Our Endlessly Self-Aggrandizing Elites: Statistics on the Collapse of Manufacturing in the US

Aside from insanity directly related to the steadily increasing moral insanity of our creature, two ideas – factoids, declarations, I don’t know what you call them – have bothered more than almost any other throughout my life. I remember these things since I was a teenager and they’ve always bothered me.  The first is, it is inevitable that manufacturing be lost in the US to foreign competition.  The second one is a corollary to the first- because of this, we must of necessity become a service economy (an unspoken part of this second bit was, because of this, we must of necessity become a much poorer nation, because flipping burgers doesn’t pay like a CNC operator or ASME-code pressure vessel welder).

These twin declarations – shibboleths, is what they really are, shibboleths held as unyielding dogmas by the self-anointed elites in our society from industry to academia to media to government, who then try to convince us thattheir self-serving policies were actually forces of nature – always really bothered me because I always knew they were a form of lie.  They were lies because what was really being said was, “we elites choose, in large measure, to  send manufacturing overseas, to enact policies that make that transfer practically inevitable, and we thus impose this service economy whether you like it or not.”  Now, of course, there are many reasons of varying degrees of validity to explain why the US manufacturing base has been unbelievably gutted in the last 40 years, but especially in the last 20.  US wages are comparatively high, environmental and safety regulations (among others) impose onerous costs, taxes are sometimes high in some ways, etc.  But Ross Perot was right, NAFTA did lead to a giant sucking sound, and it was followed by an even larger sound going not south but east, to China and other locales starting after President Bush inexplicably gave preferential trade advantages to the murderous communist regime in China (oh, I know, if we just enrich the Chicom party bosses, and make them infinitely more powerful than they were in, say, 1980, they’ll be sure to become oh-so-amenable to our will!).

The point being, manufacturing has been lost due to some organic factors, certainly. Some loss was probably inevitable. But a very great deal of that loss has been a result of deliberate policies enacted at the highest levels of our political and economic system, policies that have enriched a very few at the expense of the very many.  Perhaps manufacturing was always going to decrease in the US as wages increased, but this much, this fast?  90+% of some industries eliminated in less than 40 years?

The list below represents some 10 million families wiped out in the space of a generation.  No wonder people are so enraged, and a revolutionary spirit seems to grow more and more insistent.

Note, while many industries outlined below are “old style” heavy industries like metal forming and steel production, some are not.  Aerospace, defense, and computer/microchip manufacturing make the list of industries founded in the US or once incredibly robust here that have been all but eliminated, and these last certainly in the last 25 years or so, not 40.

One delicious irony in the data below is that the industry that probably did a great deal to egg on, give cover for, and otherwise encourage political and cultural elites to gut manufacturing in this country – the media – have been hoisted on their own petard.  Newpaper printing and circulation is one of the 20 industries that have most collapsed over the past 40 years.

20. Newspaper publishing and printing

475,800 people were employed in 1980, falling to 207,700 in 2017 (a 56% drop).

19. Metalworking machinery manufacturing

370,300 people were employed in 1980, falling to 156,600 in 2017 (a 58% drop).

18. Iron and steel foundries

208,500 people were employed in 1980, falling to 88,100 in 2017 (a 58% drop).

17. Metal forging and stamping

183,300 people were employed in 1980, falling to 73,700 in 2017 (a 60% drop).

16. Blast furnaces, steelworks, and rolling and finishing mills

682,200 people were employed in 1980, falling to 270,000 in 2017 (a 60% drop).

15. Construction and material handling machines manufacturing

389,400 people were employed in 1980, falling to 152,400 in 2017 (a 61% drop).

14. Water transportation

189,600 people were employed in 1980, falling to 74,000 in 2017 (a 61% drop).

13. Household appliances manufacturing

185,800 people were employed in 1980, falling to 71,400 in 2017 (a 62% drop).

12. Primary aluminum production

171,600 people were employed in 1980, falling to 64,100 in 2017 (a 63% drop).

11. Metal mining

122,000 people were employed in 1980, falling to 45,200 in 2017 (a 63% drop).

10. Computer and related equipment manufacturing

419,400 people were employed in 1980, falling to 146,600 in 2017 (a 65% drop).

9. Guided missiles, space vehicles, and parts manufacturing

198,100 people were employed in 1980, falling to 66,900 in 2017 (a 66% drop).

8. Cutlery, hand tools, and general hardware manufacturing

143,900 people were employed in 1980, falling to 46,500 in 2017 (a 68% drop).

7. Coal mining

263,100 people were employed in 1980, falling to 62,500 in 2017 (a 76% drop).

6. Radio, TV, and communication equipment manufacturing

588,900 people were employed in 1980, falling to 136,000 in 2017 (a 77% drop).

5. Primary metal industries, other than iron, steel, and aluminum

251,200 people were employed in 1980, falling to 54,000 in 2017 (a 78% drop).

4. Footwear manufacturing

160,600 people were employed in 1980, falling to 32,500 in 2017 (an 80% drop).

3. Yarn, thread, and fabric mills

568,300 people were employed in 1980, falling to 107,600 in 2017 (an 81% drop).

2. Apparel and accessories manufacturing

1,149,300 people were employed in 1980, falling to 206,900 in 2017 (an 82% drop).

1. Knitting mills

178,100 people were employed in 1980, falling to 17,700 in 2017 (a 90% drop)

It ain’t just manufacturing any more.  Engineering and other white collar fields are being increasingly hit – through straight up job loss or wage stagnation – due to foreign competition or a flood of cheap immigrant labor.  Very few people have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.  Very few are able to satisfy the demands of extremely intellectually challenging and creative fields.  What the “other 80%” are going to do, 50 years from now, is quite terrifying.

Something tells me we won’t get to that point, however.  I think the wheels are going to come off this society before then, the singularity will never, could never, happen, and instead we’re going to go through a brief period of intense decay followed by widespread collapse.

Meh, this is me just mostly spit-balling, but those numbers represent a tragedy of almost limitless proportions.  So sad.

If only there were an alternative.