My next update for today has to do with manufacturing as a share of
the United States economy. A great deal of nonsense is spoken about this all the time,
and it is long overdue that we set the record straight so we can all understand it.
Let's go back to the 1940s, right? That's a good 75-80 years ago.
At that time, manufacturing in the United States was in the range of 30 to 40 percent. Of this
economy, 30 to 40 percent of the people holding a job worked in a factory or workshop of one kind or
another. It zoomed from 30 to 40 percent because of the production of materials for World War II,
but it was in the 30 to 40 range from that time (from the 1940s) to the present. Over the last
75 years, roughly, the number of people working in manufacturing, the importance of the manufacturing
sector of the United States, has been in a decline as steep as that of union membership and of church
membership. And maybe, that's something to think about. What's the percentage of the U.S. economy
that manufacturing holds now, in terms of jobs and social impact? Ready? Nine percent.
The other 91% of our economy is not engaged in producing anything that's tangible, no physical
object. It's all in what we call "services". Now, here's the point about all this. Every president
from the 1940's to the current one has said he promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to
reverse this decline. Every president, Republican and Democrat alike, promised it. Not a single one
of them delivered it. Please keep that in mind for the future candidates who will no doubt
behave the way the last group of candidates did and promise that they will do what none
of them has been able to do. But it's even more interesting. Where does the blame fall
on all of this? And this is really interesting. Many presidents, including the present one,
blame China. They find a foreign country. It's not always China, but China's a big popular one,
especially now. The bad Chinese, we are told, are stealing our manufacturing jobs.
What a wonderful story? How convenient. You can't change something, so you blame somebody else. I'll
come back to that in a couple of minutes. Big business blamed the workers. How does that work?
Well, you see, we have to pay these high wages, and in other countries, we don't have to pay these
high wages and so other countries steal the jobs because they get away with paying workers less.
So, the reason we don't have manufacturing is our workers in factories have gotten too much
money. How convenient. Here's another one. The taxes are too high. If this government
taxes us too much and so we can't grow our manufacturing jobs, we need lower taxes.
Guess what? We've attacked the Chinese in lots of different ways. We have attacked the
working class by diminishing their unions. And we have cut taxes on business, and none
of that worked. It didn't stop at all, because it had nothing to do with the problem solving.
It was a way to use the decline of manufacturing to get more profits for corporations and to
get the blame off the shoulder of the American politicians who failed to do anything about it.
Well then. What is the reason? Oh, by the way, there's the democrats. They handle it by saying,
"Well, don't worry about it you see, because yes, we're losing these manufacturing jobs. But,
we're going to get high-tech jobs, and those jobs are going to be wonderful and pay better
and just... Yeah, it's bad. We're losing those, but we're going to get the really good ones."
A tiny number of us did. Most of us are working at Walmarts or working in an equivalent. We
got a working class that's now precarious, unsure, insecure. We all know what we got.
The promises of the Democrats were no better than the promises of the Republicans. Neither one
panned out, because here's the reason. It was profitable for American business to leave
in manufacturing, to relocate elsewhere, because they could make more money. This is an economy run
by and for large, capitalist corporations. And the problems we face are the result of their control.
They will do everything to suggest it's something else but don't be fooled.