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Now that "outsourcing" has begun to hit the professional class, there is much outrage in liberal circles, including a thread here on the subject approaching 400 posts. Presidential candidates are being asked what they would do about it and the media are full of stories about people who used to knock down $100k but are now having to do menial labor.
We're right to be angry about this, and it is long past time for those in power to answer for it.
But exporting jobs is nothing new. People in manufacturing have been helplessly watching their jobs leave the country for twenty years now, and the usual response, even of many alleged liberals, has been along the lines, of "Gee, that's really sad, but free trade benefits everybody and besides, you people didn't update your skill set." All those folks working in clothing and shoe factories should have just become java programmers, I guess.
It's hard not to see this sudden awareness of job exportation as an example of selective outrage. It was no big deal while it was happening to hicks in the sticks, but now that it has hit the white-collar class, it's a Very Important Issue.
But I think that something even more important is at issue here. In a masterful bit of divide-and-conquer, those who run things have convinced many American professionals that they are a class apart from the guys out on the loading dock. But now the truth has come out: the bosses don't think any more highly of professionals than they do of the shipping crew and are no more hesitant to can them if it can bump up the stock price.
In other words, regardless of what you wear to work and how smooth your hands are, if you work for a paycheck, you are a prole. Only if the professional class learns that they share more interests with the blue-collar crowd than with the corporate elite will there be any real change.
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