I don't see how any of this works unless the rest of the world agrees to be less productive in the meantime. Apply what you want for the US to every country in the world. If your policy is the solution, then I'd assume all countries would copy it, and we'd have no one to export to. Or if they follow what I consider a more reasonable policy, they will quickly find cheaper places to buy shit, take advantage of basic things like comparative advantage vs. the protectionist (1) US, again leading to no exports.
The US is great, don't get me wrong, but the 1950-70s were based on an extremely fortunate combination of circumstances. It was almost certainly an exception rather than a norm to revert to. The resulting economy and middle class and mobility is aspirational, not easily reproducible. And I am certain not by pure protectionism. I mention this because you said repeatability, which I guess I assumed meant of this time that seems most aligned with what you want.
Edit- just re-read and you agree staying global competitiveness is important. Ok, how? I don't see any route there (in manufactured goods) without going hard on automation. I'm guessing (sorry) you basically think automation is bad because manufacturing jobs. Maybe we actually align here though?
I recommend to too many people the book "how the world got rich" https://a.co/d/0ehTVbK4. It's short, it's about what the dominant, generalized correlates with growth are. My insertion is that economic growth is good for everyone and explains without much exaggeration all good societal progress. Just as one concept from here that explains an enormous fraction of global economic dynamics, look up " catch up growth". Sorry if this comes across as you not already knowing about this, I recommend it because I personally found it such a good resource.
(1) This is me inserting a projection, I don't know for sure. I would need a lot of convincing that protectionism and isolationism makes us more competitive overall. I completely understand all of your arguments about skill and knowledge and that other good stuff I already agreed was good. What I don't agree with is that your approach leads to us being to compete in a global market, especially given domestic political reality. It seems your system relies entirely on being able to export. The one thing we do export btw is services, the thing you shit on. And again, I wish we weren't so dominantly service based. I want all the good things you want that come with manufacturing and more domestic self-reliance. I just don't think you can will into existence of a manufacturing dominant prosperous middle class 60s economy that survives global competition, which your export driven plan requires.
Edit- as another aside, I believe economics is increasingly a captured field. So I probably distrust economists on policy at least as much as you, in general. But when they all agree going back a while with data to back it, I weigh it higher. I also feel bad for economists because historically the actual policy they want isn't what makes it through, to the point the preconditions for their policy to work no longer apply. So again this is perhaps something we agree on. But this doesn't invalidate a bias toward free trade is wrong. Implementation matters. See: the parts I agreed on wrt international trade policy what feels like 20 replies ago.
Edit2 - one counter to my position is that with protectionism and manufacturing we can rely more on internal market demand more because we cover more of the market needs, like China is trying to do. Just thinking out loud trying to figure where I'm wrong. A lot of the good times were driven by internal markets. And this at first glance seems more consistent with protectionism. But you want export driven so I'm not sure.
I just remembered this essay that kind of explains some of my thoughts on how to judge economic policy http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html. Not super relevant but kind of just in case you hadn't read it. Not just the broken window fallacy but the idea of diffuse benefits vs. visible downsides.
Sure, if every country did this for every technology, it wouldn't work. But in reality, they don't. Even ongoing industrialization isn't a given once it's been achieved, because the bar for what constitutes "developed" is always changing, and it takes effort to maintain. We even see deindustrialization, both historically and in the present. There will always be someone to sell to.
You're focusing on the US, when what I'm saying is historically true for essentially every nation that ever industrialized. Many of those countries are still industrial powerhouses today. The US had a great run from the 50s to the 70s, but it was the world's largest exporter by 1914 thanks to WWI, and didn't relinquish that spot until 2003. Similarly, Japan and Korea didn't have any such luck and still managed to both develop and maintain high living standards even through economic hardship, thanks to their industrial foundations. Taiwan uses its chip industry, again heavily export based, as a shield. China is following the same playbook today, first during China shock 1.0 20 years ago, and now with higher value goods. The only real exceptions to this rule are Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which exploited the fact that they were strategic waypoints in global shipping. Even then, Singapore is one of (if not the) largest oil refiners in the Asia Pacific region, and exports a tremendous quantity of refined petroleum products. Singapore isn't strictly protectionist, but it makes heavy use of cheap Asian laborers who will never, ever be citizens, and it engaged in massive skills transfers from other nations during the 80s and 90s (my own family was part of that wave). And of course, the major European powers all built themselves on the back of protectionism and exports. The erosion of that directly resulted in the crises we see today.
