Outsourcing and Patriotism

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/election04/19625/

 

Outsourcing and Patriotism

By Bill Moyers, NOW

 

Posted on August 21, 2004,

http://www.alternet.org/story/19625/

 

Following is Bill Moyers inteview with CNN's Lou Dobbs

on the PBS program NOW. Moyers starts the interview by

discussing Dobbs' new book, " Exporting America : Why

Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas. "

 

Bill Moyers: This book is more than an economic

argument, it's a political manifesto. Let me read you

the opening paragraph. Quote, " The power of big

business over our national life has never been

greater. Never have there been fewer business leaders

willing to commit to the national interest over the

selfish interest for the good of the company over that

of the company's they head. " Are you saying that these

companies are unpatriotic for outsourcing jobs?

 

Lou Dobbs: I'm saying not that they're unpatriotic but

they're absolutely indifferent to the national

interest, that they have given other interests primacy

over the national interest. They've done so because,

in my opinion, of a cultural shift over the last three

to four decades in this country. The absence of a

countervailing political influence to the power of

corporate America. Lobbyists, think tanks, across the

board the power of corporate America is unparalleled

in Washington, DC.

 

Moyers: It's not just corporations that are

outsourcing jobs though. I mean in your own book you

report 40 state governments, hospitals, even the

non-profit Smithsonian Institution...

 

Dobbs: Right.

 

Moyers: [is] sending jobs abroad looking for cheaper

labor and for skilled workers.

 

Dobbs: And in each instance the enablers are corporate

America. They are businesses whose business it is to

kill American jobs and to ship those jobs overseas.

This is insidious, it is spreading, it is absolutely

dangerous in ever respect.

 

Moyers: I'm no economist. Made only a B in economics

by sitting next to my wife who was very helpful to me.

She made an A. But even I know that services are now

so much a part of any advanced economy that it seems

inevitable that some service jobs will go to where

they can be performed more cheaply.

 

Dobbs: I think that's right. And I think that

international trade is a reality of our modern

existence. And it should be. I believe however that

the idea that our middle class should be forced to

compete on a price basis with those workers in an

emerging market who are making in many cases cents,

while our workers are making $15 to $20 an hour is

totally unfair.

 

We're talking about not an economic judgment but a

political judgment, a social judgment. What kind of

country do we want? Do we want to destroy the middle

class? Because if we do let's continue outsourcing

jobs.

 

Moyers: But the law of classic comparative

advantage...

 

Dobbs: Sure.

 

Moyers: ...has an affect. If a car if can be made more

cheaply in Mexico that's where it should be made.

 

Dobbs: Right.

 

Moyers: If our telephone bill can be processed more

cheaply in India that's where it should be sent.

 

Dobbs: Actually Ricardo did not suggest in any way....

 

Moyers: The great economist.

 

Dobbs: The economist who is the father of the

comparative and absolute advantage. He did not in any

way suggest that you should have the middle class of

any country competing with 30 million unemployed

Chinese. He never dreamed about the portability of the

factors of production, capital and labor, our

knowledge base, our technological advantages, which

are being exported and sent to these countries for no

other reason than the fact that their labor is cheaper

than ours. And the idea that we would put our labor

force in competition with the labor force in the case

of India that's basically double our size, most of

whom speak English, and work for about a tenth of our

wages, is a political judgment. It is not an economic

judgment.

 

Moyers: A political judgment?

 

Dobbs: Absolutely.

 

Moyers: But libertarian economists like Lew Rockwell,

who's been on this show, says it's government that's

driving these jobs overseas by their high taxation, by

regulation, by the big cost of lawyers.

 

Dobbs: And I think there's a good case to be made that

regulation, tort law, healthcare adds about, according

to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, about 22 percent to

the cost of goods. So what. It's part of the cost of a

better life. That's what this society is. We're a

democratic free enterprise society. Unparalleled in

our success.

