Creative Destruction

January 28, 2004

Think your current job is safe? Then read " The new face of the silicon age" An excellent article in the latest issue of wired magazine about the growing trend of outsourcing tech jobs to developing countries. Excerpt:

And if the transition pinches a little, aren't Americans being a tad hypocritical by whining about it? After all, where is it written that IT jobs somehow belong to Americans- and that any non-American who does such work is stealing the job from its rightful owner? Maybe these US programmers should simply adjust. That 's what Indian textile workers did when their country's government opened its quasi-socialistic economy in 1991, says Jairam. Some people lost jobs. They complained, but they found something else to do. Maniar uncorks an aphorism that he doesn't realize I've heard 8,000 times before (in part because American white-collar workers have long said to their blue-collar compadres) - and that I don't realize I'll hear several times again during my stay: " There is nothing permanent except change"

I know that that for most the bleeding of tech jobs to developing countries is a hard pill to swallow. However, I can't help but agree with a basic premise of the article: change is permanent and the sooner we cope with that reality and adapt the better we'll do. So as people did in the past when society moved from a mainly agriculture based economy to manufacturing and then to technology, we must now move on to the next big thing: creativity. Which ties nicely to an article written by Virginia Postrel also for Wired magazine on why the creative shall inherit the economy; The Aesthetic Imperative an article that was also highlighted in this site back in June.