Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame writes in Tech Central Station about the coming political / trade brouhaha around white collar outsourcing:

It's no secret that more and more technology jobs are being outsourced to Third World countries where salaries, and other costs, are lower. And, as Hiawatha Bray reports in The Boston Globe, it's starting to generate some pushback..

Glenn asks a critical question of many on the Left Wing who simultaneously support foriegn aid AND protectionism:

Bray's story reports on an "alliance of liberal activist groups and labor unions" that is opposing the outsourcing of jobs. And while it's easy to see why labor unions might oppose this sort of thing, it's hard for me to see it as a liberal issue, really. After all, aren't liberals supposed to be for the redistribution of wealth from the better-off to the less-well-off? These jobs don't disappear, after all: they go overseas, to people who probably need them more. Isn't that a good thing? Or, at least, to me it's not obviously worse than, say, taxing corporations in a way that causes them to cut jobs, and then using the money to pay for foreign aid. In fact, it's probably better, overall, since it builds up a corps of educated professionals in other countries, instead of fostering the sort of dependency (and corruption) that usually results from foreign aid.

Well, the answer is quite simple.   Left winger's don't like to equate outsourcing with foriegn aid because one is done using profit-motivated corporations and the other by supposedly-altruistic governments.   Efficacy-be-damned, we know which instrument they prefer.   They don't care about the outcome of redistribution, what they really care about is having a redistribution process they can get their grubby little hands on.

Glenn also notes that there's some blowback on this issue from traditional conservatives, a la Pat Buchanan.   For these folks, the equation is all about power and independence.  Outsourcing reduces National Power in the short run but many will acknowledge that in the long run there are significant gains from overall global efficiency improvements.   Their isolationist streak, however, then kicks in and they don't like the idea of not developing that skillset domestically.