A guide to great things still made in the U.S.A
acontinuouslean.com
acontinuouslean.com
The United States is something to be extremely proud of. The way we treat workers, our regard for human rights, our regard for individual freedom, and our willingness to overcome adversity.
I'm proud of my country. I think it's cool to buy products that support it's continued prosperity.
Yes, there are countries that are better at many of these things individually.
On a pragmatic level, pride in where you live translates into emotional investment in where you live, which benefits EVERYONE. In the case of the US, that everyone is a global term.
I'm fine with the general idea of "being proud" if that's what you are into, but don't include human rights in that list when you have more than 2 millions of people in jail as we speak.
The message is clear. You need to sign the human rights convention that we drafted, but we don't need to ratify it because our domestic laws are perfectly sufficient. You can't torture your citizens, but we can extraordinarily render them to black sites and have someone torture them for us. You can't detain your political enemies without trial, but we can lock ours up indefinitely in Guantanamo. You can't interfere with our democracy through Facebook advertising, but we can riddle your government with CIA agents, abduct your president or bring about "regime change" by means of a "humanitarian intervention".
There's an entire Wikipedia article entitled "United States involvement in regime change". The list of democratically elected leaders who were replaced with tyrants with the full support of the US government makes for sobering reading. It's clear that there was never a point in US history where the bolstering of democracy abroad took precedence over US interests.
If you want to argue that the US is no worse than average, then I'm not going to argue too strenuously. If you want to claim that the US is a beacon of liberty and justice, I want to see some evidence. All I see is the banner of "human rights" being used as a cloak to protect US national interests and discarded whenever it's inconvenient.
All else equal, a world where the US attempts to hold other countries to a higher standard than it holds itself is better than a world where it keeps its mouth shut entirely.
If the same item, of the same quality, is made in the US and China I might prefer to buy the US item if I felt the US workers were treated better overall.
I'm not proud of this country. This isn't even a democracy. It's an oligarchy. Only the opinions of the top 10% of income earners even remotely match policy decisions. This isn't new now, it's been this way for longer than I've been alive and longer than my parents have been alive.
Whether it's the Rockefeller funded WWF kicking tribes of their lands in Africa to preserve "wilderness areas" or phone companies outsourcing building phones to China so their countries turn into polluted wastelands instead of ours, the high income countries of the world are only "great" because they exploit everyone else.
Man, I hate this trope. Let me fix it for you: high income countries are only "great" because they have achieved a great deal of institutional, economic and scientific sophistication.
This puts yes them in a position to do shitty things, and they do shitty things, no question. But the actual source of wealth isn't exploitation of other countries. There are plenty of high income countries that don't exploit, and low income countries that do exploit. Also look at history: exploitation or not made little difference except for the most successful colonial powers, so more or less Portugal, Spain, maybe Netherlands, and the UK. Those things are all over.
Progress is not a zero-sum game. Wealth can be created, if it exists it does not have to be because it's stolen. I mean - how did the amount of wealth in the world increase, anyway? Stealing is kind of lossy, it can't have been by mutual stealing. Also, natural resources are not that important anymore. And high income countries were/are doing just fine mining them on their own soil.
Wrong. High-income countries are "great" because they have been granted by history (and luck) healthy-ish institutions, beneficial economic conditions and have had the resources and foresight to conduct scientific exploration.
What the US has done with those factors (some individuals willingly and deliberately and some entities due to economic push/pull factors such as being beholden to shareholders and quarterly profit figures) is to exploit cheap labor, first in the US and later on abroad.
This has been done with utter disregard for the health, safety and well-being of workers and consumer. It has always taken at least one tragedy, or general public outrage, for either the government or corporations to change course.
In simple but not simplistic terms: A significant share of wealth in the United States is the direct result of exploitation of non-American labor.
Now, the US isn't alone in doing things this way. All countries and market participants do this to some extent, because the economic incentive and opportunity structure in the world encourages it. But to hell with anyone pretending our (industrialized, western) wealth isn't built on the broken bones of others!
Those are good to point out. This country has done all those things and worse. That's why its government has to be criticized and scrutinized constantly, otherwise it will continue doing those things.
At the same time buying things made in this country will probably help regular workers get ahead, if they have food on the table, they'll have more time to lift their heads up and see what Uncle Sam is doing. Otherwise, it's hard to care where the drones fly if there is no money to pay for rent next month.
Besides "America" didn't sell guns to Contras, some people in an administration sold guns to Contras.
And you say "drone" as if it's universally a bad thing. Possibly it is (on occasion) the best of bad options? There are people who if left alone would harm civilization, would cause suffering to others, would cause regression. What would you do in those cases? Live and let live? Invade the country to root out a few individuals? Sanctions? Finger wagging?
