a one-world government?

[RB TexLa]

2. It will get worse. I'm waiting for an anti-trade candidate to revive the Jessie Helms ad

With the different color hands holding the layoff slip and the job offer.

"You deserve that American job, now it's been given away to a foreigner." Probably with some music playing to indicate what type of foreigner stole the American job.

[Deja Q]

3. Well, we deserve chances to grow and prosper...

I can understand the perceived positive slants to offshoring, but nobody in a position of authority has bothered to clarify or quantify ANYTHING. That's why people make inferences and that's why other countries are developing middle classes while ours is, apparently, left to rot.

We're offshoring jobs and educating people. Who will decide WHEN the playing field is equal? And will other governments acquiesce to the idea of a one-world government? What are they saying?

And while Americans have been saying "You deserve the job", I've come across Indians who are no less arrogant.

Edit: All we can do is wait and have faith the ultimate intentions are benign.