[gameprogrammer] Re: PC game Outsourcing

This is my first post though I have been a subscriber for over a year. This 
whole issue (or rather everyone's comments on it) has me flummoxed.
 
How many of you are open source advocates? The strength of open source is the 
fact that by default, through competition the best (most efficient benefitting 
the most people) solution rises to the top. The important part of this that 
most people forget is that it has to be the solution that benefits the most 
people. This solution may not be the best in absolute performance, but it is 
the best that a significant number of people can afford. This is the free 
market at work. Capitalism ensures that sooner or later the money and the tools 
of production make it into the hands of the most competent. I know it seems 
hard to believe when your boss is an idiot or you see some punk inherit a 
fortune but unless the punk is productive the money will leave him. It isn't 
immediate and it isn't perfectly efficient but it is far more efficient than 
when a government makes the decisions. Why? Because business operates to make a 
profit.
 
Outsourcing is the same concept on a different scale. Put all the worlds widget 
manufacturers together and choose the product from the one that gives you the 
best product at a price that most customers can afford. If that means your 
neighbor loses his job that is too bad. Why should you subsidize a subpar 
product just to keep your neighbor working? That is the premise the unions have 
been working on for the last 30 years.
 
The world changes. It is our right and our duty to change with it. We certainly 
can't expect the rest of the world to bend to us. If I could change one thing 
about American education, it would be to teach citizens their role in a free 
market economy. You cannot and should not expect someone else to look after 
you. Your own well being is your responsibility, not someone else's. Yet 
whenever someone proposes a government solution to their problem, they are 
abdicating responsibility for themselves and putting it off on someone else. 
Likewise, businesses shouldn't be subsidized to behave one way over another. 
They must operate under the constraints of the market and not expect 
governments to bail them out because they are unable (or unwilling) to make the 
tough decisions needed to survive.
 
I should have warned you all not to get me started ; )
 
Keith Emery

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