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Over sixty years ago, the
world was enthralled with the most pressing, destructive, and lethal
conflict of our time. Thousands of square miles of territory, thousands of
villages, towns and cities, and perhaps billions of livelihoods were
destroyed or dramatically altered forever. The conflict? World War II. The
victors? The Allies. And undoubtedly leading the charge to victory over
some of the greatest evil the world has ever known was the unbelievable
industrial base of 1940’s America.
After the end of the war,
many American companies began looking at overseas manufacturing to
increase profits. Slowly, America began to lose it’s the industrial base
that had made it a global superpower, and had been one of the deciding
forces in the fight over Axis evil. And yet, few Americans seemed to
notice.
Perhaps the main reason the
drastic decline in the American industrial base went unnoticed is because,
in the post-war boom that followed years of depression and isolation,
America was in an economic heyday. The executives at such long-standing
American companies such as GE, General Motors, and many others assumed the
mindset that the dirty work of manufacturing could now be done overseas,
and at unbeatably low prices. Within a few decades, however, not only was
the dirty work being done overseas, but nearly all of the work was being
done outside of American soil.
Not a problem, the
assumption was, as this was seen as a crucial step in the further
modernization of American society. Before long, however, Americans began
feeling the drastic effects of their outsourcing at home. When the boom of
the post-war period came to an end, and the reality of the 1960’s and 70’s
began to set in, many lower income Americans began losing their jobs to
others thousands of miles away, who were willing to work just as hard for
a small fraction of the price.
And so the downward spiral
began.
By the year 2000, America
was no longer the great industrial giant it had been sixty years before,
but was rather simply a middleman for global imports and exports. Goods
made in China were shipped to the U.S., labeled with the brand names of
U.S. companies, and shipped elsewhere. Even that didn’t seem so bad at the
time. But now, as China’s economy grows faster than ever before, and India
and other nations are beginning to catch up with commercial power of the
United States, America may see itself in a totally different position.
What happens, after all,
when they decide to cut out the middleman?
Simple. The United States,
with little or no remaining manufacturing base, and even fewer skilled
manufacturers, will no longer be the global superpower that it is today.
In fact, it will fit the definition of a third-world nation a lot more so
than that of a global superpower.
The message?
Let’s continue to modernize, without forgetting what made us a global
superpower in the first place: industry.
Sources: General Electric,
General Motors, NBC, CNN |
