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Smil - Made in the USA : The rise and retreat of American manufacturing

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Smil Made in the USA : The rise and retreat of American manufacturing
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In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates.

Smil explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behind Americas economic, strategic, and social dominance. He describes American manufacturings rapid rise at the end of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization between the two world wars, its role as an enabler of mass consumption after 1945, and its recent decline. Some economists argue that shipping low-value jobs overseas matters little because the high-value work remains in the United States. But, asks Smil, do we want a society that consists of a small population of workers doing high-value-added work and masses of unemployed?

Smil assesses various suggestions for solving Americas manufacturing crisis, including lowering corporate tax rates, promoting research and development, and improving public education. Will America act to preserve and reinvigorate its manufacturing? It is crucial to our social and economic well-being; but, Smil warns, the odds are no better than even.

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Made in the USA

Also by Vaclav Smil

Chinas Energy

Energy in the Developing World (edited with W. Knowland)

Energy Analysis in Agriculture (with P. Nachman and T. V. Long II)

Biomass Energies

The Bad Earth

Carbon Nitrogen Sulfur

Energy Food Environment

Energy in Chinas Modernization

General Energetics

Chinas Environmental Crisis

Global Ecology

Energy in World History

Cycles of Life

Energies

Feeding the World

Enriching the Earth

The Earths Biosphere

Energy at the Crossroads

Chinas Past, Chinas Future

Creating the 20th Century

Transforming the 20th Century

Energy: A Beginners Guide

Oil: A Beginners Guide

Energy in Nature and Society

Global Catastrophes and Trends

Why America Is Not a New Rome

Energy Transitions

Energy Myths and Realities

Prime Movers of Globalization

Japans Dietary Transition and Its Impacts (with K. Kobayashi)

Harvesting the Biosphere: What We Have Taken from Nature

Made in the USA

The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing

Vaclav Smil

The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England

2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smil, Vaclav. Made in the USA : the rise and retreat of American manufacturing / Vaclav Smil.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-262-01938-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-262-31675-0 (retail e-book)

Manufacturing industriesUnited States. Industrial policyUnited States. United StatesCommerce. I. Title.

HD9725.S57 2013

338.47670973dc23

2012051393

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Preface

Long experience has taught me that too many people approach books dealing with complex topics with too many preconceptions and hence become easily disappointed if the content does not reflect at least some of them. I am afraid that a book about the rise and retreat of American manufacturing written at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century will be particularly subject to such a reception. Those economists (and policy makers) who do not see (as was famously said) any difference between potato chips and microchips, who favor unrestricted globalization, and who celebrate the loss of US manufacturing jobs as a desirable evolutionary step toward a purely service economy will dislike the books insistence that manufacturing does matter. Equally, those economists (and policy makers) who abhor every aspect of globalization and argue for increased protectionism will dislike my strong agreement with the calls for greatly expanding US exports of manufactured goods.

If this is not an economic analysis written by an economist promoting a particular view or advocating a specific policy, it is also not a history of Americas technical prowess written by a historian trying to conform to a distinct paradigm. I am a scientist with a lifelong devotion to interdisciplinary studies, and I have published many books on complex technical, historical, and economic topics, but when writing this book my goal was quite simple: to tell a story, though one that is well documented and thoroughly referenced. That story is truly epic, multifaceted, and, to me, also endlessly fascinating. There are many reasons why the United States came to hold such an exceptional position in the world, but manufacturing does not usually come first to mind. This book explains why and how manufacturing became such a fundamental force in creating and advancing the United States economic, strategic, and social might. It traces manufacturings rapid rise during the last decades of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization during the preWorld War II decades, its role in enabling the worlds first mass consumption society after 1945, and its post-1974 challenges and most recent reversals of fortune.

How does the story end? Well, it does not; it keeps unfoldingand even a relatively near-term outcome of this process is beyond our ken. That is why I am content neither to offer general policy recommendations for creating optimal conditions for manufacturings growth nor to advance strong arguments for specific changes aimed at preventing its decline. Washington, DC, has no shortage of special-interest organizations and think tanks to do that (and some have done so in a thoughtful and comprehensive manner). What I will doconvinced that no advanced modern economy can truly prosper without a strong, diverse, and innovating manufacturing sector whose aim is not only affordable, high-quality output but also to provide jobs for more than a minuscule share of the working populationis review some of the recent calls for change made by those concerned about the future of US manufacturing and explain in some detail some of their principal recommendations.

Fundamentally, this is a story about the countrys past achievements and its more recent failings, and, as always in my books, I will not make any forecasts; hence I will not answer the question of whether American manufacturing will experience a true renaissance, as its dwindling proponents hope, or whether it will, in employment terms if not in total output value, become an ever more marginal economic sector (as many economists belonging to the serving potato chips is as good as making microchips school equanimously anticipate). All I can say is that I see the odds of Americas true manufacturing renaissance and the sectors further retreat to be no better than even.

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