What happened to American manufacturing is not unusual
blog.waldrn.com
blog.waldrn.com
There are of course the trades, construction. Perhaps not enough though.
Germany tried some "protectionist" policies I seem to recall reading about — to protect some segment of manufacturing (automobile?). I am not sure how that panned out.
Some assorted observations:
1. Most services are dependent on the use of manufactured goods.
2. Trade exists precisely, because no domestic economy is entirely self-sufficient with respect to the demands of its market. However, when manufacturing is entirely outsourced, you become somewhat of an economic rump state. In the best case, you are now an administrator of manufacturing possessions somewhat like a colonial overseer. This creates a condition of economic imperialism rather than one of economic exchange. It creates incentives to capture the political systems of foreign countries and to depress standards of living in order to maintain low costs.
3. When everything is imported, then the only thing you can exchange for them are services. The alternative is printing fiat money or borrowing.
4. When manufacturing is moved abroad, experience and expertise withers and dies. Entire supply chains and intertwined sectors of industry fade. This creates an economic and even political dependence that goes beyond the mere inability of manufacture. As technology becomes increasingly complex, this creates security exposure. The interdependence of these supply chains is nontrivial.
5. Manufacturing is a basis for technological development. This is the result of not just manufacturing capacity, but the combined and communicated expertise that manufacturing enables and propagates. Once a tradition of expertise dies, it is difficult or impractical to replace.
6. Domestic manufacturing creates redundancy that buffers both the domestic economy and the global economy against single points of failure. It also helps drive prices down.
Manufacturing is about skill and price, asian countries are hard to beat in that, especially the latter
As a German, I'm not aware of any large-scale, coordinated efforts specifically with that goal. There's all kinds of subsidies or policies with other ostensible goals (such as promoting electric cars) that are effectively subsidies. Usually enacted as a reaction to some current event, such as COVID, or a large company about to go bankrupt. Nothing that hasn't been done pretty much the same way in other countries.
> if you want other people to give you money you have to offer something they want, not something that interests you
In the small scale.
But if you're thinking about society, you damn well better be thinking about having a big enough place for the people who "need to work with their hands," that's adequately remunerated.
So these measures (public/investments) would be instituted to fulfill these ‘wants’
Most people give what other people can force them to pay to survive.
Jobs going away is really a blessing. New jobs are created and society must arrange income for people who are not valuable enough to live with their work.
I don't think it gets any more common-sense-er than this. You'd think the "it's just common sense" party would understand it.
It’s not that complicated. Remove the risk of failure by giving people money for food, a place to live, an education, and protect their health.
There is a reason that many successful founders came from money. That kind acted as a safety net that allowed them to bet big. Not everyone with money goes on to establish a big business but the rate of success is far higher for those with money.