Is Outsourcing Semi-Skilled Jobs The Problem?

Name: Jan Woo

Question: In your piece on Tyler Cowen, why didn’t you mention that the real problem is the outsourcing of semi-skilled technology jobs to overseas workers? The issue is not technology or innovation per se, but our capitalist economic system that finds it less profitable to employ semi-skilled technology workers in the U.S.

Paul Solman: So what would you suggest? Make everything here, no matter how much it costs to do so? Protect our borders from the cheaper foreign competition that would inevitably result? Autarky is the name for national economic self-sufficiency. It may sound attractive. But don’t you suppose the rest of the world might well continue to trade and compete and eventually leave us behind?

Follow Paul on Twitter.