Between the lines:
Land of the free, home of the slaves?

Should America stop exploiting foreign labor?

By Patrick Callahan, senior writer
Posted on September 6, 2007

There was a time in our nation’s history when our manufacturing capabilities not only aided in our ascension to the status of world superpower, but also served as the core of our economy. The middle of the last century saw the United States’ industrial machinery pump out more military equipment than the world had ever seen. This surge of production was necessary to strike down the progress of totalitarian regimes seeking regional and global domination.

When the war was over and the soldiers came home, the production lines did not halt. The focus shifted away from mass production of military machinery — especially since the coming of the Cold War conflict would largely be a contest to see who could build and stockpile the biggest Armageddon arsenal — and toward the production of household products, farming equipment, vehicles and the everyday products that not only sustained but enhanced the lives of Americans and consumers around the world.

In a world that had been torn apart by conflict, America kept the fires of production burning in order to fuel the largest reconstruction effort ever conducted. This momentum kept our economy flourishing for the next several decades, especially as soldiers settled down to start families and create further demand for products.

Today our economy has changed a great deal. Whereas it was once based on our manufacturing capabilities, it is now largely victim to the ups and downs of our consumption trends.

Americans have proved themselves to be lousy spenders as our national savings rate has consistently been approximately zero for nearly a decade, yet our incessant desire to line up at the shopping malls in the days and weeks after Thanksgiving is proof of our reliance on consumption — at the micro level for societal reasons and at the macro level for economic stability.

Free trade agreements such as NAFTA and lenient tax policies for multinational corporations have served as a vacuum for our nation’s manufacturing jobs.

Even as you read this, new facilities are being constructed just below our southern border so that companies can produce the products and the parts sold to Americans and others abroad, while paying a significantly reduced rate of pay simply because their plants lie a few miles below the U.S. border.

These instances do not exist solely on our southern border — they are occurring across the globe as companies increasingly choose to outsource their jobs to areas where they can manufacture their products cheaply because there is either a lower standard of living or few if any labor laws to be enforced by the host nation. 

There is not one party or group to blame for this phenomenon. In what is now an undeniably global economy, the competition for production and for economic progress is uncanny. However, it should be alarming to many Americans — although it seems to have reached the radar screen of very few in Congress — just how many of the products we consume today are manufactured abroad. China, our biggest economic rival at the moment, has been financing much of our debt and enjoying the better end of continual trade deficits with the U.S. Is this not a major issue of economic stability and indeed of national security? 

I was fortunate enough to take part in America’s manufacturing industry for three months this summer. I worked at a facility in my hometown of Abingdon in Southwest Virginia.

This particular facility shipped products not only across the expanse of our great nation, but across the globe to places like Saudi Arabia and Puerto Rico. Working side by side with these hardworking, blue-collar Americans, I began to take on a new understanding of what our economy used to be, what it is today, and what it can be in the future. 

Jobs have been lost, labor unions have been weakened, pension plans have been forgotten and entire companies have floundered due to intense competition from foreign entities.

Yet early each morning before the sun peeks its head above the horizon and late at night long after the moon has taken over the skies, America’s factories run their machinery and America’s workers add their labor so that collectively we can continue to feel the pride associated with making something of worth.

It is an indescribable feeling to know that the labor you add to an already technologically advanced process is helping to fuel America’s economy. To see such progress right in front of your eyes is a great thing.

The laborers and supervisors I worked with this summer want to feed their families and educate their children. They want the same thing most Americans want. They are not greedy and they know more than anyone else the value of a hard days work. These are the people and the companies to which we owe our gratitude and our support both on Capitol Hill and here at our own beloved institution.

Patrick Callahan is a senior political science major.