Corporations and the Social Contract

From time to time, I'll see an article pop up about jobs being exported overseas, or the importation of workers on work visas. When I see these articles, I'm usually left with the same thought: What happened to the social contract?

Thousands of Americans have fought and died to keep the democratic ideals of America alive and well, such as the private ownership of property, and the right to free speech. In America, you can be like George Soros and speak out against the government, and even try and use your money to unseat the powers that be. In stark contrast is Russia, where Russia's richest man, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky has been put in jail and had his stocks seized for daring to challenge the Russian President. In America, no matter how successful a company, the executives need not fear that the government will try and seize control of the company.

Thanks to the democratic principles of America, this country is the richest nation in the world, and will continue to be for the forseeable future.

But the corporations that have been enriched by America aren't fulfilling their end of the social contract. Rather than sharing the wealth with Americans, they bring foreigners in.

I worked at Microsoft for a while, and saw a lot of computer programmers being imported from India on work visas. It was no secret why: Microsoft paid them, on average, 30% less than their American counterparts. It seems shameful to me that a company like Microsoft would turn its back on skilled American programmers and bring in foreigners for no other reason than to save money.

Of course, even more insidious than needlessly importing foreign workers is exporting jobs for no reason other than to save money. The U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics has estimated that over 450,000 Americans lost their jobs due to NAFTA alone.

What follows is an excerpt from callcenterinindia.blogspot.com:

One company, Gartner, said information technology companies will move one in 10 jobs offshore by the end of 2004. Forrester Research said 3.3 million tech and service jobs will leave the country by 2015.

U.S. banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies and mutual funds will send 500,000 jobs, or 8 percent of their workforce, offshore within the next five years, according to consulting firm A.T Kearney.

Between banks and tech companies, nearly 4 million jobs will be sent overseas. Why? This next excerpt from the same blog says it all:

"Yet Indian employees make $2,800 to $8,000 a year, compared with $30,000 to $45,000 for comparable American workers."

That means that just between banks and tech companies, $152 billion dollars in salaries will leave the country. How's that for corporate loyalty to the country?