 

Are we to absolutely turn back the clock on every

achievement that we've made to improve the lives of

our citizens in order for a U.S. multinational to get

cheaper labor in Romania or the Philippines or India

or China? I don't think so.

 

Moyers: But isn't it an economic fact that people

who's skills are obsolete or who don't seek the

requisite education and training will be left behind

in the worlds changing markets? A world that Adam

Smith and David Ricardo never could imagine.

 

Dobbs: I think that that is probably a fair statement.

But not necessarily relevant to outsourcing. They're

not sending those jobs overseas because the labor

force in this country is not capable of conducting a

business operation of actually doing those job. Not

because they have an inferior education.

 

They're doing so because they, the financial

institution, can pay cents on the dollar for labor in

India, or the Philippines, or Romania and have to pay

a living wage that provides a meaningful improvement

in the quality of life for an American employee. And

that's – that's damnable to me. Do you remember

through the 1980's and the 1990's when you heard

corporate leaders and some of the best management

consultants in the world talking about the empowerment

of the employee. The importance of empowerment to

provide the basis for innovation. The importance of

having a happy, satisfied, educated, striving,

aspirational employee in order to drive the successful

corporation. That talk has disappeared.

 

Corporate America through its own devices over the

course of the past decade has created an adversarial

of relationship between the employee and the corporate

leaders. And that's unfortunate. And so, yes, I think

you not only can be sentimental, and I think there's

room for it, but in driving a business you have a

responsibility to a variety of stakeholders.

 

You have a responsibility not only to your investors,

you have a responsibility to the marketplace, you have

a responsibility to your customers, to the community

in which you work. You have a responsibility to the

country that makes your business possible in the first

place.

 

Moyers: Heresy. Are you a traitor to your class? The

investor class.

 

Dobbs: Well, I'm, you know, I think most of us are

investors. And I hardly think I'm a traitor. I think

it's traitors and treasonous and absolutely ignorant

for these people to be out ballyhooing double digit

returns on equities when first we have to get our

house in order in this country. And bring back

integrity, principle, leadership to our business

enterprises, to our markets. And try to do a lot

better for the people who count. That is the middle

class.

 

Moyers: The powerful editorial page of The Economist

says, Lou Dobbs has embarked on an anti-trade tirade.

And that you greet each new announcement of

outsourcing, like the one in the New York Times this

morning, as akin to a terrorist assault.

 

Dobbs: Right. Well, the excess I assure you is not on

my side. Those critics, whether it be The Economist, a

number of other writers, using language like that,

it's silly. And they're not dealing with the arguments

that I'm putting forward. The argument I'm putting

forward is – is simple, don't put our middle class at

risk by forcing only one element of our society and

our economy to compete against the world. Particularly

the cheap foreign labor.

 

I'm not on a Jihad. I'm trying simply to wake people

up. Trying to point out that we deserve far better

representation in Washington than we're getting. And

corporate America deserves somewhat less

representation in Washington. Some proportion, some

balance.

 

Moyers: You say in your book that quote, " Corporations

have overwhelmed government in the borderless global

economy. " How so?

 

Dobbs: They've overwhelmed it because they have had

the maximum influence in lobbying, the creation of

international trade agreements in the direction of

this economy. The World Trade Organization and NAFTA

it now turns out are really outsourcing agreements.

They give corporate America an opportunity to move

plant, production and yes jobs to Mexico, to any part

of the world and ship back into this market.

 

Moyers: But your book is somewhat pessimistic on this.

Because as you say this didn't just happen, this is

the result of political decisions over the last

quarter century. And you say big business all but

controls the knowledge base on which Congress usually

makes decisions –

 

Dobbs: Absolutely.

 

Moyers: – affecting economics and business. And that

corporate interests spend more money on lobbying than

the federal government spends on the staff of

congress.

