Richard D. Wolff

The article in "Market Watch" discusses the size of US manufacturing and its key components: refined petroleum goods, pharmaceuticals, airplanes, automobiles. US manufacturing has doubled production since 1984 but with only 1/3 of the workers of that period. The last paragraphs of the article spell out the reality for workers: "American manufacturing isn’t dead by any means. But the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs has devastated the working class, and made reaching the American dream more difficult. Technological advancements and the rise of low-skilled manufacturing in China and other developing nations mean that fewer Americans work in factories, just as technological advancements 100 years ago meant that fewer Americans worked on farms. Most Americans now work in service-producing industries, where inequalities in opportunities, skills and incomes are more apparent. Recreating an economy that provides equitable growth won’t be easy, especially if we pine for the good old days when a third of us worked at the factory. Those days are gone for good, even if U.S. factories still churn out lots of items that are Made in the USA."