[lbo-talk] Offshoring hi tech work

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Wed Aug 6 00:54:22 PDT 2003


As a senior tech writer with lots of seniority and making big bucks , I figure I'm first in line to be replaced by someone in India or China. Are they equally qualified? Not very likely; it took me two solid years to begin to do decent work and I'm pretty smart nerd-wise. But give that writer a few years and she will probably do fine work. She will most certainly be equally qualified.

I ought to be incensed that they're "giving away my job," but I don't feel incensed. Or rather I don't feel any more incensed than I felt when all the manufacturing workers lost their jobs. In fact the thought of the degradation of labor that has been evolving for the last couple of hundred years -- the death of craftsmanship the replacement of every quality by the pursuit of profit makes me plenty incensed: I don't need a personal reason.

Capitalism works according to its own logic, and its logic dictates that labor costs be minimized. As the organic composition of capital changes to where variable capital becomes a thinner and thinner slice, the capitalist must hunt ever more keenly for his profits. He cannot afford social programs, he cannot afford to pay a middle-class salary, etc. So he hacks away at every "cost" he can find. So, in ten years or so, there won't be a middle-class left to consume much; the USA won't have an educated workforce or any kind of creative capability; the economy will collapse. What do they care? I'm sure they think that all they need is an army to enforce their intellectual property laws and marketers to market what the rest of the world produces. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to get incensed and "do" something about my job disappearing. But in the face of everything I see, fighting for my job will do what? Stem the tide for another five minutes? I will humbly stand corrected if I am wrong, but what am I supposed to fight for? A kinder, gentler capitalism?

Sorry, it doesn't compute.

Joanna



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