 

Dobbs: That's right. We need a counter veiling

influence to corporate America. One time it was

organized labor. Labor has been so weakened in this

country by both the force of corporate America and

also by it's own missteps and misjudgments and

weaknesses. We need to find a role for institutions

that can provide a countervailing influence.

 

What concerns me deeply though is that academia, our

universities, many of them who resisted funding by the

CIA or the federal government in the '60s and '70s are

more than quick to embrace those dollars from

corporate America. Understandably they want the money.

But the fact is we're beholden at all cross purposes

to corporate America. The independence of thought in

this country, a countervailing influence is just not

there.

 

Moyers: Aren't both parties, in effect, wholly

subsidiaries of the big corporate donors?

 

Dobbs: Absolutely. And to watch the hundreds of

millions of dollars that have moved into this

campaign, Bill, has to make you sick as it does me.

Because after McCain-Feingold it turns out there were

one or two minor loopholes through which about a half

billion dollars managed to move.

 

Yes, both parties are absolutely loathe to offend

corporate America. They're loathe to look out and say,

" You know, we're a government of the people, by the

people and for the people, " because I don't think the

people, based on the reaction from my viewership, feel

like they're being adequately represented.

 

Moyers: You begin with a stunning quote. I'll read it.

Quote, " The 20th century has been characterized by

three developments of great political importance: the

growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power and

the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of

protecting corporate power against democracy. "

 

Dobbs: Absolutely. Corporate America has at this time

taken – controls the national media. It controls

nearly every avenue of – an American citizen's access

to information about the way he or she lives, about

those forces that are influencing our lives.

 

And corporate America is protected in Washington by

the dollars it spends. It is protected in the media by

some virtue of ownership.

 

Moyers: Do you see any sharp differences between the

two parties in this campaign on this issue? I mean,

John Kerry has been calling the CEOs you write about

Benedict Arnolds. But do you see in the platforms and

the performance and the history of these two parties

any profound difference on it?

 

Dobbs: Unfortunately, no. The Democrats brought us

WTO. They brought us NAFTA in concert with the

Republicans. John Kerry – has come up with some good

ideas on how to incentivize corporations not to

outsource. But Roger Altman, his advisor on economics,

says he's not opposed to outsourcing itself.

 

We can't have it both ways. I want to hear one of

these candidates sharply and clearly say this country

is about the people who live in it. That it's about

your quality of life and we're going to do everything

in our power, irrespective of our party's ideology,

our party platform, we're going to examine carefully

and thoughtfully our future. And we're going to

understand what works and doesn't for the people.

 

Not just the efficiency, the – productivity, the

competitiveness of US multi-nationals which is really

another code word for " you're going to work cheaper

and you're not going to be able to buy as much. " And

you're not gonna be able to provide for your children

and give them that opportunity. I want one of them

desperately to say, " I'm all about America and I'm

going to make it work, damn it. "

 

Moyers: Capitalism has so many contradictions.

 

Dobbs: Absolutely.

 

Moyers: I'm involved with foundations that are out to

save the environment, that nonetheless invest in the

energy companies that pollute.

 

Dobbs: Right.

 

Moyers: Because that's where the money is. I mean

we're all caught in these contradictions. There's a

website run by the Columbia Journalism Review called

CampaignDesk.org. If you go there and click in you'll

find a long article put up there recently called the

two faces of Lou Dobbs. Have you seen it?

 

Dobbs: Sure I have.

 

Moyers: Is there a contradiction in denouncing these

companies on the air and then recommending them as a

financial advisor? Of saying this company is good even

though it's outsourcing?

 

Dobbs: I don't think so. But that may be – and I do

now include the fact that they're outsourcing on – in

investment judgments. But I've never suggested anyone

they make an investment judgment based on whether a

company outsources or does not outsource. I suggest

people make investment decisions based on the value of

the company, the importance, the relevance, the

success of its products. And the commitment of its

management. The commitment of its management to being

a better corporate citizen.

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights

reserved.

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