December 8, 2016

At re-Americanized industries, a new level of job cornucopia

Trump is negotiating to bring back entire industries that used to have a place in the American economy -- such as electronics -- and that will have an additional benefit to job-seekers than simply the presence of more unfilled jobs. That is, since these industries have been sent out of the country for so long, their job openings will be in a "get in on the ground floor" industry, rather than a mature industry that is already well colonized.

Although the first round of applicants won't have the training to put together an iPhone, neither will any of the other American workers.

No clogged arteries in the promotion system, where the job you're looking to fill won't be open because the current occupant isn't being promoted up out of it.

Networking won't be as important, as there's nobody yet to network with in a new industry. Get trained, show up, don't screw up, and there you go.

And unlike other start-up industries that grow too fast and suffer from Gold Rush-style extinction after an initial boom, these industries have already proven their long-term worth and stability in both the United States way back when, and outside the country where the industries are currently located. They are not economic bubbles like "online social media". Making cars, television sets, and cell phones will not be going bust any time soon.

These industries already pay much better than the typical ones the workers would find themselves in -- that's why they were sent outside the country in the first place, to reap profits from labor arbitrage. Now we can add less difficulty getting your foot in the door, and less insecurity long-term.

There will be a boon to white-collar professionals as well, whose jobs are more industry-general rather than specific. If you're already trained as an accountant, you can switch industries from banking to electronics manufacturing without as much trouble as, say, switching from assembling burgers at McDonald's to assembling iPhones at Apple. Without needing as much specific training, the white-collars will be fast-tracked into the new industries.

That's another aspect that is often overlooked in the re-Americanizing of these industries -- they will produce not only blue-collar but white-collar jobs, too. The assembly line workers at a manufacturing plant don't run the whole operation by themselves. These middle and upper-middle class jobs were destroyed alongside the working class ones when the industry was sent out of the country.

Decades down the line, there will probably be class conflict that arises between the blue-collar workers and white-collar managers and professionals within these industries. But for now, they are both in the same boat of wanting the industries to return to this country so they can all get better-paying and more secure jobs.

This parallels the stages of populism after the elite-centric Gilded Age. First, during the Progressive Era, the focus was workers and industrialists teaming up to strengthen the nation's industries (as opposed to doing the bidding of foreign economies and peoples). Then, after that was achieved and immigration shut off, the foreign economic threat receded into the background, and the domestic class conflicts came more into focus, spawning the New Deal era with its tug-of-war between Big Labor and Big Business, as mediated by Big Government.

The neo-Progressive Era under Trump will be characterized by a seemingly strange coalition of workers, managers, and (loyal) company owners, uniting around the common project of re-industrializing the American economy. The Bernie movement was putting the cart before the horse, stressing class conflict at a time when nationalism is needed for populism to succeed. They'll get their turn, in a generation or so.

8 comments:

  1. Just out the gate, not even inaugurated yet, and a couple of your predictions are looking good. For better and worse.

    Antagonism. It does appear that this is the road the Democrats are going down. It also does look like it will lead them to irrelevancy, too. There is just no recognition that populists performed a hostile take-over and got their man in office, ergo, he is fundamentally different than Republican leaders. "Oh, we're going to obstruct him just like they obstructed Obama, how about *that*, Republicans!" Everyone else, though, will just see them thwarting the man who is trying to bring jobs back...

    The Republican party is incredibly united now. I would love for the TrueCons to get lost with the anti-union philosophy, but I'm pessimistic. I understand using carrots to bring jobs back, especially before he's even inaugurated (!!!), but the Labor movement doesn't look capable of going against TrueCons.
    Nothing has changed about Labor, but its flaws are coming into an even starker relief now: how is it that you can't even counter, no you don't even try to counter, the talking points of a beaten-down faction?
    I'm hearing about all this wonderful deregulation that TrueCons are crowing about that's going to bring these jobs back... What does Labor say? Read another essay about how Republicans want to deny birth control to indigenous tranny maids.

    It's frustrating. This is such a huge moment, but they just are not oriented that way. Their stated mission is at odds with their actual mission. They are just the muscle for the New Left. Shame.

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  2. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-dreamers-undocumented-immigrants-232301

    Look agnostic, i don't want to sound like a concern troll but WHAT is this? I had my suspicions with Pence and all the talk about touch back early on in the campaign. If he cucks on this what do we do?

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  3. He didn't say anything -- just bland dismissals about how whatever he does, it'll make people proud and happy.

    So maybe he allows the most qualified and least destabilizing 100 kids to stay, and the rest of them go back.

