Maybe Domestic Manufacturing Should Come Back

Photo by Lou Mack, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

With few exceptions, the mental state of American teenagers dominated political discourse last week. A recent report shared the ominous statistic that nearly 60% of teenage girls experienced multiple symptoms of depression, while nearly half that number made a suicide plan. The debate soon flared as to the political meaning of these statistics. Some liberals and most conservatives blamed social media, with conservatives using the data to support a proposed ban on social media for kids under the age of 16. Others on the left argued that despair about climate change, public health, and income inequality were more important reasons for teenage depression.

These debates simply add this cohort to the large group of older Americans who are also depressed. It seems as though feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy are dominant in America in this decade. It was not Donald Trump, the height of the pandemic, or the prevalence of low wages that were the true obstacles of American happiness. All of these factors, combined with the opioid epidemic and rampant loneliness and dissatisfaction, have all combined to cause thousands of deaths of despair over the past decade. It seems as though Americans are as sad as they have ever been, and the problem does not seem to be getting any better.

But there may be a silver lining in another parallel news story that has been discussed heavily in recent years. Joe Biden and Congress have taken several steps to ensure the return of domestic manufacturing. After years of promise, the return of factory jobs has the potential to marginally improve the economic and social circumstances of millions of Americans.

The services/manufacturing debate is one that it seemed as though economists had won in the past decade or so. Neoliberals had argued for decades that the hollowing out of American cities from deindustrialization was not a clear evil. They argued that manufacturing jobs were leaving, yes, but they were being replaced by safer service and technology jobs. These new jobs would lead to fewer workplace-related lung and repetitive stress injuries. More and more of America would resemble tech hubs like Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle Park, places where entry-level jobs paid six figures and new services and opportunities were everywhere. Manufacturing could be performed in countries that had a comparative advantage with cheap labor and low transportation costs.

But manufacturing has a number of benefits outside of these tabulations. Factories are more amenable to union growth than service or tech jobs. The factory is a site where workers have discovered tactics and strategies to force owners to listen to their demands. Manufacturing jobs often pay higher wages than service jobs and are less vulnerable to cheaper remote employees. Jobs can often be secured with a short certification process or no degree at all. On-the-job training is more prevalent than with many service jobs, which are often seen as interchangeable and require intimidating levels of experience for well-paid positions.

Domestic manufacturing is also safer than it has ever been. The prevalence of personal protective equipment is at a higher level than earlier periods. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has helped to drastically reduce the number of injuries that workers face on the job. All of these factors are intensified in the newest industries supported by the semiconductor manufacturing act. These high-tech firms must be kept clean and have relatively few moving parts compared to factories of the past. The chances of injury are much lower than the classic automobile or textile factory.

More importantly, domestic manufacturing may be able to start a reversal in the feelings of disappointment and malaise than are so common today. As Reg Theriault noted in his famed 1995 book on work, How To Tell When You’re Tired, the manufacturing and docking industries were not as soul-crushing as many outside observers assumed. Workers became close friends. They socialized with each other all day long. They strategized and came up with ideas both for greater efficiency and for maximizing their free time. As Theriault writes, factory workers benefit immensely from the ability to slow down their productivity, a possibility lacking in stressful service, independent contractor, and tech jobs:

Taking it easy on the job while someone else covers your work, or working on and off… is an established part of work. It takes some kind of real mental case to do all the work he can all day long. No one expects it. Certainly not management. Managers might want it, but they do not expect it, and workers do not disappoint them.

It is difficult to quantify American happiness at any time, let alone in decades prior to widespread scientific surveys. But the height of unionized American manufacturing was the height of socialization and productive social activity highlighted in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone. It was a time when tens of millions of Americans had productive friendships, played cards, joined local organizations, and worked with political groups. Unions were just one of many social groups that helped further this process. Outside of the union hall, countless Americans played cards or went to rallies with friends they made at work on assembly lines.

Ever since deindustrialization, politicians and social leaders have believed that they could graft the positive effects of the factory onto other economic and social groups. But it is possible that they were wrong. Americans might need to go back to earlier employment situations in order to find the boost that their social lives need. The new semiconductor factory may not solve America’s depression problem. But it might help more than a ban of TikTok.