A New Take on Outsourcing

[modestyblase]

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8956676

There is an article in a recent issue of the economist regarding outsourcing to India. Until recently I have maintained opposition to outsourcing for a myriad of mainly leftist reasons: your moving our money to another country and effectually hurting the economy, the laborers and craftsmen here are losing their only viable means of income, etc. While I realize now that more applied concern must be taken to ensuring that the livelihood of workers are not at immediate and damning risk when their jobs are outsourced-and I am certainly in favor of companies advancing workers skillsets, etc-I also realize that: outsourcing isn't a bad thing for the global economy.

There have been recent articles of China investing in Africa. Certainly, China is already outsourcing to a greater extent than India(rather impressively aggressive, considering their revenues are not nearly as high as India's)and so the effects of outsourcing to provide more income and opportunity is growing. US Dollars pouring into China has given them revenues and opportunity to outsource themselves, and I can see this will have significant impact on African nations.

Therein lies the problem, though: In Africa, as in many thirld world countries, the citizenry is poor due not to lack of capital in their country but due to lack of access to capital at the individual level. Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital outlines this(albeit with reports and evidence in favor of deSoto's views)phenomenon quite well. Academic papers offer even more fairly balanced critiques of this issue of access to capital. As is well known, most African leaders are mediocre at best; it will take careful effort by those currently investing in China to avoid wage slave labor of remarkable proportions from occurring.

Do you think this is possible? Do you notice any companies leading by example? I'm impressed by Apple's more thoughtful outsourcing. Do you think this could be the chance Africa finally has to restructure their governments-which will take the pressures of the investors to do naturally-and allow the capital to flow and improve living conditions?

I've not yet formed a definite opinion, but if a concerned effort is given, Africa may be very different in a few decades.

[kimba1]

africa will more like lt will grow even faster than india,due to the fact it`s china investing in it.
our method of outsourcing has massive stipulation(with good reasons)

chinese business does do that,so runaway growth is very possible.
it`s up to whatever african country to take advatage of this.

america has less than ten years to see the results of giving india the resources to become our business rivals.
those stipulation only slowed them down.
it so bad now,my friends just got contracted to go to india to set-up a network,because none of the locals can be trusted with the copyrights.
the blackmarket on software is huge in asia.

[modestyblase]

Growth in China is slowing, currently labor shortages are affecting many countries. Also, China doesn't have as much expendable capital as India-about half of India's profits, actually.
I don't see India as investing in Africa, though, and it makes me wonder about the future of India. Due to the black market you mentioned, India is in a viable position to outsource and increase the skillset of its working base while mooching not only off our dollars but off of the copyright and systems infringements, but I'm not seeing that happen. If of course you have articles to the contrary let me know. I don't have time to research this to the extent it warrants.

With China investing in Africa, I hope to see the investors challenge the status quo and demand bureaucratic changes so that capital is more evenly distributed. It really seems to be Africa's only hope, and certainly money could fuel that.