    Trump wants to do, not talk, let alone talk to the press and start a propaganda campaign against his goals. By offering only empty feel-good answers, he can get the real work done out of the media's spotlight.

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  4. Trump really make electoral reform a priority if self-important idiots like this are in EC (supposed to be largely symbolic) https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/12/06/ethics-dunce-texas-elector-christopher-suprun/

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  5. I would like to see this all lead to a labor shortage. These returning industries would steal workers from other employers who would have a difficult time filling those positions.

    We often hear about the record number of Americans not participating in the labor force. I believe a good number of them worked in the past and still wanted to work yet were constantly rejected, gave up, and started drawing SSI to survive. It would be so nice if this disturbing trend could be reversed and we could put these people to work.

    I realize a labor shortage has its negatives but it's much better for the working class than the hellish tight jobs market status quo.

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  6. Screw the MSM. Nonstop BS about what a sellout Trump is. It doesn't matter who Trump appoints or hangs out with; fighting against offshoring and cutting immigration by default brings about greater well-being for American workers. For 40 years there's been so little noblesse oblige. Under Carter and beyond, it's been all neo-liberalism all the time. That's gonna change.

    BTW, Yglesias, who literally could not get the liberalism beaten out of him, says that Washington needs to move to Middle America. These elites are so out of it. Nerds like him can't even fathom the importance of non-elite but dignified jobs. We need to strengthen the middle class with wholesome jobs instead of having Washington's tentacles spread further out. Far too many areas are teeming with strivers who don't have a clue about what made the Rustbelt great before the West, the Sunbelt, and yuppies began to dominate things in the later 70's . What business do they have trying to infest whichever areas haven't succumbed to total yuppiedom and airheaded lifestyle strivers (one county of Wyoming voted for Hillary and surprise it's got the most elite ski resort)?

    Strauss and Howe predicted the rise of a populist strongman decades ago. They got the overall picture right but erred on the details. They thought that Gen X-ers would both produce and embrace such a figure. WRONG. What they didn't (and maybe couldn't) have known is that it was the Boomers who would put up the biggest fight. Also, that social class and geography turned out to be more important than generational traits. The biggest Trump fans were people who've felt put down and ignored for ages especially if they've lived in unfashionable areas. White Millennials in the Rustbelt turned out to be relatively open to voting for Trump or at least they had the decency to not vote for Hillary.

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  7. I think you were right about hysteresis modeling the Democrats. Pelosi as leader again, doubling down on identity politics, fundamentally misunderstanding what Trump's electorate actually expects him to do (basically trying to sell the "you were conned, morons" narrative.)

    Not to mention the stupidity of getting in bed with Jill Stein, the faithless elector business, etc. Looks bad to a lot of people who kinda held their nose and voted Trump.

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  8. We're just seeing a big realignment. The GOP's haphazard coalition of born again cultural strivers, neo-liberal ideologues, and Sunbelt fetishists alienated more and more Americans (particularly in the NE quandrant of the country) from the later 80's-early 2010's. But now that the GOP has found a way to appeal to the least fashionable people in America (non-cosmopolitan folks in the Rustbelt and Appalachia), The Dems are now desperately attempting to shed every last vestige of salt of the Earth white proleness as symbolized by the victory of Silent Frisco cultural warrior Pelosi over stolid Gen X Rustbelter Tim Ryan. You couldn't have scripted it to be more befitting of the aging elite Dem's arrogance. Of course, striving lower income white hipsters and the non-white underclass are still welcome on the Dem plantation).

    For the liberal members of the Sixties generation (basically, those born from about 1935-1957), the excesses of the civil rights era apparently weren't good enough. And they don't want to be accused of shirking their duty to keep late Boomers and Gen X-ers in line and indoctrinate Millennials in the mores of the permanent cultural revolution. The most financially and culturally privileged cohort ever is proving to be alarmingly devoid of noblesse oblige among it's Left wing contigent. The Dems can't jettison their archaic leadership as that would be an unflattering defrocking of the Leftwing high priests ordained in the mid-century, when economic issues were cast aside by a set of people who would become willfully ignorant about the reasons for the ever rising inequality and decadence of the post-mid-century era. This is their legacy as much as Roe v Wade, or Miranda rights, or the Americans with disabilities act (which Clint Eastwood famously derided for the costs imposed on small business owners).

    The party that minimized cultural merit badges in favor of putting Americans back to work is the victorious party. The deathgrip of PC won't allow elite Dems to just shut the hell up about the "rights" of scab labor and welfare cases(oh, excuse me, undocumented immigrants), of dangerous black men, of libertine and callous women, etc.

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