I was recently talking to a buddy of mine who is in charge of production of some parts for a large hardware brand in Shenzen. We were laughing about how the US wants to do manufacturing again and how they think it will create jobs. He says in one of the factories he uses, they just have 1 dude working most of the time. They work in shifts, so it isn’t like the same dude and they always have a second dude which hops around and helps where needed. But for most of the things they do, it’s just one dude monitoring all the machines. If there is an issue, he shuts down that line and calls a dedicated repair team to get it up and running asap. It seems the US still has the idea of factories from WW2 in mind, where everything is dirty and there’s people everywhere. The reality of most high end modern day factories, like those used to create computer parts, is everything is ultra clean, highly automated and run by very few people. China hasn’t been sitting still these past 50+ years since everything was outsourced there, they are masters of efficiency and automation. Sometimes you’ll see a small manual line doing a single step, which is tricky to automate. But it’ll be maybe 15 women (usually women because they generally have better dexterity), doing only the one thing.
People here in the rural USA also think that factory jobs are magically “good”, and that it was factory jobs themselves that created the middle class. As if the factory owner is somehow different and more noble than the owners of other giant corporations.
In reality the unions literally shed blood to make those jobs “good jobs”. Those unions, and class consciousness, have since been destroyed. Even if 20th century style manufacturing did return it would just be another form of resource extraction. Those jobs may save people from the absolute destitution they face having been abandoned by their government but they’re not going to support a healthy community. That’s simply not good for business. When you don’t give a fuck about human beings then what’s actually “good” for business is a desperate, starving workforce.
People here praise Walmart, even though the community is demonstrably poorer. They’ve completely forgotten what was lost. They talk about that one great uncle who was fucked over by the unions the same way they talk about that one second cousin who never wore a seatbelt and was saved from a wreck when he was “thrown clear”. They all believe they will somehow be thrown clear from the wreck that’s been happening for 50 years.
I was recently talking to a buddy of mine who is in charge of production of some parts for a large hardware brand in Shenzen. We were laughing about how the US wants to do manufacturing again and how they think it will create jobs. He says in one of the factories he uses, they just have 1 dude working most of the time. They work in shifts, so it isn’t like the same dude and they always have a second dude which hops around and helps where needed. But for most of the things they do, it’s just one dude monitoring all the machines. If there is an issue, he shuts down that line and calls a dedicated repair team to get it up and running asap. It seems the US still has the idea of factories from WW2 in mind, where everything is dirty and there’s people everywhere. The reality of most high end modern day factories, like those used to create computer parts, is everything is ultra clean, highly automated and run by very few people. China hasn’t been sitting still these past 50+ years since everything was outsourced there, they are masters of efficiency and automation. Sometimes you’ll see a small manual line doing a single step, which is tricky to automate. But it’ll be maybe 15 women (usually women because they generally have better dexterity), doing only the one thing.
People here in the rural USA also think that factory jobs are magically “good”, and that it was factory jobs themselves that created the middle class. As if the factory owner is somehow different and more noble than the owners of other giant corporations.
In reality the unions literally shed blood to make those jobs “good jobs”. Those unions, and class consciousness, have since been destroyed. Even if 20th century style manufacturing did return it would just be another form of resource extraction. Those jobs may save people from the absolute destitution they face having been abandoned by their government but they’re not going to support a healthy community. That’s simply not good for business. When you don’t give a fuck about human beings then what’s actually “good” for business is a desperate, starving workforce.
People here praise Walmart, even though the community is demonstrably poorer. They’ve completely forgotten what was lost. They talk about that one great uncle who was fucked over by the unions the same way they talk about that one second cousin who never wore a seatbelt and was saved from a wreck when he was “thrown clear”. They all believe they will somehow be thrown clear from the wreck that’s been happening for 50 years.
Great points.
Of course, none of that seems like it would be a serious concern to a billionaire who just wants to own a factory closer to his homes.