Lou Dobbs’ ‘Exporting America’ Dispels 12 Myths About Outsourcing
Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed is Shipping American Jobs Overseas. Lou Dobbs. New York: Warner Books. 2004. ISBN 0446577448. Available from Amazon.com for $13.57.
Hardly a month goes in which a newspaper somewhere in the United States does not report of a company closing, life-long employees suddenly without jobs that are being given to Mexico, to China, or similar countries where the employees are not paid $10 an hour but rather $1.00….or even less.
Supporters of this increasing trend say that such outsourcing makes American businesses better able to compete in the world market (and indeed, the salaries of CEOs are booming). Lou Dobbs, journalist and anchor of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, is on the other side of the question. He believes outsourcing jobs is destroying middle class America, and in Exporting America, he explains why.
“India can provide our software” he points out. “China can provide our toys. Sri Lanka can make our clothes. Japan can make our cars. But at some point we have to ask, what will we export? At what will Americans work?”
Dobbs explores the reasons behind the support for corporate outsourcing from our government and from the companies themselves, and gives the background on just a few of these that have most recently sent their work overseas. He does so in simple prose that anyone can understand, and yet does not talk down to the reader.
Dobbs presents and attempts to dispel 12 myths:
1) Outsourcing American jobs is good for our economy
2) Outsourcing has improved productivity growth and the creation of high-value jobs
3) Outsourcing is simply a part of free trade, and classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo would love it
4) Our economy and consumers are strong enough to run large chronic deficits, and historically a trade surplus is a sign of a weakening economy.
5) The only alternative to free trade is protectionism or “economic isolationism”
6) Job retraining is the way to deal with outsourcing. Whenever industries and jobs have left our shores, we’re retrained the workers for better jobs. That’ll happen this time.
7) Outsourcing benefits everyone. Look at what happens when Honda outsources to the United States and builds cars here. The United States is insourcing as many jobs as it’s exporting.
8) The goal of outsourcing jobs overseas is to increase productivity, not simply to cut wage costs.
9) When Corporate America outsources jobs overseas, it enlarges its knowledge base and creates not only more jobs here but high-value jobs.
10) We want to see countries like India prosper. Outsourcing helps their economies and their workers.
11) U. S. multinationals are outsourcing because Americans aren’t well enough educated to fill the jobs.
12) U.S. companies have to compete in a world market. Even if everyone agreed that outsourcing is terrible, there’s no way to stop it.
Dobbs does more than explain the problem, however, he also offers solutions, and that’s a key part of any book of this nature.
Lou Dobbs has been a vocal advocate against outsourcing since 2003, when he made it a point to include a report on the trend in his CNN program practically every night. In this book he also explains the battles he’s had to fight with corporate America and the government who have assailed him for his views.
He ends the book with a brief selection of letters from people who have been effected by outsourcing…to bring home the ‘grief and pain’ of Americans who have lost their jobs. And he’s also provided in an appendix a list of U.S. companies that have send jobs overseas, or choose to employ cheap overseas labor instead of American workers.
Outsourcing is a complex issue in America today, and this is an excellent introduction to the principles involved. Everyone who is attempting to fulfill their American dream should read this book.
