[themaninthedark]

This is a large part of why I think we need to move manufacturing for domestic products back to the US.

The argument was always that the labor and regulations cost too much but the labor abuse and pollution are costing us more.

[krapp]

You don't think domestic manufacturers will abuse labor and pollute?

The same party that wants to move manufacturing back to the US also wants to deregulate as much as possible, roll back labor rights and repeal environmental laws. The cost of moving manufacturing out of China and to the US is that the few Americans who can get work in a mostly AI driven and automated industry will eventually get treated and paid like Chinese labor.

[themaninthedark]

I think that some domestic manufacturers will abuse labor and pollute, you will never have 100% compliance. However it is far easier to police things here then somewhere without our regulatory framework. If Nike could get away with child sweatshops in the US, why did they bother moving abroad?

Sure, they want to roll back all those protections but we don't have to. And more to the point, why doesn't the US party that champions labor rights and environmental regulations want to move manufacturing back to the US? It's very easy to say you support factory worker rights when you don't have any factory workers.

[krapp]

>Sure, they want to roll back all those protections but we don't have to.

But we're going to. You know that's the deal.

>And more to the point, why doesn't the US party that champions labor rights and environmental regulations want to move manufacturing back to the US?

Both parties are strongly pro-business and pro-manufacturing[0], and the Democrats did campaign on reshoring just because it's a no-brainer, but they seem more focused on preserving labor rights and a living wage than do Republicans.

[0]https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/what-does-the-off...

[themaninthedark]

For a long time, basically since the passage of NAFTA there was a general sentiment that mfg. should go away.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/10/17/163074704/manu...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/manufacturing-jobs-are-...

Democrats just recently changed their stance based on Trump's win, which is great if it helps the avg. worker.

We need to figure out how to structure our economy to benefit everyone:

>And manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.

It's fun to look back at these articles talking about how retail is taking off....now all the big boxes are dying, we replaced storefronts with a few warehouses.

Sure, the amount of labor going into making something has shrunk but so has the amount of labor required to sell something. Honestly, it's not just going to be just an AI driven and automated manufacturing industry. Healthcare, education and everything else seems to be falling into the same dark spiral.