America: Digging its Own Grave?

With globalization spreading rapidly across the planet, America will watch the collapse of its economy and the end of economic prosperity. Initially, outsourcing was used to relocate and cheapen labor of working class, blue collared people. Politicians and economists alike argued that this would lower costs and lead to increases in spending power for those who didn’t lose their jobs. This would reallocate funds wasted on expensive goods, allowing for people to spend their excess money in other places, stirring the economy. This is true, but only in a temporary, short run situation.

In the eyes of American factory workers, cheaper goods do not translate to larger amounts of dispensable income. They no longer hold the jobs that would provide for these luxuries. Yes, these are the people who purchase their food, clothes, toys, furniture, and everything else they can’t afford to buy at other stores at cheap, mass produced, Wal-Mart prices. The corporations that drove their businesses and jobs off of American soil exploit these blue collared people, and use them to perpetuate and support the same corporate businesses that outsource to other countries. Car manufacturers in Detroit are not pouring more money into circulation in our economy; they give what little amounts of money they have to the wealthy owners of corporate America and to the drug lords creating violence in our streets.

The upper and middle classes of our country ignore these economic woes and continue to send jobs abroad. Martin Niemöller explained the phenomena of ignoring others’ plights:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Middle class jobs are the next in line to be sent to India. Many in America felt that sending physical labor jobs away would encourage skilled jobs requiring high levels of educating to be America’s niche in a new global economy. But then how can lawyers’ jobs already be sent to India, where work is analyzed cheaply overnight? Once other countries have the ability to perform skilled tasks for Americans, the middle class will soon lose their jobs as well. Without jobs and sources of incomes, people in the US will not be able to fund their spending habits. Of course, the richest and most powerful in America will already own the companies abroad, so they will continue to reap the benefits of their high class lives.

As middle class jobs continue to disappear off American soil, a devastating scenario will play out. The US will face another depression. The middle class that currently makes America strong will have been depleted. The bulk of US money that the middle class controlled will not circulate nor stir the economy any longer. The richest 1% will still be rich, but the disparity between rich and poor will have spread apart at irreversible rates. The US will suffer another Great Depression and force its workers to accept the same wages that kids in China are paid.

To avoid an economic collapse and a catastrophic recession, the US government needs to limit outsourcing. Weather America implements change through a series of quotas, high taxes, or other trade barriers or incentives, something must be done. Before a world government with legitimate power arises, short term interests must be protected. The government must act in the interests of its working people before our entire economy and society spiral out of control.

America: Digging its Own Grave?