If it is to believe, that nothing is more important than profit in this capitalistic society, then it sure the heck makes a whole lot of sense to want to outsource manufacturing and as much as the process of mass manufacturing of any given product, overseas. The reason that this is so, is because America has not been a frontier country for a very long time, but is instead a mature nation, with a vibrant, though nervous, middle class; it has a strong rule of law, as well as pertinent rules, regulations, and a democratic process that gives the voice to the people as well as to more than one party. All of those things combined in America, means that labor costs are significantly higher than in developing countries, as well as because of our regulations and environmental laws the cost of doing business in America is also going to be much higher.
This means, quite obviously, that manufacturers know for a certainty, that in an era in which overseas shipping has never been more efficient and reliable, and in an era in which the marketplace is truly global, that there are advantages in having finished goods in areas of the globe other than in America; in addition to the salient fact that this is a competitive world marketplace, indicating clearly that to sit on one's laurels and to simply keep everything domestic is often going to be a decision that will have negative consequences for the profitability and the growth of a given company.
So too, when the mindset of an American-based manufacturing company, is solely based on profit, then those manufacturing companies are going to look upon overseas cheap labor, as well as the often very lax rules and regulations for safety, the environment, as well as labor, as something too enticing not to readily take advantage of. Additionally, because often the employees overseas are not direct employees of the domestic manufacturer, as well as the facilities and equipment overseas being also not owned by that manufacturer, but instead all of this has typically been outsourced to a foreign manufacturer under a contract which absolves the domestic manufacturer from any sort of retribution or lawsuits, then the pathway to outsourcing is often quite clear.
After all, the very successful antebellum South was built upon slave labor, and whereas today's overseas' labor does gets paid, the cost of that labor in comparison to the domestic cost of that equivalent labor, is a relatively small subset, so that having secured that cheap labor as well as having secured a competent outsourced manufacturing facility to manufacture those products, means that the most valuable executives of that domestic manufacturing company, are the ones that are going to overwhelmingly benefit from that beneficial cost structure.
This essentially means that the manufacturers that formerly used to principally build and do everything within the borders of America, of which the labor class of America was able to thereupon get a seat at the table of this economic system, through hard fought battles, laws, and unions, have in so many cases, become irrelevant; because rather than paying the going domestic rate, manufacturers and those that control the capital of this country, are able to reap far greater harvests, instead, by cheap global labor that enriches, almost exclusively, just them.