• zbyte64@awful.systems
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    12 hours ago

    Deskilling blue collar labor is how America gave China a manufacturing edge. What do you think will be the result of deskilling white collar labor?

    • gradual@lemmings.world
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      7 hours ago

      Actually, it’s the American business owners that gave china the manufacturing edge.

      They cared more about maximizing profits off of Americans rather than competing with foreign companies offering customers better deals.

      Keep in mind, you’re trying to argue against industrialization right now. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have industrialized to prevent “deskilling blue collar labor” so “China doesn’t get a manufacturing edge”?

    • ILoveUnions@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      America gave china the manufacturing jobs by failing to block slave labor imports and failing to put proper tariffs to account for differences in cost of living to a reasonable extent. I say this at risk of sounding like a trumpy…

      This is to be clear that while I advocate for some level of global inter investment, having capacity in your home country is ever very important. Usa could’ve kept the jobs if they were smart back then.

      • blarghly@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Eeeeeeh… China was rapidly industrializing, and the low skill manufacturing jobs they took were going to leave the US anyway. While ensuring the rights of foreign workers is definitely something I support, it still wouldn’t have stymied the tidal shift in low skill labor to lcol nations.

        Ensuring a domestic supply of some goods is definitely important. But tariffs aren’t the answer here - instead, the answer is to support local industries by giving them government contracts to produce their goods, which the government can then use and/or stockpile when we aren’t in a time of crisis.

        And anyway, while a great amount of manufacturing labor went overseas in the last century, American has been reclaiming ground recently… with robots.

        Basically no matter how you split it, those high paying, low skill manufacturing jobs were never going to stick around for long. That’s just the forward march of technological progress.