Something that a shift to robotic manufacturing plays to is the theory of inflection points in systems. In this case, the inflection points are very very long m

Something that a shift to robotic manufacturing plays to is the theory of inflection points in systems. In this case, the inflection points are very very long markers in time. 1) You start at highly domestic manufacturing for most goods (mostly the case right up until the mid 19th to 20th century). 2) Global outsourcing brings huge efficiency gains through specialization and optimizations with regulation and labor costs. 3) The inflection swings back to domestic manufacturing of most goods. If the US could automate the sewing of its clothing, why not most every other country? There's no reason Italy couldn't buy enough materials to then sew all of its own clothing domestically; ditto Spain or Belgium or whomever. The swing back also brings all sorts of benefits for security when it comes to being less dependent on other nations for your basic goods. If you could make your own clothing at a cost parity with outsourcing it to China, why wouldn't you do so? And even more important than a cost parity, is a net value parity: the capital kept domestically, the jobs kept or created domestically thrown into the value calculation.