>Plus, there doesn't seem to be a solid foundation on why we want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S.
Because the US used to have tons of good paying jobs for normal people who didn't need to get a 4 year degree. Everything used to be made here and we had a booming economy which had opportunities for people from all walks of life, including people who can't or don't want to get a 4 year degree.
>Republicans typically don't care about workers' rights or environmental impact
I think this is definitely not as true as many people think, the right has become a big tent at the moment and there are a lot of people in it who do care about these things. Workers rights do align with bringing jobs back to the US, look at how unions voted in the recent election, they superficially supported the left but most of their members voted for the right.
>where are we going to find enough workers to do that without a big influx of immigrants?
Wages go up, more people are able to live a middle class life, people have children.
Also, most of these jobs are becoming automated, your example of farm hands is a good one actually because a ton of farm work is now being done by robots. It won't be very much longer until almost every ag job is being done by robots. So bringing manufacturing back to the US means that the money stays here, people get better wages, and we have a way lower carbon footprint.
And yes, fewer people are employed because of robots but also SOME will still be employed.
We have been hollowing out the middle class by shipping many good jobs building stuff so that the top 1% can take advantage of slave labor on the other side of the planet. It was not a great idea.
Look at how much of a boon it has been for China, they have used the base of manufacturing jobs to bootstrap their entire economy in record time. Now they have so much manufacturing expertise they are able to do things we physically cannot, but we used to be able to build everything.
> Because the US used to have tons of good paying jobs for normal people who didn't need to get a 4 year degree. Everything used to be made here and we had a booming economy which had opportunities for people from all walks of life, including people who can't or don't want to get a 4 year degree.
That time is gone for good. Automation and outsourcing is coming eventually for the Chinese manufacturing sector as well. Being a planned economy, the government is slowing it down however they can.
Manufacturing might come back to the US but it will not be restoring that big pile of good paying jobs for people with no degree.
Fair enough, that was a bit of a tangent.
>Plus, there doesn't seem to be a solid foundation on why we want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S.
Because the US used to have tons of good paying jobs for normal people who didn't need to get a 4 year degree. Everything used to be made here and we had a booming economy which had opportunities for people from all walks of life, including people who can't or don't want to get a 4 year degree.
>Republicans typically don't care about workers' rights or environmental impact
I think this is definitely not as true as many people think, the right has become a big tent at the moment and there are a lot of people in it who do care about these things. Workers rights do align with bringing jobs back to the US, look at how unions voted in the recent election, they superficially supported the left but most of their members voted for the right.
>where are we going to find enough workers to do that without a big influx of immigrants?
Wages go up, more people are able to live a middle class life, people have children.
Also, most of these jobs are becoming automated, your example of farm hands is a good one actually because a ton of farm work is now being done by robots. It won't be very much longer until almost every ag job is being done by robots. So bringing manufacturing back to the US means that the money stays here, people get better wages, and we have a way lower carbon footprint.
And yes, fewer people are employed because of robots but also SOME will still be employed.
We have been hollowing out the middle class by shipping many good jobs building stuff so that the top 1% can take advantage of slave labor on the other side of the planet. It was not a great idea.
Look at how much of a boon it has been for China, they have used the base of manufacturing jobs to bootstrap their entire economy in record time. Now they have so much manufacturing expertise they are able to do things we physically cannot, but we used to be able to build everything.