Was deindustrialization a mistake?

Was deindustrialization a mistake? We mark post industrial countries as more “advance” yet it results in lower quality of life and more inequality as well as potential shortages.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    My quality of life is not lower

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This, an American or European on welfare still lives better than a Chinese or Indian factory worker

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        enjoy your oxy n fent appalachia bro

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >illegally buy drugs
          >WTF why did capitalism do this to me??

          • 2 years ago
            Delueze

            that is its mission

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            D&G were moronic even by Marxist standards.

          • 2 years ago
            Delueze

            suck my left one

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            the only D&G I know are Dolce & Gabbano

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    nationalize resource extraction and everything balances out

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    inequality is a good thing

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >classic darwiBlack person

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Inequality is ok when it's a bell curve, but when the middle class starts going away and the curve inverts it creates an unstable society.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        good thing that's not happening then

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          It is.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/12/the-ridiculous-worry-about-the-shrinking-american-middle-class/?sh=42e0b47e3028

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Bet money in 5 years it'll be a good thing the middle class is shrinking

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Thanks for not reading the article.
            >Pew has released another iteration of its report on the shrinking American middle class. And as before, the worry is grossly overblown. It is true that that middle class is shrinking, defining middle class the way they define it. But it isn't because people are getting poorer and then falling back into the lower-income levels (what we might call lower class or working class). Instead, the general trend is that more of the population is moving up into the upper middle class income reaches. The families of the country are getting richer. How is this is a disaster?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >More people are living outside this purported sweet spot. Some number are falling below it but the shrinkage of this middle class is more to do with people gaining higher incomes than this band. I really cannot bring myself to fret about people earning more.
            Literally confirms what I said. The curve is inverting. You should have read the article before trying to use it as evidence that the opposite of what it says is happening.

            As for the rest of the article, he just downplays the social instability that arises when society is divided between two starkly different classes, the lower class gets absolutely fricked in this situation and we're already seeing the effects.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I cannot begin to imagine the level of delusional narcissism it requires to believe that the poor are getting "fricked" in advanced economies.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            do you even utility?
            we've done feudalism
            it was called the dark ages for a reason

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Thanks for not reading the article.
            >Pew has released another iteration of its report on the shrinking American middle class. And as before, the worry is grossly overblown. It is true that that middle class is shrinking, defining middle class the way they define it. But it isn't because people are getting poorer and then falling back into the lower-income levels (what we might call lower class or working class). Instead, the general trend is that more of the population is moving up into the upper middle class income reaches. The families of the country are getting richer. How is this is a disaster?

            https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/12/the-ridiculous-worry-about-the-shrinking-american-middle-class/?sh=42e0b47e3028

            Let me explain this to you as simply as possible. Let's say we have 100 people and 30 of them earn 25k a year, 50 of them 50k, and 20 of them 100k. The economy will orbit the people earning 50k because that's the best way to maximize profits from sales*margins. This makes things not so bad for the people earning 25k because they're not that far off from the average income. They can't indulge in the same luxuries as the people earning 50k, but they can get by. This is also really good for the people earning 100k because they're so far above the market they get to be very lavish with their spending.

            Not imagine that you take away the 50k jobs. Of those 50 people who were making 50k, say 40 of them go on to make 100k and 10 of them fall back to 25k. This isn't somehow ok because the average income is going up, it's setting up an economic disaster. Now the market is orbiting the people making 100k, this causes inflation and eventually makes it so that the people earning 25k are completely fricked and the people earning 100k are the new "middle" class.

            And if you don't see how this is happening, if more subtly, then you're moronic.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous
          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Not an argument.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Please enroll in an economics class.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            come back when you own assets

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            cope

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >cope
            oh you're gonna eat those words fren

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You've posted nothing worth paying attention to. Just go on thinking increasing inequality is a good thing.

            seething marxists

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            lol
            good luck
            can't wait to see you working til the day you die

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            stop leeching off the public's money and get a job

