150 years ago, Karl Marx didn't call it outsourcing, but he had the idea. Capitalism survives from surplus labor. The worker does $100 worth of work per day, for which he is paid $50. The other $50 is surplus that goes to the factory owner. The key to running a profitable factory, according to Marx, was to extract as much surplus labor from your workers as possible. The capitalist that could extract the most labor from his workers in the most efficient manner would be the most successful and drive the other capitalists out of business. Extracting surplus labor was great for the capitalist, but he trouble was, according to Marx, it was dehumanizing and alienating for the workers.
Outsourcing in today's business environment is a natural side effect of the Capitalist society that we live in. In the pursuit of generating larger "bags of cash" for executives and shareholders, the local factory worker (or 'software programmer') has been replaced by a cheaper remote factory worker who will work happily for 1/10th the local worker. This amounts to much more surplus labor, and a large grin on the corporate mucky muck's faces.
Besides, isn't it more fun to dehumanize and alienate people from a different country?
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