Imperialist empires aren't "morally right" but they aren't new either. Maybe some are more morally right than others.
I mean I love this land, and my neighbors, but the government I’m almost completely ambivalent about. This is hardly a recipe for patriotism.
Love is great; patriotism (even pride!) is lazy.
For me at least, its less of pride, and more of ensuring that the next generation has opportunities. I think keeping as much manufacturing here as we can is good for all of us overall.
I'd sooner see resources poured into countries that really give a damn about the world.
Lucky for you, you are free to spend your money where you please.
No, very measurably there is not in fact.
According to Bill Gates - who I guarantee knows more on the subject than you do - the US is by far the greatest contributor to: general global aid, global medical aid, global medical research, and public health research, with (again per Gates) the NIH and its connected branches representing over half of the world's public health research.
Americans for over a century have been by far the world's most charitable people. That isn't even something up for dispute, it has been universally recognized in the charity world for half a century at this point.
US tax dollars are currently keeping millions of people in Africa alive.
America's richest routinely give away all of their wealth (frequently to the poor outside of the US); they're the only country in world history that has ever done anything even remotely that. From Rockefeller & Carnegie to Gates & Buffett.
America's era of super power dominance has simultaneously been the most prosperous and safest the world has ever seen, with the fewest major wars. Famines are at record lows. Global poverty is at a record low. The global standard of living is at a record high. Global education levels are at record highs. The global median income has climbed dramatically over 4-5 decades.
Germany, Japan, South Korea - three of the most prosperous, peaceful major nations in modern times, all kept safe and shepherded by the US over decades, including as it pertained to their government systems and defense. Those three are pillars of the global economy and important pillars of global political stability.
Americans have kept South Korea safe for six decades from several communist regimes that desperately wanted to destroy it.
Americans kept Western Europe safe from the Soviets marching further west after WW2. They did that for decades at extreme cost. They could have just gone home, West Germany would have collapsed, who knows where the Soviets would have stopped.
Iraq? Shouldn't have gone in there. The US didn't take their oil, the US didn't annex their territory, and then the US proceeded to vaporize a trillion dollars and thousands of soldiers trying to keep the Iraqis from killing each other in civil war, the context of which dates back hundreds of years; and when they asked, the US left.
What other empire has ever behaved like that? What other empire wouldn't have just tried to annex Japan, South Korea, and parts of Europe? For a century the US has had the world's wealthiest, largest economy, and for a century it has given more charitably than any other nation. What other empire has ever behaved like that? For 70 years the US has had by far the world's most powerful military, and yet it has annexed how much territory through military invasions and conquering in that time? What other empire has ever behaved like that?
This really reminds me of something Christopher Hitchens would have written, somebody whose writing I miss dearly.
Its! (No apostrophe)
:)
I empathize with you, since I see where you are coming from and I've met people like you, but I do not sympathize with you.
While there are decent, hard working people with solid values, you need to be honest and take a look at the entire picture.
Sometimes it is easy to have a better perspective from the outside, as a foreigner, where you can see more clearly what the US does to other countries, and what are the costs of the American way of life not simply the benefits.
Sometimes it is easy to realize this as an ethnic minority. How many people had to be enslaved, lynched, tortured, assassinated, incarcerated, prejudiced upon, extrajudicially killed, physically removed, ethnically cleansed so you can be where you are today?. Just going to leave this quick reminder here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...
Going to highlight one relatively recent event, the Massacre of Greenwood, Tulsa in 1921: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO3Fxe4mDP4 . We could also mention the mass sterilization program in Puerto Rico, and countless other horrible events, but let's stop there. I think I've made my point.
Many countries have acted unfairly in their history and that cannot be changed. But what can change is the acceptance of past mistakes and showing an intent to change. Sweeping everything under the historic rug only makes things worse.
In the early 90's in Poland there was a 'dobra bo Polskie' (good because it is Polish) effort to get people to buy local.
Only nobody did. Those that could would buy the best they could without giving any consideration about the country of origin, everybody else bought simply what they could afford.
That said, many of those brands are of exceptional quality. I’ve been wanting a pair of Alden’s for a long time and I was able to buy some just this weekend. I’ve had a pair of Redwings for 5 years, treated them like shit, and they still look great and feel great.
Not every American company makes top quality products, and there are companies in other countries that make top quality products as well.
That line of thinking leads to some pretty dark places.
No, there is just people.
But some people matter more to me than other people. And what matters to me is what informs my choices and actions.
Obviously. Now let's hope that 'you and yours' will not be on the receiving end of that stick with someone else wielding it. I'm pretty sure that if that were to happen you would be all up in arms and screaming for the equality that you now wish to deny others.
See also: force protection doctrine, contractors being able to commit war crimes with impunity and other exponents of such thinking.
