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Outsourcing
Outrage from the Freedom Haters
by
Greg Perry
by Greg Perry
Labels are
nice. I’ve noticed that most LewRockwell.com readers don’t fear
labels. They call a neocon a neocon. Many readers call themselves
Libertarians and do so proudly. Some devoted LewRockwell.com readers
disagree with Libertarians on some issues but agree on most. They
often label themselves Christians. Some call themselves Liberals
but only in the classic sense of the word.
Labels are
good. If someone tells me he is a Libertarian, I know a lot about
that person and about how I can frame a conversation. That one word
gives me a strong clue on likes, dislikes, agreements, and disagreements.
I know from that one label what we have in common. Knowing that
label typically makes for a more productive conversation.
That’s why
I prefer labels. I like nouns and adjectives. I guess it’s the author
inside me. I don’t want to toss nouns and adjectives out of our
language. They seem to exist for a good reason.
A Note to
Public School English Teachers
I realize there
might be public school teachers reading this who teach English.
If so, I understand you will be confused. Don’t panic! I’ll explain
things here just for you.
A noun is
a part of speech that names a person, animal, place, thing, or idea.
For any public school English teacher reading this, please note
that Libertarian is a noun in the following sentence:
The homeschooled
Libertarian easily won the grammar contest between her and the
public school English teacher.
An adjective
modifies a noun in some way. An adjective is said to quantity,
qualify, or describe nouns (and other parts of speech such as pronouns).
(What a pronoun is will be left as an exercise to the reader.)
In the following
sentence, you need to understand that Libertarian is now
used as an adjective:
The Christian
used Libertarian and Biblical arguments to prove that the government
has neither the right nor the ability to educate children.
Leftists
(also known as Democrats and Republicans)
About the only
people who hate labels today are today’s liberals – the leftists.
They hate labels when applied to themselves. They don’t like being
called liberals and leftists. That’s why I call them liberals and
leftists.
Micro Outsourcing
Of all the
label people I read and listen to, the only label people who sound
consistent to me on the subject of outsourcing are the Libertarians
(and several Christians).
They seem to
understand that the laws of supply and demand are about as difficult
to violate as the laws of gravity and velocity.
To all the
rest who despise the thought of outsourcing, I have some questions
for you. I have a lot to learn from you because I’ve never understood
how outsourcing in and of itself is evil.
- Do you buy
American-made as often as you can? I’ve heard that this protects
American jobs.
- If you buy
American-made as often as possible, shouldn’t you voluntarily
give money to those who work at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other
stores that primarily sell foreign-made goods? If not, you are
taking away from those American workers. Why don’t you really
care about American jobs?
- How much
do you want to help those in your own state as opposed to those
other states, you know, some of the kind-of foreign states such
as California and Massachusetts? Sure, we’re all Americans but
some are more American than others (like the ones who "only
buy American"). If you don’t buy products made in your state,
shouldn’t you try harder to help those who live around you? Your
close friends will appreciate it if you buy products that help
your state’s economy as opposed to sending money outside your
great state.
- But what
if you live close to a county line as I do? Do I buy inside my
own county? Most of my family lives in the other county. So do
I help my immediate family by buying within the county I live
in or do I help my larger, extended family by purchasing goods
and services in their county?
- Almost everybody
I interact daily lives in my town. So now that I’m learning more
from you about this outsourcing evil, perhaps I should stop buying
products that might be made in my county but not made in my specific
town. After all, if my friend who lives 2 miles from me will benefit
when I hire him to cut down a tree, then I should hire him even
though a lawn service that resides in the next town over (still
inside our county) does the job much quicker and for far less
money. After all, outsourcing is not a money issue it’s a freedom
issue, right? Why should I reward people I don’t know if it means
friends of mine might need jobs?
- You know,
I might agree with you that we should buy on our own soil
and get goods and services produced within our own town. Sales
tax revenue stays here and isn’t that what really matters? Making
as much sales tax revenue as possible to give those in our own
town a helping hand? But you need to understand that I am very
close to the neighbors in our neighborhood. I don’t know those
rascals who live on the other side of the highway. And now that
I’m thinking this through, I probably won’t like them very much
anyway. I’m sitting here getting steamed because they’re over
there trying to take jobs away from my neighbors. Please advise
me, I think we should stop sending jobs over to the next neighborhood
making them rich when our own neighborhood suffers as a result.
- Of course,
then there’s my wife to consider. If I limit my buying to goods
and services that only my neighbors can produce, I’m taking opportunity
away from my wife. Perhaps if I didn’t outsource that labor to
my neighbor, my wife would have work. (When I married her 16 years
ago, I rescued her from teaching in the government schools and
she’s been a homemaker ever since. Leftists would want her to
work. Leftists hate women.) I don’t want to outsource jobs to
my neighbor if it means my wife might be left out of the job-bidding
process. Shouldn’t I only buy goods and services that my wife
provides? Sounds good; I’d love for her to wash my truck.
- If there’s
one thing I’ve learned from the outsourcing debate, it’s this:
never send a job elsewhere when it can be done right here a lot
more expensively, a lot less efficiently, and far less reliably.
I shouldn’t hire my wife to wash my truck. Why should SHE benefit
when I can do the work? That would ensure that the job doesn’t
go elsewhere but remains right here where it benefits Good Ol’
ME.
Thanks for
your help! I will perform every service I need and produce every
good I need in the future. Perhaps some division of labor issues
will rear up at times but how difficult can it be? If the xenophobes
(er, I mean enemies of outsourcing) are correct, it means a job
stays where it really matters, and that’s right here with ME.
Nuts to those
foreigners who live overseas!
Nuts to those
who live out of state, some are in a different voting color as my
state.
Nuts to those
who live in other counties as they take away tax revenue from mine.
 Nuts
to those who live in my town but steal jobs from my poor neighborhood
and give those jobs to less costly workers who might live on the
other side of the tracks.
Nuts to those
who live in my neighborhood who would take a job that my wife could
do.
Nuts to my
wife, what about ME?
The Final
Solution
The buck starts
and stops here. I will only use goods and services that I can produce.
 I’ll
start with something simple.
Really simple.
I’ll make me
a cheap, wooden pencil.
April
12, 2006
Greg
Perry [send him mail] is
the pistol-packing author of more than 75 books. What he does best
is teach others how to maximize their eBay income. That's because
he smashes his eBay competitors by implementing time-proven Direct
Marketing techniques that others completely ignore. If you've ever
considered eBay, you'll make far more money when you read his newest
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© 2006 LewRockwell.com
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