Commentary

Making Peace with Outsourcing

Via Don Boudreaux, here’s Daniel H. Pink in Wired:

Almost three years ago, Scott Kirwin was Wired‘s pissed off programmer (“The New Face of the Silicon Age,” issue 12.02). Tossed from his job and raging against globalization, he had launched the Information Technology Professionals Association of America to lobby against offshored work and imported workers. These days, Kirwin still works with computers. He’s just less pissed: In June, he shuttered the ITPAA. “I don’t view outsourcing as the big threat it was,” he says. What changed? Well, Kirwin found better work as an analyst and software architect. And he noticed that the talents that make him valuable ââ?¬â?? open-mindedness, a willingness to take risks, flashes of ingenuity ââ?¬â?? couldn’t be reduced to a spec sheet and emailed to Hyderabad. If more Americans develop such abilities, Kirwin believes, the use of Indian programmers could even improve our economic outlook. Outsourcing isn’t going away, he says. “But in the end, America may be stronger for it.”

Related: More happy endings Related: Even more happy endings in this study by Adrian Moore and me (see p. 18) Related: When outsourcing was going to destroy America