It doesn’t elude people, they just think that the 80% of manufacturing that isn’t high end shouldn’t have left and that it was criminal for it to have been shipped overseas at the expense of middle America.
A lot of it stuck around. I grew up in the rust belt and tons/most of my friend's parents worked at one of the many factories that were, and are still around. Think dog food, plastic molding, car part manufacturing, and glue. Not the big stuff that people think of when they think of manufacturing though.
I think if you start to deep dive into the industries that left, you'll find the reasons were often more complicated than simple labor costs. American companies did get out-competed by foreign firms in a lot of key areas.
America is large, but they can't expect to be the best in the world at every industry. If an entire country focuses on a specific niche for long enough, it's possible they will become the best. Samsung and TSMC are incredible companies that didn't happen by accident. And yeah, the USA might not compete at that level on the global stage, but the American economy is also not so completely dominated by one megacorp either.
Also, a lot of manufacturing, especially the high tech stuff, is highly automated. So these massive factories don't generate the same number of jobs they once did. And the jobs they do generate are often technical. More maintenance and calibration of machinery, and less putting bottle caps on.
Tell me specificly which niche that Samsung focuses on:
>Product: Clothing, automotive, chemicals, consumer electronics, electronic components, medical equipment, semiconductors, solid-state drives, DRAM, flash memory, ships, telecommunications equipment, home appliances
>Services: Advertising, construction, entertainment, financial services, hospitality, information and communications technology, medical and health care services, retail, shipbuilding, semiconductor foundry
Don't get me wrong though, we shouldn't roll back our regulations but we should however ensure that what we buy is manufactured in that same conditions that we would demand at home.
Governments being laser focused on building a specific domestic industry and winning. I.e., as you point out, Samsung. It's hard to win a battle where an entire country has decided to push to become the best in the world in one field.
I mean, how are people supposed to afford all this high tech shit if they can't work decent paying jobs without a degree and the welfare state has been hollowed out? Manufacturing used to provide that.
Are companies just going to fight for a constantly shrinking middle class? Or just turn into gacha companies looking to hook a whale? Sell a single doll for $46,000?
