Thinking of Yourself as a Global Commodity

Thinking of your work as a global commodity
 
Outsourcing is becoming the way of the world, and national boundaries mean less and less as workers and work cross these boundaries. Most of us work for a boss in our home country and are not aware that our skills are globally valuable commodities.  Perhaps you live in Shanghai and know how to make xiao-long-bao.  Did you know that those dumplings you make have a value in America and France? But, its more complicated than that.  Your income in New York making dumplings might be ten times what you could make in Shanghai.
 
If you work for yourself and have to market your services, you are more acutely aware of what different individuals will pay for your services and how much of your services they will use.  Very few self employed people deal with other countries or even cross language barriers within their own country.
 
I believe that the American Paranoia of outsourcing is based on the fact that we don’t understand our value. If a job can be taken away from us, perhaps we are not the best person to do that job in the first place.  And if we don’t “own” the job, then it is not taken from us, since we never owned it in the first place. Its the boss who owns the job, not the worker.
 
What Americans need to understand is that we in America also receive outsourcing jobs daily.  We just don’t hear about it so much on the news, so we are not aware of it.  America has vast expanses of arable land. Even with the global water crisis, our infrastructure keeps almost all areas hydrated with the exception of Deaf Smith County, TX which has gone dry.  Our ultra-modern farming techniques and cheap land allow us to have the best price for some of the best beef in the world.  America exports shiploads of beef to Japan and other countries every year.  America is number one in the world at weapon construction, and we export our means of destruction around the globe daily.
 
India is losing call center work to the Philippines because the Filipinos have better language skills.  India is losing IT work to China because the Chinese have better infrastructure, speed, and internet connectivity.  America is not the only losing jobs.  But, the jobs that left America, are leaving certain destination countries and going to other destination countries due to differences in worker capabilities and general costs.  The way to get and keep jobs is to be the most capable and efficient.
 
Americans need to know that if we are the most capable player in any industry, we will attract work. The key is to have assets and capabilities which can not be swiped by the competition.  Land and highly specialized skills are America’s ace in the hole.  But, not everybody in America has these skills.  I personally don’t feel that its fair that a laborer in America gets paid $70 per day while one in India might make 50 cents per day.  As the world becomes interconnected, we might find that the Americans with super-specialized skills get $200,000 per year, while unskilled laborers have their wages reduced to $20 per day.  If you slept through math class, you will soon find out what I’m talking about.
 
If unskilled labor is not outsourced, illegal immigrants can easily cross the border to do the work right here.  Currently, the INS makes it really difficult for people to cross over, but if those restrictions are loosened in the next few years, labor prices in the U.S. could go down to $4 per hour.  On the brighter side, with such competitive rates for labor, maybe other countries will outsource their manufacturing to us!  Additionally, many of the services we require might become a lot less expensive too!