https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS
We did lose manufacturing jobs, but not because we "sold" them, it's because productivity has increased so much. This happens to all mature economies, where services and knowledge work become a larger percent of GDP as productivity, education, and living standards increase. It's a sign of progress that we have more people working in offices and fewer people working in hazardous conditions for low pay.
The numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing#List_of_countrie...
It's because of both.
Mature economies would do well to hold onto some basic manufacturing capacity as a matter of national security. Or at the very least, retain some of that capacity within the sphere of close and trusted allies, assuming allies of that type can even be maintained by the US at this point.
By requiring the US to rely on often adversarial countries to supply some of its most crucial military components like rare earth minerals, the US couldn’t really go toe to toe with those countries.
I’m just not sure if they factored in the rapid technological rise of those adversarial countries like China.
Or maybe it really is the simplest answer that it was all purely in effort to obtain the greatest profit margins…
Being self-sufficient prevents you from conflict both in preventing external politics from potentially cutting off from critical supplies, and by making the potential fruits of conquest and war fairly limited. Like who is going to go to war over 5% cheaper steel? You will trade for that deal, but likely not kill. But the trading could be part of the source of the problem because it can hollow out your own native industry over enough time, or prevent native industry from being built when it can be bought cheap.
1) more economic engagement would somehow make China democratic
2) an economically integrated China would be more interested in maintaining international stability
3) WTO membership would force China to follow trade rules
Indulging in conspiracy at least allows you to pretend that the "top level" had a plan here.
It's much more comforting to think there was a positive intention for the way things turned out, and not just greed and short-sightedness.
Lots of people have written about "the cycles of empires".
This kind of psychologizing can be used to subjectively argue either case.
For example, I could say that it's much more comforting to think that current circumstances are artifacts of greedy fools rather than coordination by malevolent and powerful actors.
> that the "top level" had a plan here
You're also being somewhat reductive here. Sure, entry-level conspiracies rely on an all-powerful council with top-down authority, but there are more nuanced understandings where they can arrive out of alliances of convenience between rival factions.
Who gives a shit about sovereign capability if you can have a real good earnings report?
Addendum: I think this is bad.
Manufacturing jobs are killed by automation. Robots replaced people in plants.
This is happening in Europe and Asia too.
People "dreaming" or cushy well paid union jobs assembling stuff are talking nonsense nostalgia.
Because when these plants and facilities come up for reinvestment the rules and laws have inevitably made a piecemeal sell out the only financially viable move.
The environmentalists point at the financiers. The financiers point at the environmentalists. It's like the two party system.
Worse, there was always some degree of unwritten understanding between government and big business. Like if big business built out a factory they would expect to use it for 50-100yr with refreshes every 30 or so. When the government started crapping on that sort of thing to the degree that various investments became wholly non-viable it became risky to make those investments, less of them, less to spread any risk over, more expensive, it's a spiral. And so if you can't be sure your facility will be allowed to be viable in the long term you've gotta milk what you can each quarter.
1 - Way more polluting than anybody even considered possible before.