Do you really have that expectation? Has it been your experience of the world?
But governments are not governments. For example, by buying goods from the PRC you support a totalitarian government that draws its legitimacy from the fact that the economy keeps growing. I see it like paying taxes, I live in places that I want to support and then buy local goods.
but then it's nothing about "being American". I can point you to extremely high quality producers in France, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland... so what does it say? Citizenship has no correlation to greatness.
I can’t stand this trope. It borders on nihilism. Yeah I get it, the economy is global and it’s difficult if not impossible to put the car back in the bag. But I’d challenge anyone to justify that it was good for middle class families in this country to price out Family owned mom and pop shops across the nation so you can save $.79 on 39 different brands of toothpaste at Walmart. That is not “great”.
I would suspect you live in a larger city. I know most people view goods this way after recently moving to a rural location I see a big shift in attitude to local goods vs imported. This may not be the view of the majority but it doesn't make this list of no use. On that logic we could say Hacker News forums are useless as most people use Facebook and we better get used to it...
Not everyone is capable enough to work in the information world, its a cold, hard, sad truth, that for some the best they'll ever get in the world is a factory job, that is simply as high as they can rise.
I want all of my fellow countrymen to be productive and happy, so I'd rather spend my dollars at home, than send them overseas to pay someone sweatshop wages.
Your assertion that we should just lie down and take it like sheep is bullshit.
Choosing to buy local and locally sourced goods is preferred by more people than you think.
So where do you buy your locally made iPhone? People don't care about where it comes from as long as it meets their needs. For most items you don't even have a choice to begin with.
I think what we really need are better review systems and product discovery tools. There's some things where it's worth putting in a bit more money and buying it for life, so you save money in the long-run. Surely we've all bought cheap Chinese crap that falls apart after 2 or 3 weeks.
I have one pair and they are truly unbelievable. Ordinarily socks may last me a year or so before the toes or heels give out. I've had the Darn Toughs for at least three years and they look as good as new despite regular use. From the look of them I might wear out before they do.
"If our socks aren’t the most comfortable, durable and best fitting socks you’ve ever owned, we’ll replace them free of charge, for life, no strings attached."
I'm proud to say that they're made in my home state of Vermont.
In your opinion, is there a valid moral/ethical argument for buying products "Made in the USA" that doesn't fall apart when expanded to include other countries?
If you know of a better way to quickly filter out "made by kids," "made by people who are about to be killed in a factory collapse," and "made by indentured servants (or 'third party nationals' as the UAE styles them)" then I'd be interested to know what it is.
try to minimize your participation in the culture of waste. thats got to be worth something.
doesn't really support the narrative of supporting local industry or the idea of eternal market growth.
But then one could ask whether certain parts of Europe enjoy the same moral prerogative wrt the US?
Also, European regulations are the strictest and labor unions the loudest in the world, so it's unlikely any meaningful quantity of goods produced under cruel conditions make their way into the European market. At least we believe that.
The new global standard for the conditions a factory worker may expect is that they'll work 12 hour days, live in a barracks, get paid every three months and suffer routine exposure to dangerous amounts of Benzene---to say nothing of the wages. And if you can't or won't work under these conditions then you're non-employable.
So American worker gets thrown out because he's suddenly insufficiently downtrodden to be a competitive worker in his former line of work.
And maybe the Benzene is worth it to the average Chinese worker. I can't speak for him. But I can say that if it's not, he'll lose his job like the American did and they'll find someone even cheaper somewhere else.
PS: I guarantee you that there are no separate factories in China for export into the EU where workers receive EU-level protections. Don't be daft. The European markets are full of goods produced in horrible conditions.
All nations went through horrible things to reach the high standard of living we take for granted today.
And even in cases where it's true, ignores the fact that many may have preferred not to have had the choice imposed in the first place. E.g. subsistence farmers forced off their land and into cities, either by mandate or through unchecked externalities (aka the polluting plant next door). And purchasing from these manufacturing operations helps spread that misery.
I'm not saying it's an easy calculus, but your characterization is surely reductive.
Do you have any sources for these claims?
Logically it will fall apart. You can say "but isn't citizen of country X just as worthy of a making a good living?" and in a general logical sense, yes they are. However from a practical point of view, choosing to buy something made locally is appealing.
Countries and nations are here to stay for a while. Only the super-wealthy get to be citizens of the world and enjoy globalization in its positive PR-sense. They can live in South America, fly to New York to shop on the weekend, take the yacht to Seychelles for vacation. Borders mean nothing for them. Funny enough many developers on HN here also get to enjoy that if they don't have to work in an office. They can be nomads and borders are just minor annoyances for them.
But Most people are stuck in their countries, and so it makes sense for them to care and worry about the people from the same country a bit more. Buying locally is a manifestation of that.
