Pray tell, where do you expect all those agricultural products, lumber, livestock, and so forth that we all depend on to come from without small towns and rural communities? They have to grow somewhere after all.
> Pray tell, where do you expect all those agricultural products, lumber, livestock, and so forth that we all depend on to come from without small towns and rural communities? They have to grow somewhere after all.
The article provides several examples showing that those industries continue to operate in small towns, but that they require very little labor anymore, due to mechanization and automation.
The majority of the financial gains for these industries go to the capital owners (including all of us who can afford to save for retirement), not to the local labor pool. The labor pool doesn't have leverage to change that, because they often have few other options for work in their area.
The remote workers transplanted from cities aren't going to meaningfully increase employment in the old sectors. They will just enjoy the cheap housing and lower cost for low-skilled services.
Local low-skilled labor won't be able to suddenly shift to high-skilled remote IT work, and the sectors are too different to have an effect on the others' labor rates.
At best, the remote IT workers' discretionary local spending might prop up a few small service businesses, like restaurants, but the remote workers are likely to keep most of their capital in the same non-local financial instruments that their equivalents in cities do. And who could blame them for doing so?
You're completely correct. We depend utterly on a lot of basic products of small towns and rural communities.
That said, just because food and lumber has to be grown somewhere doesn't mean it has to be grown in American small towns and rural communities. My wheat and rice can come from Mexico and Thailand and my beef from Argentina.
Trans-oceanic shipping and trains are surprisingly low-impact per unit of food. When you add in the environmental impact of things like growing rice in Texas deserts and almonds in California, the results can easily come out in favor of trade.
There are other considerations, too. Favoring local products is a good way to keep poor food-exporting countries poor. I don't want that, though I understand some people have different priorities from me.
This is great until a major conflict happens between the US and the country responsible for a major food staple, and domestic production is decimated by imports, and there’s a food shortage.
The article provides several examples showing that those industries continue to operate in small towns, but that they require very little labor anymore, due to mechanization and automation.
The majority of the financial gains for these industries go to the capital owners (including all of us who can afford to save for retirement), not to the local labor pool. The labor pool doesn't have leverage to change that, because they often have few other options for work in their area.
The remote workers transplanted from cities aren't going to meaningfully increase employment in the old sectors. They will just enjoy the cheap housing and lower cost for low-skilled services.
Local low-skilled labor won't be able to suddenly shift to high-skilled remote IT work, and the sectors are too different to have an effect on the others' labor rates.
At best, the remote IT workers' discretionary local spending might prop up a few small service businesses, like restaurants, but the remote workers are likely to keep most of their capital in the same non-local financial instruments that their equivalents in cities do. And who could blame them for doing so?