Offshoring is fine, and Romney should defend it

A good intuition check here is to note that nobody seems to think there’s anything wrong with offshoring when the United States is the offshore production site. And yet that’s often exactly what we are. Once upon a time Japanese and German cars were imported to American shores. Today that’s relatively rare. The American market is large enough, and the U.S. workforce sufficiently productive, that it makes sense for Toyota and BMW and the rest to manufacture on our soil. At the moment, all Airbus planes flying in the United States are imported from Hamburg, Germany, or Toulouse, France, but soon the popular A320 series will be made in Alabama. SolarWorld, one of the leading photovoltaic manufacturers in the country, is a division of a German company. And the same thing happens outside the manufacturing sector. The British magazine the Economist employs American writers, some of whose output is read by a European, U.K., or Asian audience. That’s outsourcing! …

Over the long run, we’re all going to be more prosperous if we live in a world where firms are allowed to locate work where it’s most efficient to locate it. This is exactly why, despite some tough ads, the Obama administration has not proposed any policies to restrict firms’ freedom to shift work across state or national boundaries.

Romney’s unwillingness to make the case for outsourcing reflects, in part, political timidity. But more broadly, it underscores that although he’s been an eager participant in contemporary capitalism, he’s not willing to mount a policy response to its vicissitudes.