Also it looks like http://swansislandblankets.com/ did not survive.
There is a bunch of stuff made in the US that clearly isn't on this list, precision/industrial machinery etc.
Since America and Britain stopped importing people, I'm doing my part to stop them exporting products. I have a soft boycott on products made by those countries' companies. No more McDonalds, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, chocolate digestives, etc.
It's a soft boycott, because if someone else buys it for me or suggests it then I don't mind. "I'd like a non-alcoholic drink." "Coke?" "Fine." But I don't choose those products for myself. I try to support local companies instead.
I extended the boycott to include Australia after the 457 visa got cancelled, and New Zealand due to the tightening of quotas on the Skilled Migrant Category.
Despite this, I've still been on holiday to some of those countries, and even plan to move there if I'm one of the lucky ones who can actually get a visa.
I just think it's unfair to impose Western products on other nations, using globalisation for profit, without accepting the social consequence of increased immigration.
As someone working in the US on a visa, with many coworkers in the same situation, what do you mean?
> I extended the boycott to include Australia after the 457 visa got cancelled
The 457 visa wasn't cancelled, it was replaced by the TSS visa, which is substantially the same.
https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/457-abolition-replacemen...
"a requirement for visa applicants to have at least three years’ work experience"
"a non-discriminatory workforce test to ensure employers are not actively discriminating against Australian workers"
"new, more targeted occupation lists which better align with skill needs in the Australian labour market"
"a requirement for visa applicants to have at least two years’ work experience in their skilled occupation"
It's been a long, difficult, wandering struggle to find a country willing to accept me for 3 years so I can get enough work experience.
Expanding on that would be my personal story. I have many friends at various stages of education/work experience, all just trying to find a country to welcome them.
Work experience requirements are a veiled age limit. This is persecution of younger generations. The youth are not happy with the status quo, and are resentful of older generations for these kinds of rules.
Your home country?
> Work experience requirements are a veiled age limit. This is persecution of younger generations.
Hardly. It just means that someone has to have demonstrated their ability, not just acquired a piece of paper.
It's not easy to "demonstrate one's ability" when one is not allowed to get a job.
Net long-term international migration was estimated to be +246,000 in year ending (YE) March 2017. There is no sign it has shifted since, nor is there much sign it will change post Brexit. This is way above the long term average which IIRC is about +100,000.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
A phone that my dad bought for me as a graduation present.
A few of my gadgets are made by American companies, but I bought them second-hand. I can't afford to buy these things new.
Nobody's forcing them to buy anything, you know.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-restaurants-only-serve-...
Oh no, they're so oppressed that they switched suppliers to get a better deal.
When you purchase from these companies, you support artisans. They love their craft and are continuing American heritage traditions.
You're not likely to find this sort of things as imports. Husband-wife teams don't exactly have international presence.
I will say that I'm shocked by how many bicycle manufacturers there are in Portland. I know we have a pretty active bike culture, but still, wow!
One fun example of this "must have been made in the USA" joke (which turned out to be correct when we checked the label) was when my dad was installing a gas fireplace for my mom. It had a faulty shut-off valve, so it'd turn the fire off pretty much at random, but it wouldn't shut off the gas completely. So, the fire would go out, the pilot would go out with a loud pop, but gas would continue to flow slowly. Luckily it did it while we were testing it rather than some time later when no one was paying attention. US-made cars were pretty much universally awful through that era, as well. (My mom's Dodge van during that era tried to kill her multiple times through comically catastrophic failures. My dad drove a Toyota.)
I work in product development. In general, US manufacturers easily switch to metric when there is a market reason to do so, or simply in the course of normal product turnover.
One could also look on stillmadeinusa or on madeintheusaforever
I notice a distinct lack of car companies on here.
Aside from cars, as a list of great things made in the US, it’s missing important products like airliners, computer chips, and pharmaceuticals.
Do we make those?
I had assumed their actual production was elsewhere. Neat:)
(The US is the second largest manufacturer in the world with about 17% of the global total, behind China with about 23%, for those wondering where it actually stands.)
It doesn't help that US manufacturing tends to build things that are less visible to the average person. You buy some fancy new laptop made overseas, but don't think about the fact that the highest value part of that laptop was probably made in the US, and if it was shipped by air it probably traveled in a US-made plane. (If Boeing's commercial airplane business were its own country, it would rank around #33 in the world's largest manufacturing economies.) We see "foreign" cars on the road and don't think about how many of them are actually built here.
And of course manufacturing employment isn't very high, because productivity is growing fast. So most of us don't know many people who work in that sector, which again makes it easier to forget how big it is.
Perhaps the list differentiates between made and assembled in USA.
It's a good selvage denim company.