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I doubt you even have a job

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Part of the reason why this concerns me is a possible shift to socialism if this trend continues as things get harder and harder for the lower income brackets.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            But things aren't getting harder? They live extraordinarily easy lives compared to Third Worlders.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            They are getting harder. I'm not comparing them to third worlders, I'm comparing them to the equivalent income brackets a generation ago, or even a decade ago.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >I'm comparing them to the equivalent income brackets a generation ago, or even a decade ago.
            but they are overall better off then those lower brackets back then.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Not at all. My grandfather stocked shelves for P&G and was able to buy two suburban homes for himself and his son. Pretty much the only thing that has become more affordable are computers, and even that trend has reversed.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Says the guy whose only means of arguing economics is linking articles.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I can't help that you have a short attention span.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You've posted nothing worth paying attention to. Just go on thinking increasing inequality is a good thing.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Interesting theory but seems completely speculative.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            the actual economy is much worse

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Part of it is called labor market bifurcation.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It's neither good or bad, it's just the natural state of life.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It's a secular trend. Past a certain point, the relative need/capacity to absorb labour in industry decreases, and its begins losing first share, then absolute employment.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Trade deficits are often invoked as proof of job loss or industrial transfer, but the decline happens regardless of whether the country posts a trade surplus or a trade deficit.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It's a secular trend. Past a certain point, the relative need/capacity to absorb labour in industry decreases, and its begins losing first share, then absolute employment.

        More examples.
        The paper notes that
        >Economic theory can explain this evolution. The hump-shaped curve emerges naturally in closed-economy models in which manufacturing productivity growth and manufacturing income elasticities lie between those of agriculture and services. In these models spillovers of demand from agriculture boost manufacturing employment during the expansion phase but they eventually decline as the agricultural sector. In an open economy, initially rapid productivity growth in manufacturing can bolster manufacturing employment by generating a net export surplus. However, although their peaks may be higher, even countries with a comparative advantage in manufactured products eventually experience declining employment shares in manufacturing

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    "Post Industrial" economies are valuable to economists and profiteers because they're low expense and high profit for it.
    Its damn expensive and hard to run a factory system properly. It takes a lot of cogs meshing perfectly to get efficient production of heavy industrial goods.
    But if you move to finance economies or service economies where its just about turning the wheel of society itself, thats cheaper and simpler to run. And makes you more money for it.

    On the other hand of course. Is that you are materially objectively weaker and act as a parasite on more production-oriented economies.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      > thats cheaper and simpler to run.
      Empirically false. If that were true, then the progression would be agrarian subsistence -> agricultural revolution -> services -> industry, rather than agrarianism ->industrial revolution -> service predominance.
      >act as a parasite on more production-oriented economies
      Services and service-type functions have always provided value to manufacturing, and to economies in general. The initial impetus for modern advertising was to create markets that could absorb the increased flow of goods made possible by mass production, for example. The creation of legal forms like the inc, the plc, the Gmbh, the KK, the S.A. etc. gave the organizational capacity and stability that underpinned capital-intensive operations at scale.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I can see your huge nose from here.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No, it wouldn't evolve like that because service economies rely on manufacturing economies to function. And a service economy without a manufacturing economy to use to sustain itself would collapse instantly. Or simply never come into existence in the first place.
        In the modern day that manufacturing economic structure is externalized.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Production of manufactured articles generally takes place in the home or at the artisanal shop in pre-industrial societies. Were, say, high-end services easier to do, they would be layered atop that, a traditional sector producing food and wares against a modernizing sector providing services (a flanderized India?). That sector would accumulate capital and experience until it began competing with established producers in manufacturing. We don't see that. Indeed, decisions and processes ever more distant from the production line increasing shape the fate of the manufacturing sector as it develops.
          >that manufacturing economic structure is externalized
          Depends on the category of good. Even in an autarkic economy, we would still expect an employment hump.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            And as we can see with India as a far less extreme example, that economic structure is simply unfunctional.
            In a more combative environment like the past where every nation needed to be able to take the next on in a war, such a structure would have almost invariably lead to its society being conquered or otherwise heavily damaged to the point where it moved to the manufacturing based economy.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            India achieved a position in exports of certain services as the result of tons of contingencies and chance occurrences lining up. It wasn't deliberate strategy or reflective of the general competence of its society.
            From the 1950s onward they attempted a programme of industrial/economic development, but for various reasons it didn't really work. Even now, 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' is a government slogan.
            >to the point where it moved to the manufacturing based economy
            Despite decades of attempts, India has almost completely failed to attain self-sufficiency in defence articles, where normal market principles don't apply. It's less about economic structure than about developing countries, by definition, not being very good at anything despite their best efforts.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I don't blame the Indians for their situation. There are obvious reasons why they ended up where they did. Like them trying to catch a ride on all the most modern technological trends even if they have to jump and climb to get there.
            But I do think that its useful to say that it is not particularly functional as to leading India to success so far.
            And that the unique level of stability the world has seen for the last 60 years has allowed such a fragile economic structure to persist despite itself by isolating it from outside aggression or heavy competition.
            If India was say, 19th Century Germany, its ability to preserve that economic organization wouldn't be so stable.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >allowed such a fragile economic structure to persist despite itself by isolating it from outside aggression or heavy competition
            Just purchase weapons from abroad, or purchase a defensive alliance/protectorate. It's how the situation was handled by laggards in the early 20th/19th centuries.
            We need to split deindustrialisation (decrease in industrial employment, whether absolute or relative) from outsourcing/trade dependence. The former is theoretically independent of the international system and would actually be desirable for a 'classic' military power (fewer workers in the munitions plants means more soldiers at the front). The latter already occurred in that 19th/20th century era. Indeed, one of the Entente's greatest advantages was that they could purchase much of what they needed abroad.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I don't blame the Indians for their situation. There are obvious reasons why they ended up where they did. Like them trying to catch a ride on all the most modern technological trends even if they have to jump and climb to get there.
            But I do think that its useful to say that it is not particularly functional as to leading India to success so far.
            And that the unique level of stability the world has seen for the last 60 years has allowed such a fragile economic structure to persist despite itself by isolating it from outside aggression or heavy competition.
            If India was say, 19th Century Germany, its ability to preserve that economic organization wouldn't be so stable.

