[ecf]

The blame for this is purely on the shoulders of business leaders coming out of MBA programs across the US.

It seems the only thing those places are teaching is how to join a company, strip it to the bone, hype up the short-term 5% growth, and get millions of dollars in raises.

[yaacov]

Blaming individuals doesn’t help, it’s a coordination problem. If any one MBA refuses to outsource they’ll just be outcompetes by someone who does. This is the sort of problem that requires a government to solve

[oceanplexian]

The blame is clearly on the shoulders of politicians and those who keep voting for them. Most of the political class are pushing globalization, and thus align tax incentives towards outsourcing. Imagine if the politicians in charge practiced what they preach and refused to buy or import goods that were produced by countries who don’t meet US labor law or emissions standards. The problem would practically solve itself.

[PKop]

>blame is clearly on the shoulders of politicians and those who keep voting for them

Or a system that depends on "voters" to know any of the nuances and details of manufacturing and supply chain importance, or actually vote with long term broad national interest in mind, instead of short term, out of narrow self-interest, and largely be ignorant of all manner of political, economic and other issues.

[xxpor]

It would also collapse the economy into a depression never seen before, so that may be why it doesn't happen.

[vntx]

I don’t like those MBAs anymore than you but blaming this group is disingenuous and an oversimplification. Business schools train people to profit, and if that comes at the cost of secure supply chains and national security, who cares, it’s not their problem. Someone else mentioned that this is a coordination problem, and I think that’s more accurate. You need governments to help fund these capital intensive ventures and incentives like tax-breaks and the fear of supply chain destroying pandemics to urge them on.

[PKop]

And people wonder why China structures their political system to subordinate the interests of multinational corporations to the longer term interests of the nation, its people and economy as a whole.

[alecco]

To be fair, they are often just following orders: "Maximize shareholder value" with a quarter/year schedule.

[PKop]

Which is why ceding so much power to these entities, rather than vesting that in the state and the people, is a mistake. Of course capital free to come and go and flow wherever it wants will discard a nation and its people's interests to pursue global profit margins at every turn. Just letting that happen with no recourse and restriction is a silly way to run a country.

[m0zg]

MBA programs do not produce "business leaders", except by accident. They produce business _administrators_, which is a different thing entirely, and often the opposite that of a leader. People often confuse management with leadership, and while a manager can be a leader, the two are rarely the same.