Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was?
A. The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However, Mr. Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking. — Hari Seldon fencing with the prosecutor while on trial for disturbing the peace of the Emperor’s realm, in the first book of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series
Confirmation bias is real, and not always self-inflicted.
Case in point: Last night some of us were gnawing on current events in an email chain when in a fit of grim despair I wrote the following:
• • •
Call me cynical, but I think the idea of reviving manufacturing in the United States is a pipe dream, pure and simple.
Americans crave cheap shit, and they want to be paid top dollar for doing … something fun. Not living in a city-sized factory cranking out the iPhones and watching their bunkmates jump off the roof when it all gets to be too much. Being an “influencer” means you never have to jump off a roof unless you really need the clicks and there’s some drone down there with a net to catch you.
What are Americans qualified to manufacture in the near future that their fellow Americans (or anyone else) want to buy? Who’s gonna risk their capital building factories, arranging supply lines, finding/marketing to customers? The long view meets the short attention span and the minimalist skillset. Hilarity ensues. Or not.
The developing world is busy making and selling us shit in hopes of becoming us someday so their kids don’t have to work as hard as their folks did.
I can see small-scale stuff happening here. High-priced bespoke artisanal products (Moots comes to mind).
But most of what I see right now, day to day, is white collar and service industries, and a big, big gap between the two.
Also, consider A.I. and the increasing use of robotics in everything from package delivery to surgical procedures. Any domestic manufacturing developing in the next few decades might need humans only to troubleshoot/reboot the System from time to time and calibrate/lubricate the machinery. Until It figures out how to service Itself without the expense and hassle of the dwindling, unreliable and tiresome human element.
• • •
Well. How d’ye like them apples? Mighty pleased with myself I was, too. Especially after I read this analysis by Binyamin Appelbaum this morning in The New York Times. (The link is a gift; no need to subscribe.)
Appelbaum, the lead writer on economics and business for the NYT’s editorial board, did the heavy lifting to confirm my shoot-from-the-lip bias. Well done indeed, Binjy old scout.
He cites French historian Fernand Braudel, who examined the rise and fall of titans like Amsterdam, London, and yes, New York, taking the long view “because he didn’t want to make too much of short-term pain or setbacks.” Appelbaum explains: “It was an approach that he said he developed to maintain his equanimity during the five years that he spent in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, refusing to make too much of ‘daily misery’ or the latest scraps of news.”
Back in the Day™, according to Braudel, finance replaced manufacturing and merchants became bankers — ““a society of rentier investors on the lookout for anything that would guarantee a quiet and privileged life” — moving hither and yon in search of return on investment, regardless of whichever Napoleon of the moment sat squawking on his papier-mâché throne.
And they didn’t bring everyone along for the ride.
Appelbaum gives a light backhand to the latest monarch who wants the rubes to think he can turn back time with a wave of his scepter: “Expanding manufacturing is a goal increasingly shared by elected officials across the political spectrum, but Trump is trying to overhaul the rules of global trade with all the finesse of a do-it-yourselfer living in a house while renovating it, and the disruptions are shaking the global economy. “
And then from beyond the grave Braudel steps forward to give Beelzebozo the coup de grâce, patting him on that ridiculous combover, shaking his head with a smile, and murmuring, “Putz.”
Again, Appelbaum:
“Braudel, who died in 1985, probably would have regarded the president as nothing more than a cork bobbing on the currents of history. If he was right, no matter the president or policies, America’s era of economic domination is ending and its political hegemony is unsustainable. If he was right, it’s time to accept that our second-rate status is inevitable and irreversible.”
Thus we recall another wise fellow, George Santayana, who in “The Life of Reason” wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Mad Blog Media 
Ayup.
George Santayana had it right …… as did Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
The Circle of Life continues to revolve. 🙂
Perhaps people are jumping off the roofs of the big factories overseas because they are sweatshops or worse. I wonder if the folks who run small shops like Co Motion are as inhumane. We really needed a worldwide labor union because otherwise, the self-reinforcing capitalist system, run unregulated, will always fuck the rest of us.
I don’t think bringing back manufacturing like it was in the sixties is anything other than a con job for reasons we talked about offline. But the question is, what will we do with all these people in an age of automation and AI? Eliminate the surplus population? I suppose there is always Soylent Green.