            But in particular, we're looking at whether allowing decrease (of production, plant, employment, whatever) in strategic industries could be sensible in a multipolar world of active military confrontation.
            19th/early 20th century isn't a good guide as their industrial sectors hadn't reached maturity yet and thus didn't face the same challenges that industries past their growth phase would later encounter.
            Cold War suggests that the answer is yes, if what remains is continuously kept modernized and able to combine high productivity with high quality. A country running a larger steel industry centred around integrated mills, open hearths, and older management/QC methods would probably be at a disadvantage against a more up-to-date opponent.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Is that you are materially objectively weaker and act as a parasite on more production-oriented economies.
      Not really.
      If chocolate makers stopped marketing and exporting refined chocolate bars those cocoa beans would have much less value.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Was deindustrialization a mistake?
    Nope. /thread

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    no, i can buy consoomer goods for a 10th of what my grandpa did. The problem is that housing and medical expenses have made disposable income shrink to a point where we can't see these gains.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the US didn't "deindustrialize" OP is a schizo

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Thats a poor chart because it just measures dollar value for the industrial output of a period.
      https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/ipdisk/g17tab1.txt
      Which is meaningless when the Dollar itself has collapsed in value for the last half century.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Are you are a fricking moron? The dollar has decreased in value because money is in circulation. This is irrelevant considering consumption per capita of durable goods (cars, houses and household appliances) have increased in the last century. The dollar has less value, but people have substantially more money than they do too so it doesn't matter much. I suggest you stop being moronic, and read up on basic economics.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Industrial output of the US is measured in unadjusted dollars.
          The US has seen high inflation over the last century, especially the last half century.
          Combining these two factors, all else remaining equal, that is to say that there was no change at all in US industrial status or economic organization relative to it, you'd inherently see a massive increase in US industrial output just due to inflation.
          Understand?

