4 ms·

people always point to this dumb metric, "we're producing more than ever" compared to ourselves, while ignoring that the number in comparison to the rest of the

people always point to this dumb metric, "we're producing more than ever" compared to ourselves, while ignoring that the number in comparison to the rest of the world has dropped massively. Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
I've worked for manufacturing companies my entire 30+ year career. It's not a dumb metric. It's usually pulled out in response to the silly complaint that "the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore." Sure, our share of global manufacturing is smaller, but that's hardly surprising when many more countries up their manufacturing game. A more interesting metric would be US percentage of total worldwide manufacturing as a function of sophistication: I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters.
- minikites 5y ago
  >I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters. Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Because ordinary workers, producing many units, is a business with low margins. And in modern developed economies, those margins are insufficient to support a decent salary.
    - minikites 5y ago
      So what happens when every economy becomes developed? What happens when we can't rely on the existence of low wage workers?
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        I have a sneaking suspicion that's fundamentally impossible, as some of the prerequisites for developed economies (in the modern, not-industrialization sense) seem to require predatory exploitation of developing economies. And the global inequality of capital ensures there's a power disparity sufficient to enforce it for the former, to the detriment of the latter. But I guess it's really a question about post-scarcity economics, and whether they're possible?
        TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        I think your mistaking how it tends to be for how it must be. I’m more optimistic. Not really sure I have much to base my optimism on, but oh well. Edit: fixed a word
      - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        This always seems like a question with an agenda. What happens? Well I suppose the economy collapses and the proletariat rise up and usurp power, or something fantastical. What’ll more likely happen is we’ll further automate repetitive low skill tasks, and / or start making more durable goods, or otherwise ingenuity our way forward.
      - sennight 5y ago
        Post-industrialized countries make it impossible to for those countries arriving late to the party to advance any further, by way of global environmental agreements and glass bead "carbon credit" payments, thereby ensuring a permanent pool of slave labor.
        CryptoPunk 5y ago
        All of the statistics on wage and per capita GDP growth contradict your claim..
        sennight 5y ago
        > > > So what happens when... > > Answer for what happens when > That hasn't happened yet!1!! Time isn't that complicated a concept.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    Because there won't be "many ordinary workers" producing those toasters. Low margin products like that will have their manufacture automated to the n'th degree and they'll be built by "a handful of elite workers" supervising the automation. Or, you know, they'll send it to the lowest-cost labor supplier they can find to build by hand and that won't be in the US!
- natebleker 5y ago
  I build complex medical instruments, I'd rather build toasters the way the chip shortage is nuking my BOMs right now.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Most toasters suck. I have to buy a new one every other year or so, for some stupid electrical or mechanical reason. Right now, for instance, the latch on our current toaster -- the one that latches on to the handle you press down to lower the bread and close the circuit to start the heating elements -- isn't latching any more. Fucking low-grade crap! I mean, I'm not asking for a self-lowering magically-correct-degree-of-toasting toaster like in the old TC video -- I just want a stupid mechanical latch in a product I bought a couple of years ago to keep stupidly mechanically latching for six or ten more years. That is not too much to ask. So, stick to your complex medical instruments. Or, if you switch to toasters, please don't build the same shitty crap as everyone else.
TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
Of course it is, after WWII the rest of the world’s manufacturing capacity had more or less been bombed to smithereens.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
The US is 4% of the world. All else being equal, we would eventually move towards manufacturing 4% of things.
viscanti 5y ago
> Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be You mean compared to a time when most developed countries' production capacity was significantly limited because they had been bombed out in WW2 and developing countries were a long way away from being competitive?
kragen 5y ago
That's because the rest of the world is no longer a bombed-out postwar wasteland or its near-enslaved colonies as it was in 01945. "Producing more than ever" is what you needed last year when you couldn't get N95 masks or ventilators, not "producing more than the rest of the world". But something went wrong and the masks and ventilators were not forthcoming, something that looks an awful lot like an absolute decline in manufacturing abilities.
- manwe150 5y ago
  Other people said this above, but I will add my own anecdote I heard from a factory owner, that he had the ability to retool immediately back then to make medical masks, but between the uncertainty around whether people would keep buying them and at what cost, he was unsure it was worth the risk of switching away from a profitable business to something that would take less ability to make and less certain profits. I don’t know what he ended up choosing to do. But sounds like ‘not forthcoming’ is also possibly an indicator that skills, and the demand for them, is high—and not in decline.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Was this in the US? In both PRC and Taiwan the government guaranteed the profits of factories that retooled to make medical masks.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

