The only reason manufacturing jobs like my father had at a tool-and-die shop in the 1960s paid well enough to catapult a single-wage-earner family into the middle class was because they had a union— the Machinists’ Union, in my dad’ s case— fighting relentlessly for their rights and dignity.
My father’ s union job meant we owned a modest home, had reliable healthcare, and could attend college without crushing debt. The manufacturing jobs Trump promises? Starvation wages without healthcare while corporate profits soar and executives buy their third mega-yacht.
The proof of their deception is written all over their actions: They’ re already reconfiguring the Labor Department into an anti-worker weapon designed to crush any further unionization in America.
Joe Biden was also working to revive American manufacturing— with actual success— but he made it absolutely clear that companies benefiting from his Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act should welcome unions in exchange for government support.
Trump and his GOP enablers want the opposite: docile workers grateful for poverty wages.
While Republicans babble endlessly about“ job creators,” they fundamentally misunderstand— or deliberately obscure— how a nation’ s true wealth is actually generated.
It’ s not through Wall Street speculation or billionaire tax breaks. It’ s through making things of value; the exact activity their donor class has eagerly shipped overseas for decades while pocketing the difference.
There’ s a profound economic reason to bring manufacturing home that Adam Smith laid out in 1776 and Alexander Hamilton amplified in 1791 when he presented his vision for turning America into a manufacturing powerhouse. It’ s the fundamental principle behind Smith’ s book The Wealth of Nations that I explain in detail in The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America.
A tree limb lying on the forest floor has zero economic value. But apply human labor by whittling it into an axe handle, and you’ ve created something valuable. That“ added value”— the result of applying human( or machine) labor to raw materials— is wealth added to the nation, often lasting for generations if the product endures. Axes made in the 17th century are still being sold in America; manufacturing can produce wealth that truly lasts generations.
Manufacturing, in other words, is the only true way a country becomes wealthier. It’ s why China transformed
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