Chapter Content
Okay, so let's dive into this topic of, um, the decline of manufacturing. It's something you hear a lot about, right? And you see quotes like, "Where's it written that America can't lead in manufacturing again?" You know, that kind of rhetoric. But it's, uh, a bit more complicated than just wanting to "bring back the jobs," you know?
Think about how things used to be. In olden times, most people were farmers, like, way more than half, just working the land. Even a couple of centuries ago, a big chunk of the population was still in agriculture. Then, slowly but surely, people started moving away from the fields and into factories, doing manufacturing stuff. And for a while, manufacturing was *the* thing. It employed tons of people, it felt like the heart of the economy.
But, surprise, surprise... that's been changing for quite some time now. Manufacturing's share of employment has been declining, and honestly, it’s been doing so for ages. Like, back in the mid-20th century, it was a significant chunk of the workforce, but now it's a much smaller piece of the pie. And, yeah, people get worried about this.
There's this idea – I think it's called "manufacturing fetishism," which is kind of a strong term, but it describes this deep-seated belief that making physical stuff is somehow more important than anything else. It's like, if you're not building something you can touch, you're not really contributing. Where did that come from, you know? It’s all about survival. For most of human history, it was all about food, shelter, basic needs. So naturally, we valued the people who provided those things. Even some of the oldest thinkers considered manual labor more important than service-based activities. But, is that really the case now?
But, you know, times change. As our society got more advanced, we didn't all have to spend all our time just trying to survive. We started doing other stuff, providing services, creating art, exploring ideas...you know, all the things that make life interesting. Services rose up, just like Adam Smith said. People found their specializations and started fulfilling those needs.
And this is where the pushback comes in. People will say, "Oh, you can't have an economy based on just hairdressers and hamburger flippers!" And of course, nobody's saying we *can*. But a modern economy has to be, well, diverse. We can all have specializations. Switzerland, right? They don't make cars, but they're one of the richest countries on earth.
Here's a thing to think about: Manufacturing back in the day, it was often physically demanding, even brutal work. And these jobs, they brought people together, created communities, fostered a sense of solidarity. Now, though, many of those factories are gone. And a lot of people, especially men, feel like they've lost something because of it. And that can lead to resentment.
And what is really valued in modern society? Value is more about creating something smarter, something lighter, something... *better*. A cheap suit will do the job, a fancy suit will make a statement. Back in the day, weaponry could only be so powerful given it's weight. Nowadays? A small weapon is extremely powerful. Same with transportation. The value isn’t in more resources, but in better technology.
And here's the thing: we tend to measure economic growth by stuff like GDP. But GDP doesn't really capture how much better off we are because of, like, iPhones or gene editing or even just, you know, the wheels on suitcases! It's hard to measure the value of things we didn't even know we wanted until they existed. The cost of light has fallen an immense amount, but there are not really any measures to capture this.
It's not always easy to understand what to measure, you know? Like, should you measure the cost of the light bulb, or the value of being able to see? And, honestly, all that number crunching is often based on uncertain data, so we should take it all with a grain of salt.
A lot of the world hasn't fully made this transition to a "better, not more" economy yet. Other countries need more stuff to eat, live and survive. We need to not forget that as we talk about sustainability.
The thing is, we're not going to run out of resources. We have human ingenuity. If we think we have it all figured out, we might just deprive others of a chance to grow.