I have no issue with automation, and I agree that investors and business will always want to exploit cheaper economic conditions elsewhere. What I'm saying is that any government that wants to preserve living standards and maintain an industrial base needs to have the backbone to tell those interests "No". They are part of the social fabric of a country, and the backbone of it's defense. Investors will make less money, but I don't see that as a bad thing. They would actually have to allocate money more effectively within a country to turn a profit.
I'm not shitting on services, they're necessary. But services can't manufacture bullets when you need them, and countries always need them eventually. Not to mention, we live in a time when even services being offshored, so what's left? We build houses and make coffees for one another, while banks and mega corporations that are beholden to no border lord over us?
For what it's worth, I agree with you that economics is a captured discipline, and I applaud your devotion to testing your own ideas. But the stuff I'm pointing out isn't economics, it's history -- things that actually happened. In my opinion (and it is just that) any economic theory that is at odds with history is straight up garbage.
The US is great, don't get me wrong, but the 1950-70s were based on an extremely fortunate combination of circumstances. It was almost certainly an exception rather than a norm to revert to. The resulting economy and middle class and mobility is aspirational, not easily reproducible. And I am certain not by pure protectionism. I mention this because you said repeatability, which I guess I assumed meant of this time that seems most aligned with what you want.
Edit- just re-read and you agree staying global competitiveness is important. Ok, how? I don't see any route there (in manufactured goods) without going hard on automation. I'm guessing (sorry) you basically think automation is bad because manufacturing jobs. Maybe we actually align here though?
I recommend to too many people the book "how the world got rich" https://a.co/d/0ehTVbK4. It's short, it's about what the dominant, generalized correlates with growth are. My insertion is that economic growth is good for everyone and explains without much exaggeration all good societal progress. Just as one concept from here that explains an enormous fraction of global economic dynamics, look up " catch up growth". Sorry if this comes across as you not already knowing about this, I recommend it because I personally found it such a good resource.
(1) This is me inserting a projection, I don't know for sure. I would need a lot of convincing that protectionism and isolationism makes us more competitive overall. I completely understand all of your arguments about skill and knowledge and that other good stuff I already agreed was good. What I don't agree with is that your approach leads to us being to compete in a global market, especially given domestic political reality. It seems your system relies entirely on being able to export. The one thing we do export btw is services, the thing you shit on. And again, I wish we weren't so dominantly service based. I want all the good things you want that come with manufacturing and more domestic self-reliance. I just don't think you can will into existence of a manufacturing dominant prosperous middle class 60s economy that survives global competition, which your export driven plan requires.
Edit- as another aside, I believe economics is increasingly a captured field. So I probably distrust economists on policy at least as much as you, in general. But when they all agree going back a while with data to back it, I weigh it higher. I also feel bad for economists because historically the actual policy they want isn't what makes it through, to the point the preconditions for their policy to work no longer apply. So again this is perhaps something we agree on. But this doesn't invalidate a bias toward free trade is wrong. Implementation matters. See: the parts I agreed on wrt international trade policy what feels like 20 replies ago.
Edit2 - one counter to my position is that with protectionism and manufacturing we can rely more on internal market demand more because we cover more of the market needs, like China is trying to do. Just thinking out loud trying to figure where I'm wrong. A lot of the good times were driven by internal markets. And this at first glance seems more consistent with protectionism. But you want export driven so I'm not sure.