          The method of measure is flawed itself.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Wrong, it is adjusted for inflation.

        https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ipi.asp

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Some information is.
          Much of it isn't.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        here's another chart which shows value added in current US dollars

        https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/indicator/NV.IND.TOTL.CD

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >On a monthly basis, the individual indexes of industrial production are constructed from two main types of source data: (1) output measured in physical units and (2) data on inputs to the production process, from which output is inferred. Data on physical products, such as tons of steel or barrels of oil, are typically obtained from private trade associations and from government agencies; data of this type are used to estimate monthly IP wherever possible and appropriate.
        lol

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    "Inequality" is a meme metric that you can't objectively measure. And seeing how life expectancy has increased dramatically since the 1990s... I'm not seeing much of argument here besides moronation.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Life expectancy is the same now as it was in 1999.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >require all oil on earth be bought with american dollars

    >the only way to get american dollars is to sell stuff to america

    >international demand for american dollars keeps the value high

    basically america has a scam running where so long as we can bully the world to trade oil in our money then we can coast forever off their work.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    American industry is thriving, it just shifted to high tech and specialized manufacturing while the rest of the world does the low tech meme shit.

    Somewhere like China lacks reliable institutions and people, the few they have work for the military or space program or things like that, leaving few resources for civilian applications. Corruption and incompetence is intolerance in manufacturing something like a jet airliner, it requires impeccable standards and countless checks and oversight, only places like America and Europe can provide this on the large scale needed to churn out 100s of civilian airliners which is why the vast majority of airliners are Boeing and Airbus.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >American industry is thriving, it just shifted to high tech and specialized manufacturing while the rest of the world does the low tech meme shit.
      this has proved to be idiotic in the past
      >be British vacuuming machine manufacturer
      >lets give china to make resistors and basic parts we will asemble the finished product here
      >all basic parts are produced in china
      >why are we shippin it here we could asemble in china all parts are there
      >result no basic components production in Britain,no advanced devices made in Britain, decisive chinese Victory.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        china doesn't make most of the machined parts for complex machinery though, the most advanced thing they make is semiconductors

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    If it wasn't for software development becoming a major thing, and healthcare costs going up as we keep boomers alive, there wouldn't even be high paying jobs replacing the ones that decline with manufacturing becoming more automated.

    And it's extremely unlikely that the gains in healthcare and computer shit will continue forever.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >We mark post industrial countries as more “advance”
    *advanced

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    There is no such thing, it is simply techno capital decentralizing itself

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It can be bad if you go to war and you are reliant on other peoples for materials and or goods, beyond that I don't care.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They just delocalized everything in foreign countries like China where the common worker does not complain and can be paid with crumbs.
    Quality of life would be lower for us if countries like China did not exist while.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The only jobs available to unskilled people in a deindustrialized society is: retail, fast-food, or cleaning. Yes, it was a mistake.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      An American/European McDonald's cashier still has a better quality of life than a Chinese cell phone factory worker

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Post industrial society means the whole society is exploiting the labor of the actual industrial countries
    Just by breathing in the United States or Europe you're extracting surplus labor from Cambodian sweatshop workers

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I've never understood the economics of this. How can a society that is deindustrialized still be richer than the country actually producing the products?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Because they can just keep printing money and nothing bad will ever happen. Just trust in the plan.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Because of how value-addition works. Final assembly is just one of many tasks along the route of production/distribution, and one that's comparatively easy to shift around. Production, especially in the post-WWII era is far more mobile than the really high-value-added tasks, which tend to be static/highly clustered within and between countries.

        Or if you really think about it, it's not like production happens when a bunch of workers get together and spontaneously decide to build something, precipitating detailed assembly instructions from the collective unconscious.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I was reading about the German economy the other day in light of posing gas shortages from Russia, and the way it was explained, the German high-value-add export economy (stuff like high-precision tooling that even the U.S. can't produce) benefits from cheap energy from Russia as the input into these manufacturing processes. So it's not just that Germans are going to be cold this winter, but that the German economy is going to absolutely tank without the cheap gas that "pays for" the production which will have a ripple effect throughout Europe.

          It's in the nature of unequal exchange.

          It's not that the Russian economy is very *advanced* of course. For example, the Russian car industry has basically collapsed because they can't import what they need so they'll have to go back two generations of tech to restart Lada production and so on until they can retool (with Chinese assistance). Russia is still making a ton of money from energy exports but they can't buy anything with it because of the sanctions.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    deindustrialization was a deliberate class warf strategy and a massively successful one at that

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