

Maybe it isn't China: Declining US manufacturing employment - cwan
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/08/manufacturing

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rjprins
It's interesting to think what will happen to us when we've automated the
production of everything we really need.

I think the reality is we don't _need_ to work so much anymore. In fact we
need to work less and less.

Especially if you combine this fact with slowed population growth.

If you imagine a large scale automated system that builds homes, grows and
processes food and takes care of our other basic needs (which is where this
world is going to) then do we really need to work?

The problem is, is that the world and the economy are set up so that you need
to _earn_ your place. But if no apocalypse stops us, there is going to come a
day where there is no need to do anything, because everything is provided for.

However, that future will heavily favor the owners of the system and it will
cost those who are without property.

That army of robots fulfilling your every single want may never come, but we
are certainly partially there. Thus the economic effect is already partially
here.

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JeffL
I suspect that's a misleading graph. They are trying to show a loss of
manufacturing jobs and in order to make the graph more dramatic, they are
graphing the percentage of jobs that are manufacturing. But if they graphed
the total number of manufacturing jobs, it wouldn't be nearly so dramatic
because of the huge increase in total employment over the years.

Quick Google search and look at the graphs here:
[http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/no-
virginia-u...](http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/no-virginia-us-
manufacturing-isnt-dead)

Comparing the charts based on what the two articles are trying to prove
reminds me of "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

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gamble
It was the post-war political atmosphere of egalitarianism and the fact that
Europe and Asia were in ruins that made factory jobs well-paying in 50s
America. Once other countries reverted to the mean and neoliberals captured
government, so ended the conditions for strong wage growth.

