[Vula_Design]

I don't write code myself but my startup partner is a programmer in London who has been struggling to make ends meet for a while now. There are certainly jobs to be had, most of which pay fairly equivalent wages to most starting salaries for graduates from what I can tell. However, what he tells me is that increasingly the core programming staff of a company will often be much smaller, with most of their gruntwork done by outsourced code writers in China/India. In this sense then, not only have programmers slipped into the working class, but their jobs have been outsourced with the rest of the manufacturing industry to South East Asia in the name of globalised capitalism. I think if you are looking into the shift of gruntwork programming down the career ladder as it has become such an integral part of the global production economy, then you must look into the growth of outsourced programming.

[manidoraisamy]

I don't think the job lost in US translates into outsourced job anymore. Cloud is destroying lot of bespoke app development, as startups are aggregating those bespoke needs of multiple companies into out-of-the-box apps. "There’s an app for that" is the future and worker class will shrink both in US and India/China.

Also, this outsourcing is a one-sided argument. You have to also look at companies like skype, whatsapp single-handedly killing telecom/sms industry, leading to millions of job losses in outsourced destinations. Globalised capitalism does not have winners. Only losers.

[SiVal]

Globalised capitalism does not have winners. Only losers.

As opposed to the blessings of life in an isolated socialist workers' paradise? Which was more exposed to globalized capitalism, South Korea or North Korea? Which better matches your description of no winners, only losers? How about West Germany vs. East Germany? Which of the two participated in more global capitalism? Which of the two ended up with more winners?

How about Taiwan & Hong Kong vs. Mainland China back when the mainland "protected" its people from participation in global capitalism while Taiwan and Hong Kong rapidly became first-world countries? Or how about the mainland when it was isolated and anti-capitalist vs. China today, after becoming a full participant in global capitalism? No winners, only losers from global capitalism? And which part of today's China has been more impacted by global capitalism, the coast or inland? Where have lives improved the most in China judged by, say, the Chinese people themselves and their migration patterns? Why don't those inlanders appreciate how lucky they are to be better isolated from the global capitalism that ravages the coast, leaving only losers in its wake?

There is no doubt that global capitalism enables a rapid and large-scale co-evolution of economies, producing lots of changes, many of which are bad. But you have to have drunk the whole punchbowl of campus Leftist intellectual Kool-Aid to claim that global capitalism has no winners, only losers.

[manidoraisamy]

1) I meant global capitalism in the context of shrinking working class. It brings lot of benefits to consumers and creates competitive businesses. But, that competition/cost cutting drives outsourcing and leads to job losses in developed world. In turn, outsourced labor will be replaced by technology once it becomes viable/cheaper, leading to job losses in the outsourced destinations as well. Hence, no winners in working class.

2) If you want to preach globalized capitalism to other countries, you have to support outsourcing in the same spirit. Otherwise, it is a one-sided argument that turns a blind eye when technology (like skype) takes away jobs in the developing world.

BTW, you don't have to be leftist to point out problems in capitalism. Any healthy system needs criticism from within.