I recently was listening to a podcast with an author who was discussing US history, industry and society. He talked about early US settlers who arrived from Europe to escape poverty, famine and a monarchical regime.
In arms of earning a living, he said that many of these settlers became America’s first farmers. It was a difficult life.
Even if they established successful farms, the work and their lives were still extremely hard. Small family farms are labor intensive. There are no days off. You are at the mercy of the weather, the environment, infestations, crop diseases and other hardships. A disaster can result in the loss of an entire year’s worth of labor, starvation, bankruptcy and poverty.
Once the industrial revolution began, many of these people left the farms to work in factories, steel mills, coal mines and manufacturing plants in urban areas. These jobs paid better than farm work and were more reliable. During the peak decades in the US, these blue collar workers could support their families on one income. They were able to purchase homes, buy cars, go on vacation and even afford a few luxuries.
Still this work was physical demanding. It was often dangerous. It took its toll on the laborers health and bodies. These men encouraged their children to graduate from high school and college so they could have white-collar jobs that paid more and weren’t as physically taxing.
Then the historian spoke about Biden and Trump both promising to “bring back manufacturing jobs” to return the US to its industrial heyday and said something I hadn’t heard before:
“Nobody wants to work in manufacturing. They left these jobs for safer, higher paying white collar positions just like their parents left he coal mines and their grandparents left the farms before them.”
He said that America will ever return to being a manufacturing powerhouse because that time has passed for us. It no longer makes sense for our society or our economy.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.
“Make America Great Again” by bringing back manufacturing is a false promise.
Nobody really wants to be a farmer- they want the romantic version of being self-sufficient, having fresh food and being independent. They don’t want 365x24x7 days. They don’t want to deal with weather, pestilence and environmental concerns. They don’t want the risk of bankruptcy constantly looming.
People don’t want to work on an assembly line in manufacturing or in a steel mill where their minds are numb and their bodies broken. They want the ability to support a family on one paycheck, own a boat, buy a car and go to Disney every year for vacation.
This is one of the problems of having a government led by old people. Their model for a successful US society is from the 1950s-1970s or even earlier.
The problem with that is that it no longer exists.
You can’t go backwards.