| > What would need rebuilt is all the infrastructure for automating supply chains, and such an aggressive economic move would be highly likely to unite the American people in a singular cause against their new economic foe i want to argue the opposing side of this a little. i would argue that present-day America is actually extremely difficult to unite. i don't believe the imagined "aggressive economic move" would unite the American people. "the American people" is just a diverse bunch of competing economic actors and political interest groups operating inside US geographical boundaries. WWII is the last thing that really united "the American people" to the extent that you describe, and that was characterized by direct acts of war resulting in human fatalities (e.g. u-boats sinking ships in the Atlantic, Pearl Harbor, bombing raids on our British ally, etc). a purely economic move like that is a lot less likely to unite the American people than an actual military attack. what's more, today, even real American human fatalities don't unite America. when the San Bernardino attacks happened, half the country was arguing for more gun control laws and the other half was screaming "Islamic fundamentalism." going to a larger event, did even 9/11 unite "the American people" in a way comparable to WWII? if it did, it didn't last long. when i try to understand why, say, Apple, does its manufacturing in China, i read from various sources that it's not just cheaper labor, but also the availability of a very large number of engineers on short notice and the ability to build factories way, way faster -- no bureaucratic red tape and far fewer environmental reviews and roadblocks. i don't see a way to match that in the US system. a lot of people really love environmental protection laws. i don't see where something as low-intensity and undramatic as "an aggressive economic move" by China would be enough to unite the people in an effort to repeal environmental laws and motivate sociology and psychology majors switch to EE and CS. |