Contrarian View From the Pew: Outsourcing

Who is our neighbor? The family next door, the guy down the street, the people across town, those in other Cities, other States, and other countries are all our neighbors. According to the Christian tradition and the teachings of Christ, everyone is our neighbor without exception.

Outsourcing is the business practice by American Corporations of employing foreign workers instead of American workers. It started decades ago when American manufacturers began building plants in the less developed countries in order to reduce their cost of production. It continues today with manufacturing, but now it also includes white collar workers such as accountants, computer programmers, and call center workers.

Outsourcing hurts the American workers who have their job moved to another country. It helps American consumers who are able to buy more for less and it helps American investors who can usually receive a larger return on investment for a short period of time until competition forces equilibrium between supply and demand.

The labor movement has been quick to denounce outsourcing as evil. Many believers who are sympathetic to labor and opposed to capitalism have jumped on the anti-outsourcing band wagon making the claim that outsourcing is immoral because it hurts people, which is true. But like most things in life, there is another side to the outsourcing story. Outsourcing also helps people. It helps workers in other countries support their families and it helps Americans stretch the dollar a little further.

There is an age old debate within the Christian Church between how much effort, time, and money should be spent on outreach and how much effort, time, and money should be spent on building up the Church. The tension is good because in the end we always end up doing both, even though we have to make compromises in the process.

Outsourcing needs the same kind of tension and the same kind of outcome. We need to do both. We need to support foreign workers and we need to support local and American workers. Some people will only buy the least expensive products and services and some people will only buy American products and services. Hopefully, those two groups will balance each other out and the rest of us should consciously do both. We should be helping all of our neighbors, not just the guy next door.