I have spoken on this topic before, and it is unfortunate that I need to talk about it again.

As a devout capitalist, it may seem contrary that I would speak against economic globalization. After all, it’s all about making money, right? Well, yes and no. It’s also about maintaining capital here at home, which means keeping work and production here at home. After all, capitalism doesn’t work if there aren’t jobs to go around. Without money for people to pump into an economy, what good is it?

I have always stood firm that while it may save a penny here or there to ship work overseas, it’s a penny that won’t be spent by an American worker. For every job that is shipped to India or China so that the company can make an extra couple of bucks, there is another American that won’t be able to buy that company’s product or service due to the loss of a job. It’s a very short-sighted way to run a business and an economy.

Worse yet, there is the sacrifice of quality. Is the penny saved worth the additional cost of dealing with an inferior product? Just ask Mattel. Or ask any American worker who is cursed by the plague of cheap components; those who have to deal with high fallout and failure rates as the chips and transistors they put into their products fail due to quality issues.

As an employee of the manufacturing industry in America, I know these things first hand. When a build of 10 power supplies has a 27 page list of repairs due to part failures, you really have to wonder what that penny saved really bought you. Even though our products proudly state “Made in America” on them, I always feel bad that our American Made products are loaded full of cheap foreign parts. Of course, you can’t blame our company for being cheap. Most of the parts we buy aren’t even available from American companies any longer. The ultra-cheap parts from China and Singapore drove the American companies out of business long ago. We’re just now facing the consequences of these actions.

But that much aside, there’s still the human aspect to consider, and that is much more important. My last company was one of the companies driven out of business by cheap foreign labor. We built circuit cards, and after 40 years of building circuit cards, they shut their doors for good last fall. They laid off all of the employees, some of which had been there since the beginning. They were the biggest employer in a small town. While pennies may have been saved here or there by the customers who dropped us in lieu of Chinese parts, America was hurt. A move like that did nothing to bolster capitalism or the economy. It further depressed a small town area and severely crippled a number of workers who would no longer be pumping money into the economy.

And now, sadly, I’m facing the same thing again. I hate to say it, but manufacturing in America is dying, and it’s the American people who are suffering. It’s not just the unskilled or moderately skilled workers either. We currently employ engineers of all kinds, engineering technicians like myself, sales and support staff and a myriad of other employees. Anybody who thinks that sending work offshore doesn’t hurt the economy and capitalism need to have their heads examined. Come October, when the layoffs are due to start in my company, we’ll see just how much the economy gets hurt.

Always remember that the community must come before the globe. The global economy and capitalism as a whole mean nothing if the people in the local community can no longer contribute to it. Keeping jobs in America is one of the most important things we need to work on right now. Take it from somebody who has to face these things once again. Keep America working!