Vice President JD Vance is clapping along with the MAGA faithful to President Donald Trump's tariffs this week, but in the past he has repeatedly insisted that U.S. manufacturing jobs were not coming back and dismissed efforts to force them to return with tariffs as a futile exercise by "hyper-protectionists," according to a review of his social media posts and interviews over the past several years by CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck.
In a way he is correct - the manufacturing jobs we think of - good paying, good benefits, union-protected, etc - aren’t coming back.
Does anyone believe that the MAGA Nazis are going to bring back the old manufacturing model? The entire reason they sent business overseas was to save money. Now that they’ve had a few decades of those fat profits, they want more. If they could only save on the expensive shipping costs, by manufacturing in America, but doing it the same way its done over there.
The new manufacturing model will be Asian-style sweatshops, no unions, low pay (less than minimum wage, if they can get away with it), teen labor, no workplace health/ safety/ environmental protections, mandated long hours, no overtime, no benefits, no sick pay, no paid vacations, no discrimination laws, corporate-friendly labor boards, high income taxes, etc.
We are already seeing a lot of serious discussion of new state laws that will do away with minimum wage, loosen child labor laws, bust unions, etc. They are already getting ready for American sweatshops, and NOBODY is talking about it.
Also, isn’t most of it being automated, even in China?
Automation is the thing that needs more discussion as well. Suppose automation is nearly perfected. Does anyone think these demons will let some kind of post-scarcity economy flourish? I think what they’ll opt for - and some of the broligarchs already “joke” about it now - is that they’ll puzzle over what to do about all the “useless eaters”.
I think automation that reduced the amount of work, combined with sane and moral policies could be a good thing. The way the radicalized right wing broligarchs want to run it - will be hell on Earth for anyone that doesn’t already have massive amounts of capital.