It seems that Yeats waxed prophetic when, more than a century ago, he announced, “The center does not hold.” Americans increasingly inhabit a fluid world; where traditional industries wither like grass, and a new crop sprouts yearly; where technology unleashes a flood of possibilities, surging either to lift men, or to drown them. Predictably, such a world elicits mixed responses.
Lee works for the Ford production plant in Chongqing, where he earns about $200 a month (double the wages at his prior job), building the same cars that Dale once built for $2400 a month in Detroit. Dale’s union regularly called for reduced hours; Lee eagerly volunteers to work on Labor Day. Likewise, Pratini, an employee of Wipro Technologies in Bangalore, now handles the Delta customer services calls once answered by Patti from the Delta headquarters in Atlanta.
However, the departure of low-end manufacturing and services for the East by no means captures the essence of globalization. Consider this: Wipro, the seeming enemy of the Georgian workforce, is opening a development center in Atlanta, staffed by up to 500 domain experts and programmers, which will allow it to expand and personalize its “technology services business” in the Americas. Likewise, Infosys, a leader in service outsourcing, now also specializes in high-end business consulting for American firms. Take a deep breath, because your world has just somersaulted: the Indian outsourcer stole the chuck steak from Patti’s table, only to offer a sirloin in exchange; the upstart Third World company now tutors confused Californian start-ups in adapting to globalization.
Some perspective will help to untangle this mess. Between 2004 and 2014, America will lose about 80,000 production jobs, a decline of only .7%. However, growth in business management, healthcare, computer science, and other high-paying industries should add nearly 13.5 million jobs to the economy. Network analysis, a profession requiring only a bachelor’s degree, should grow as much as 55% in that time.
These statistics are merely projections, not promises. Americans must face an awful truth: Eastern workers do not want to build our cars, but to design them; not take our phone calls, but write our voice-identification software. However, the stories of Wipro and Infosys offer hope: by breaking down barriers, globalization can replace the zero-sum mindset of nationalist competition with imaginative, trusting collaboration and innovation. When fiber-optics allow technology firms to run 24/7 research programs across three continents, cutting development time by two months, and costs by 30%, everyone wins, be they in India, or Indiana.
Americans must abandon protectionist ideology, and embrace a vision of a seamless, digitally integrated world of wireless collaboration. They must realize this dream by renewing the Western passion for preeminence in math and science. They must aid the displaced, not by trapping them in stagnant industries, but by continually educating them for better work in emerging fields. Globalization has brought India and China to an arm’s length: our future depends on our embracing them as brothers, and working with them as friends.
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