Comment on Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks agoDeskilling blue collar labor is how America gave China a manufacturing edge. What do you think will be the result of deskilling white collar labor?
America gave china the manufacturing jobs by failing to block slave labor imports and failing to put proper tariffs to account for differences in cost of living to a reasonable extent. I say this at risk of sounding like a trumpy…
This is to be clear that while I advocate for some level of global inter investment, having capacity in your home country is ever very important. Usa could’ve kept the jobs if they were smart back then.
Eeeeeeh… China was rapidly industrializing, and the low skill manufacturing jobs they took were going to leave the US anyway. While ensuring the rights of foreign workers is definitely something I support, it still wouldn’t have stymied the tidal shift in low skill labor to lcol nations.
Ensuring a domestic supply of some goods is definitely important. But tariffs aren’t the answer here - instead, the answer is to support local industries by giving them government contracts to produce their goods, which the government can then use and/or stockpile when we aren’t in a time of crisis.
And anyway, while a great amount of manufacturing labor went overseas in the last century, American has been reclaiming ground recently… with robots.
Basically no matter how you split it, those high paying, low skill manufacturing jobs were never going to stick around for long. That’s just the forward march of technological progress.
the low skill manufacturing jobs they took were going to leave the US anyway.
… Yes and no. A lot of junk, sure. But there was no necessity to move much of large scale manufacturing over—the primary reason it happened was rampant consumerism desiring the cheapness that lower standards brought, without regard to workers or the ability of the national economy to have a modern strength against foreign influence.
Production is fully capable to have been kept in the usa for a lot of products, as long as people were willing to buy less. It’d have been a greater benefit to our economy and the environment overall.
But tariffs aren’t the answer here - instead, the answer is to support local industries by giving them government contracts to produce their goods, which the government can then use and/or stockpile when we aren’t in a time of crisis.
Tariffs are an important tool. They should never be the only tool used from the tool box. But nonetheless, they’re important to disincentive the moving away manufacturing based just on wages. They make products more expensive, allowing local products to survive more easily —but if you rely on them too heavily, your local industries become stagnant.
Most goods are not reasonable to spend government money on as well. That works great for medical goods and food, but not much else.
That’s just the forward march of technological progress.
When companies like Amazon use that logic to cut wages to half of competition… I got a problem.
But there was no necessity to move much of large scale manufacturing over […] rampant consumerism
I mean, I’m not fan of rampant consumerism either, but a lot of manufactured goods legitimately improve quality of life. For example, iPhones are manufactured in China, and the low cost of manufacturing there allows the product to be sold to consumers for a relatively low price (I should also add that a lot of the components in an iPhone are actually manufactured in America because they require a skill that America has a competitive advantage in). If we insisted on keeping these manufacturing jobs in the US, iPhones would be much more expensive and fewer people would be able to afford one, and likely a foreign manufacturer would step in to fill the niche left.
Sure, no country “needs” to offshore jobs - no country really “needs” to do anything. But if America wanted to remain economically competitive while providing a good quality of life to it’s citizens, then those low-skill auto manufacturing jobs that everyone is so whistful about 100% needed to go to lower skill markets.
Most goods are not reasonable to spend government money on as well. That works great for medical goods and food, but not much else.
Those are the goods I would suggest it is important to keep domestic manufacturing capacity for. Also military equipment, but we already do that… too well.
gradual@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Actually, it’s the American business owners that gave china the manufacturing edge.
They cared more about maximizing profits off of Americans rather than competing with foreign companies offering customers better deals.
Keep in mind, you’re trying to argue against industrialization right now. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have industrialized to prevent “deskilling blue collar labor” so “China doesn’t get a manufacturing edge”?
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks ago
I’m suggesting that the choice between industrialization and skilled labor is a false one because China is industrialized and has a skilled labor force. I agree this is because of American owners seeking profit, but it seems the same won’t happen to China now that they’re industrialized.