I've worked for manufacturing companies my entire 30+ year career. It's not a dumb metric. It's usually pulled out in response to the silly complaint that "the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore." Sure, our share of global manufacturing is smaller, but that's hardly surprising when many more countries up their manufacturing game. A more interesting metric would be US percentage of total worldwide manufacturing as a function of sophistication: I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters.

minikites 5y ago
>I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters. Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Because ordinary workers, producing many units, is a business with low margins. And in modern developed economies, those margins are insufficient to support a decent salary.
  - minikites 5y ago
    So what happens when every economy becomes developed? What happens when we can't rely on the existence of low wage workers?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I have a sneaking suspicion that's fundamentally impossible, as some of the prerequisites for developed economies (in the modern, not-industrialization sense) seem to require predatory exploitation of developing economies. And the global inequality of capital ensures there's a power disparity sufficient to enforce it for the former, to the detriment of the latter. But I guess it's really a question about post-scarcity economics, and whether they're possible?
      - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        I think your mistaking how it tends to be for how it must be. I’m more optimistic. Not really sure I have much to base my optimism on, but oh well. Edit: fixed a word
    - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
      This always seems like a question with an agenda. What happens? Well I suppose the economy collapses and the proletariat rise up and usurp power, or something fantastical. What’ll more likely happen is we’ll further automate repetitive low skill tasks, and / or start making more durable goods, or otherwise ingenuity our way forward.
    - sennight 5y ago
      Post-industrialized countries make it impossible to for those countries arriving late to the party to advance any further, by way of global environmental agreements and glass bead "carbon credit" payments, thereby ensuring a permanent pool of slave labor.
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        All of the statistics on wage and per capita GDP growth contradict your claim..
        sennight 5y ago
        > > > So what happens when... > > Answer for what happens when > That hasn't happened yet!1!! Time isn't that complicated a concept.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  Because there won't be "many ordinary workers" producing those toasters. Low margin products like that will have their manufacture automated to the n'th degree and they'll be built by "a handful of elite workers" supervising the automation. Or, you know, they'll send it to the lowest-cost labor supplier they can find to build by hand and that won't be in the US!
natebleker 5y ago
I build complex medical instruments, I'd rather build toasters the way the chip shortage is nuking my BOMs right now.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Most toasters suck. I have to buy a new one every other year or so, for some stupid electrical or mechanical reason. Right now, for instance, the latch on our current toaster -- the one that latches on to the handle you press down to lower the bread and close the circuit to start the heating elements -- isn't latching any more. Fucking low-grade crap! I mean, I'm not asking for a self-lowering magically-correct-degree-of-toasting toaster like in the old TC video -- I just want a stupid mechanical latch in a product I bought a couple of years ago to keep stupidly mechanically latching for six or ten more years. That is not too much to ask. So, stick to your complex medical instruments. Or, if you switch to toasters, please don't build the same shitty crap as everyone else.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago

Of course it is, after WWII the rest of the world’s manufacturing capacity had more or less been bombed to smithereens.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The US is 4% of the world. All else being equal, we would eventually move towards manufacturing 4% of things.

viscanti 5y ago

> Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be You mean compared to a time when most developed countries' production capacity was significantly limited because they had been bombed out in WW2 and developing countries were a long way away from being competitive?

kragen 5y ago

That's because the rest of the world is no longer a bombed-out postwar wasteland or its near-enslaved colonies as it was in 01945. "Producing more than ever" is what you needed last year when you couldn't get N95 masks or ventilators, not "producing more than the rest of the world". But something went wrong and the masks and ventilators were not forthcoming, something that looks an awful lot like an absolute decline in manufacturing abilities.

manwe150 5y ago
Other people said this above, but I will add my own anecdote I heard from a factory owner, that he had the ability to retool immediately back then to make medical masks, but between the uncertainty around whether people would keep buying them and at what cost, he was unsure it was worth the risk of switching away from a profitable business to something that would take less ability to make and less certain profits. I don’t know what he ended up choosing to do. But sounds like ‘not forthcoming’ is also possibly an indicator that skills, and the demand for them, is high—and not in decline.
- kragen 5y ago
  Was this in the US? In both PRC and Taiwan the government guaranteed the profits of factories that retooled to make medical masks.