Quote from: RE on May 09, 2025, 08:40 PMThis complete nonsense comes from muddle headed academics who associate "factory jobs" with the relatively high paying jobs Auto Workers had from the 1940s through the 70s, before the transition to a service economy and before factories were offshored for cheaper labor.  The UAW was a fairly strong union in those years.

I don't think this type of muddled thinking is limited to academics. If anything they are the minority who think that way. These days, these expressions and sentiments largely stem from the social narrative spun about either by older folk (who perhaps ironically probably didn't even do the factory work) or politicians that want to tell the story of how the 50s was so much better and if only those factories came back then America (or insert your home country) would become great again.

The thing underlying this narrative is this romanticism and perhaps even prestige held with manufacturing jobs. They hold a greater status to a service based job and often, service jobs are taken to be something held in lower regard or at worst, not seen as a "real job". Thing is these thoughts are largely based on nostalgia and not reality.

It is my impression (and correct me if I am wrong) but when these factory jobs were actually prevalent most people did not consider them good jobs. It is only in hindsight and the lack of experience of their obvious drawbacks (the physical dangers and to the environment) is the status of these jobs being elevated. In any case the jobs aren't coming back and even if they did they would not be well paid and people would not be happy doing them. At the end of the day it only a step above saying we can improve the job market by getting people to do farming jobs. It sounds great on paper but the reality of it would be very different. 

The path of economies is to go from an agricultural to manufacturing and then to servicing based economies. This is the journey of advanced economies and going back to manufacturing is basically impossible without accepting you will lower the standard of living. You cannot bring manufacturing back and continue to pay people well. You will have to compromise. Thing is these days people don't often want to hear the truth. It is easier to dream and listen to people who tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear.