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> I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > And that leads to an even

by rleigh 8y ago

> I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > And that leads to an even bigger realization: people (and the body politic) don't want jobs at all. Jobs aren't useful. People generally only want the resources and independence that come with a job. I have to strongly disagree with this point. It's used a lot, particularly on HN, and I do wonder if any of the people making it have ever worked in a real manufacturing job in order to have developed this opinion through real-world experience, or it's just part of the current narrative they feel they have to parrot, and is merely uninformed. Working in a manufacturing job, doing something real, making an actual physical product, being part of a large team and something greater than yourself can be very rewarding and provide a lot of satisfaction and a great sense of pride and purpose. Leaving the plant at the end of a shift, seeing convoys of lorries leaving the gates with what you made on board can give you a quiet sense of accomplishment and pride: your personal efforts went into that, and without them they wouldn't be going, and you head home tired but happy. You were useful and contributed work of real value to a greater whole. As a current software developer, I get little of the same reward and satisfaction, despite working hard and being paid several times the salary. America (and the rest of the West) do need those jobs back. Manufacturing is the basis of our economies and civilisation. The wealth and prosperity it created is the reason for the quality of life we enjoy today, but this will rapidly decline once the source of it has been destroyed. Hollowing it out might have been for the benefit of some bankers and investors in the short term, but it's a long term disaster in the making which was obvious a couple of decades back at least. Without this industry we are little more than consumers subject to the will of others. We can only coast on the success of previous generations for so long; the accumulated wealth of those years will be quickly spent and sent overseas. The ability to manufacture is power, and we have given away that power and as a result impoverished millions of our own citizens and left ourselves vulnerable, and all for what exactly?

HillaryBriss 8y ago
i believe that, back in the '80s and '90s, "visionary" economists and politicians saw that US manufacturing was facing a lot of challenges, so they imagined a new world wherein: 1. the US domestic economy would be based on services that would pay just as well as the old manufacturing industry had in the 50's and 60's 2. the US would be the global leader in the "financial industry" 3. the US would be an "ownership society." US investors would reap hefty profits and substantial income from the parts of the world that were industrializing and developing. but that plan, that vision, has worked rather poorly for the vast majority of US residents.

by rleigh 8y ago

HillaryBriss 8y ago

i believe that, back in the '80s and '90s, "visionary" economists and politicians saw that US manufacturing was facing a lot of challenges, so they imagined a new world wherein: 1. the US domestic economy would be based on services that would pay just as well as the old manufacturing industry had in the 50's and 60's 2. the US would be the global leader in the "financial industry" 3. the US would be an "ownership society." US investors would reap hefty profits and substantial income from the parts of the world that were industrializing and developing. but that plan, that vision, has worked rather poorly for the vast majority of US residents.