Trump coming out with his economic policies this week brought to the fore the debates about our foreign trade policies such as NAFTA and the current TPP. Everybody who can stand upright and eat a popsicle has his or her own concept of what our foreign trade policies should look like but there are some positions that are simply not attackable. This, of course, does not mean that they will not be attacked.
The first is, despite the problems with our imbalance in foreign trade, there are ways in which foreign trade helps even the poor and unemployed. It does so by bringing affordable goods into this country from low wage manufacturing countries and making them available to families who would otherwise not be able to buy them. I give you the example of the made in America, $50 Orvis tee shirt, , and the $2 Chinese version. The purchase of these affordable foreign goods stimulates the consumer markets and we are, after all, a consumer economy.
The second position, which is unassailable, is we can no longer base our economy on product manufacturing. That war is already lost and we will not re-enter it if we hope to flourish. The fact is, America can no longer compete in certain areas of manufacturing. That is not altogether bad because it indicates that we are generally, as a nation, living on an elevated economic level. This, of course, means nothing to you if you are out of a job because yours went overseas.
The complement to the fact that we no longer compete in certain areas is that we don’t have to. There are plenty of ways to make money, plenty of jobs available now and even more in the future, that do not involve digging a hole or working on an assembly line.
I am currently reading a brilliant book, The Industries of the Future by Alec Ross; an in depth analysis of what the future holds in terms of industries and the jobs they have and will create. It’s a fascinating study, overflowing with the reasons why this country must abandon our 19h Century mentality when it comes to industry and adopt a 22nd Century outlook
What becomes obvious in reading Ross’ book is, we are already immersed in the kind of industry that foretells our future and in order to be successful at it we must develop a labor force that here-to-fore hasn’t existed.
There will be plenty of well paying jobs available in Ross’ world of the future. The question will be, have we educated our children to take them on?. Right now we are not doing that. Right now we can’t even handle the technologically advanced industry we already have. Newspapers and the Internet overflow with want ads for high paying jobs that require workers with advanced tech skills. These ads go unanswered even as we educate students from all over the world to fill those jobs, then force them to go back home where they will develop the industries that will challenge ours in the future because we don’t give them the opportunity to work in them here.
Our problem isn’t foreign trade, although adjusting some of our trade policies would certainly help. Our problem is changing the direction of American outlook and education to meet the needs of a technological landscape that is our industrial and economic future.
Just watch Donald Trump on the stump, raving against the globalization of our economy. Railing against the sending of American jobs overseas. It’s fascinating how he absolutely depends on his audience being dumb as a post. He bets everything on the idea that they will only hear what he wants them to and not actually understand that he is doing the exact opposite of what he is saying.
He was in Pennsylvania steel country blabbering about a trade war. Claiming that Clinton’s actions have hurt the American worker. The heads of fact checkers all over the map were exploding as Trump spat out one lie after another. Trump would have us believe that he is the hero, bringing American jobs back to this country even while he is making his tacky clothes and rickety furniture overseas, using Asian workers and paying them nothing. He says he has to do that because no one in this country makes clothes or furniture. That is just another Trump lie. If Trump really wants to make those tacky clothes here, someone will accommodate him.
All that’s necessary to make anything in this country is the desire to do so. The businessman has to be enough of a patriot and a human being to want to do that, rather than make an extra 2 cents a unit by using foreign labor.
Of course the problem when we start to talk about free trade and globalization is, almost no one in the voting public understands either, or has a working knowledge of the problems, the dichotomies, how they work and who is in front of and behind them. The basic fact about free trade and globalization is that it isn’t black and white; there are no definitive positions.
Yes, we really need free trade, but no, it can’t be completely free. It, like everything else needs regulation. Yes globalization is growing but we must not let it expand without establishing guidelines. If we don’t, the abuses will make every other form of trade appear to have been established by Mother Theresa. The human race has proven over and over again that given the opportunity, it will, if it thinks it can, take advantage of anyone and everyone to gain even the slightest edge. That being a fact of life, we must regulate all the stuff we call free.
For all the attacks that regular people love to make against the elite we have to realize that the regular people don’t want a fair shake either. Like all human beings since the beginning of time they want an advantage. They understand that right now the elite have the advantage but like those who voted for Brexit and those who are backing Trump don’t want to just break even. They want their own advantage and in so seeking, they are thinking with their wallets and their prayer beads instead of their heads. In Brexit the Brits thought that if they could get out of the EU they would get the jobs that are now being taken by immigrants. The Trumpets think, mistakenly, that if they elect Trump he will re-create their lost jobs; jobs that really no longer exist and if they did would not pay enough to support them anyway. They are making an emotional judgment instead of an intellectual one, the same as they have done over and over in electing the Tea Party to the House, only to discover that they have elected a bunch of idiots to do a real job like dealing with trade policy, for which they have no qualifications and less understanding than is seemingly humanly possible.
The problem is not about free trade because the problem is not about cheap labor overseas; the problem is about uneducated labor here, labor that can’t fill the jobs that are being created far faster than is the labor pool that is needed to fill them.
There are two ways to create that labor pool. The first is to change our immigration laws to allow those foreign students who are currently studying the proper tech subjects in our universities to stay here after graduation and fill the currently empty jobs in our tech sector. The second is to educate our young people to fill those same type jobs along with the next generation, which will come on line as the tech world expands.
Those who control our educational system must be made to understand that a simple high school education will just not suffice in the world of the 21st Century. College may not be the only answer; continuing education is essential, specifically in the fields of technological communication, cyber security, robotics, genetics, etc.
If we educate our children to meet the needs of the next technological wave of creation we will not have to worry about competing with the industrial labor forces in the rest of the world. We will create our own work force, protected by our own creativity and entrepreneurship from the cheap labor practices of the Third World.
It’s time for us to concede low wage, low skill manufacturing to the rest of the world and create a highly skilled, highly paid labor force that will encompass the majority of our society and allow the majority of Americans to live the upwardly mobile American dream that 21st century technology promises. This can be a reality but it will only happen if we can move the political needle to a point where industrial production and profit are no longer at opposite ends of the spectrum from national welfare and general quality of life.