"America would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing."
• 80% of Americans agree
• 20% disagree
"I would be better off if I worked in a factory."
• 25% of Americans agree
• 73% disagree
h/t Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social
·
THIS
The Smoot-Hawley tariffs were largely a response to a decline in farming jobs. Same deal - everyone wanted to protect farmers, but most people chose not to be farmers.
I know y'all are sick or me saying it, but manufacturing jobs only became good jobs because people fought on picket lines to make them good and because the US had almost no competition in the post-war world. Before that, manufacturing jobs mostly really really sucked.
>sucked
The internal migration from farming to city and manufacturing was massive.
Good is relative for jobs. Manufacturing jobs were generally considered better in comparison to being on the farm. Farming was grueling labor for an unpredictable return. Manufacturing was nasty but the pay was steady and in cash-money and you got to live in a city that had electricity, transportation, entertainments and lots more women than small towns.
So at first you are grateful to have that steady manufacturing job and be off the farm, but a few years later the worker realizes that the manufacturing job could be vastly improved and they started labor movements.
>manufacturing job and be off the farm, but a few years later the worker realizes that the manufacturing job sucked
My paternal uncle (born 1895. mentioned here before as a vehicle whiz kid.) left the large family farm in extremely rural NE NC around 1915 to work in the early Ford plant. I'm guessing that lasted a few years before he returned home.
Chinese Mockery of U.S. Manufacturing Reveals Economic Truth | TIME
https://time.com/7277920/china-manufacturing-us-trump-factory-workers-ai-videos-social-media/
> while high unemployment and low regulations suppress wages
And once again the reserve army of labor rears its head