stephenbooth's Journal: Jobs and IP

There's a vaguely interesting article here. The latter part of the article drifts into a rather misguided rant about open source software (the group publishing the article has been known to take money from Microsoft to publish anti-Open Source articles/editorials) but the former part takes an interesting view on outsourcing. The author seems to be saying that US intellectual property (IP) such as patents and copyrights is being lost or diluted by moving production to overseas locations where production is cheaper, offshore outsourcing.

Whilst I'm not sure if the IP aspect is real I certainly see that offshoring is damaging ecopnomies in the 'developed world'. Every job being sent offshore is a job lost to the local workforce. Sure it's good for the share price and dividends that the company can hire two developers offshore for less than the cost of one locally, but someone has lost their livelihood and needs to be suported by the local social care and benefits systems. A couple of days ago theferrett wrote an entry about sweatshops. One of the points he made is that people can afford to work under such poor conditions and for such little money because the general standard of living is so bad that even those conditions are a step up. In a 'developed' there is a floor on the basic survival costs of living. There is a cost below which even the most basic of housing will not drop, even the most basic level of food has a minimum cost. And those costs are higher than the equivalent in the countries to which jobs are being exported. Hence exporting a job puts the high cost of providing basic social care and benefits for someone who could work but cannot find a job onto the economy of their nation, it also reduces the taxation income for that nation.

So, if you don't want your IP to be lost or diluted and don't want your taxes to go up, stop exporting jobs! In the long term an economy must produce to thrive, you stop producing and you die. Look back to history and you'll see exactly the same pattern repeated in Rome, Greece, Ethiopia, China, India and many other places. Dominant cultures (economies) exported their production work (or imported slaves) and set up along a services line, quickly they collapsed as their means of production of wealth was controlled by external forces (often forces that became hostile). And it is a foolish prince that relies on mercenries for his defense.

I also feel that by exploiting the cheap cost fo labour in other nations the 'developed' nations are probably enforcing and extending the poor standards of living in those nations. It is in the interests of those nations to keep poverty rife in the nations they exploit as that keeps their wage bill down. Exploitation breeds poverty, in the short term at least;neventually the former slaves rise up and become the masters.