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An article (http://www.panasianbiz.com/20 06/05/acm_international_colleg iate_p.html) by Bill Belew of PanAsianBiz (http://www.panasianbiz.com/) about the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest reveals some interesting results; the winner was a Russian team from Saratov State University, and teams from China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore were ahead of an American team from MITwhich placed twelfth. The facts are clear; now the question is how we should respond to them as either observers or participants. I will explain two different positions on this issue; one is the view of Dr. Belew. The other is the stance of a free-market economist.

Dr. Belew views the results as a sign that America is falling behind other countries in the skills of its programmerswhich threatens to endanger economic opportunities in the future. India and China each produce triple the engineering graduates that the U.S. doesand this in itself is a deterrent to American programmers. "Why bother"they would ask"if the Indians and Chinese and Russians would outcompete us anyway?" This, according to Dr. Belew, is a self-reinforcing phenomenon: the American students' lack of confidence in their success means that they are less likely to try as hard as aspiring Chinese or Indians or Russians.

There is a competing view, however, which does not view this development as negative at all. The free-market economists hold this view. It arises from David Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage: individuals and countries alike are better off when each individual specializes in what he does best and lets other individuals including foreignerstake care of everything else. Associating thus, people would have the goods or services they produce best in their possession; they would be able to exchange them on a free market for any other goods or services they desire that somebody else will produce.

Sothe free-market economist would sayif the Russian or Indian or Chinese programmers are better at what they do than American programmers, perhaps American students seeking to train in a profession should pick something that the Russians, Indians, or Chinese will not be able to do as well. Then, the foreign programmers could sell their services to Americans, and Americans could sell their services to foreigners. This is true of the division of labor among people from different households and cities; why is it also not true of the division of labor among people from different countries? There are many things that most Americansas a rulecan do better than most foreigners; one of the skills which has predominated in America is the creation of ideaseven ideas relating to computers. The best programmers may be Russian, but Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison are all Americans; they have a lot to offer those with whom they trade and those whom they employ.

Learn more about this author, G. Stolyarov II.
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