- cross-posted to:
- unions
- unions@sh.itjust.works
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Did that time really exist or was it just propaganda for the marketed “American dream”?
If it did exist it was off the back of past/present slavery, insane levels of discrimination and runaway industrialization that destroyed the planet itself.
The US was also manufacturing like, half the world’s goods at that time. We’re slowly getting it back, and hopefully it stays for good this time. Another big reason why unions are important. It would hopefully prevent another round of deindustrialization in the future
Is there evidence that we’re getting manufacturing back, beyond Trump & Biden making promises to that effect?
Bloomberg: US Manufacturing Activity Shrinks by Most in Three Years
Trump made promises but if you look at the results when Biden took over, it’s pretty wild. Of course, it’s going to take time to see these investments turn into permanent jobs.
Around where I live, foreign invests (especially German and Japanese companies) have been pouring in capital. Some of them already had facilities in the area and they’re expanding them, and other sites are net new builds. So we’re in the construction phase where I am lol. This will turn into creating high-paying jobs (not unionized as far as I know though) as soon as it’s ready to begin operations.
The reason for this is that Japan, Germany, South Korea, and others have been industrial powerhouses punching far above their weight class, but while everyone was busy, they kinda forgot to have kids. The U.S. is one of those countries that didn’t necessarily stop, but it’s also one that is significantly better at assimilating immigrants compared to other countries, despite how hard Republicans have made that.
It’s also where the goods are typically purchased. Much of what we bought was made overseas and shipped here, but now with how expensive their domestic labor costs are due to short supply and how abundant labor is in the US (comparatively) they can just relocate the manufacturing operations to where the goods are bought to lessen their overhead. Also, US energy is typically cheaper compared to other industrial powers.
Manufacturing in the U.S. is not on the decline. My only concern is that when it’s back, what’s to stop greedy owners from relocating the jobs again to wherever gives them the biggest paycheck? Unions would certainly help but I’d love to see co-ops rise in abundance.
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing/manufacturing-industry-outlook.html
Why do you think manufacturing is coming back? It looks like the auto industry is on a full frontal attack from the Chinese brands and is losing ground globally at a frightening speed, amongst other industries that have been obliterated by China. I can only see the IT and laboratory industries holding their ground.
China won’t be doing that for much longer.
And even though we lost a shocking amount of manufacturing jobs that have decimated many downtown areas across the country, the U.S. still was basically tied with China in terms of output by value. And that report was from 2018. The pandemic led to a lot of manufacturing restoring and Biden’s Made in America campaign took it another step further. Now we just need to seize the opportunity and rebuild the middle class since we kind of finally have a shot at it again