I guess if I were writing my own science fiction version, people would harness AI rather than vice versa, and own the means of production on a smaller scale. Or some such socialistic bullshit. The present system of outsourcing everything eventually has to end badly when we run out of money. And I don’t think it will end with “London”. Unless it is the London of the book 1984.
The IWW took a shot at the One Big Union thing. At the peak of their strength the Wobblies got beat up, run off, tarred, feathered and shot by firing squad (“Don’t mourn, boys, organize.” — Joe Hill). Ain’t been nothing to match them or the original Communist Party since the Thirties.
Plus, you know what being in a union is like. You have to do your work, and when that’s done you do the union’s work.
“In the field you’ll have to work alongside the men, and you’ll have to do the Party work after that, sometimes sixteen, eighteen hours a day. …Even the people you’re trying to help will hate you most of the time.” — John Steinbeck, “In Dubious Battle”
In the Seventies the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) told us to get factory jobs and do just that. “I beg your pardon,” I replied. “I’m a cartoonist. An agitator. Part of the vanguard, don’t you know.” No, they didn’t, and neither did I.
As a Newspaper Guild guy in the Eighties I saw that most of our membership didn’t even want to do much in the way of newspaper work, much less union work. I raised my own small version of hell, then took a buyout, and left before the firing squad showed up.
And yeah: All these people who talk up/warn us about A.I. don’t seem to think about what this means not just for real labor, but for the white-collar types as well. The bots aren’t just coming for the wrench-twisters; they want the keyboard kommandos too, and pretty much everyone else who isn’t in a C-suite or an investor therein.
People hate unions until they need it.
I was a shop steward twice (HGEA Hawaii Government Employees Assn) and ,(Univ of Hawaii Professional Assembly, UHPA) and a on a board of directors for the faculty union (UHPA). The faculty in well off departments looked down their noses at unionization, thinking it was just a case of getting their pockets picked, because they brought in their own money and had power. The faculty in underfunded departments and the community colleges looked to the union to keep from being “reorganized” out of existence. We had a great lawyer, Tony Gill, who was also my USCF teammate on the Oahu Cycling Team. The rank and file in HGEA (white collar non faculty jobs) were good with unionization in part because most were working class folks from Hawaii and knew what it was like there when the place was run by the plantation owners, bankers, and shippers (friend of mine on the board of directors, Bill Puette, wrote a small book titled “The Hilo Massacre” about one not so lovely shipping strike).
I knew some of the folks who came out of the Hawai’i Democratic Revolution of 1954, when the Hawaii GOP got the bum’s rush for good. The folks coming back from WW II like Dan Inouye, believed in grassroots organizing, but of course, there is always a little corruption built in. The blue collar workers in UPW (United Public Workers) looked their noses down at the faculty and our union, and vice versa. Interestingly, when we faculty were on strike in 2001, and I was a strike picket captain, I was lofted over a university vehicle driven by a UPW guy. That led to a long chat between our respective executive directors. It was a lot about race and class, so I got over it.
I don’t think there is a substitute for organizing and political action, by whatever means necessary. You are either on the bus or under the bus.
“On the bus or under the bus.” I think Kesey would approve of that riff.
Meanwhile, Greg Sargent at The New Republic has a nice bit on how Jeebus will come back before manufacturing does. Linking to Paul Krugman and quoting Jay Foreman, founder and CEO of Basic Fun, a Florida-based toy company that also makes products abroad, Sargent drives the bus right over this bushwa:
Spot on.
You mean painting eyeballs on Barbie dolls isn’t what was intended? Even for that large experienced workforce that will no longer have social security to rely on? All those baby boomers looking to get by on the newly lowered minimum wages. Ain’t America great again? Even with Barbie dolls that have eyeballs painted on their asses.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill…
We need a new captain and crew on this ship to save it from sinking. But, the cult, in its stupidity, is drilling holes in the hull.
Meanwhile, the current captain is getting hundreds of million from a meme coin sham that makes Charles Ponzi look like a poser.
Also, in the category of other shit to worry about, it appears that Palantir AI now has access to all personal data the government holds. It’s started today with using Medicare and Medicaid data to see what’s causing autism. Yea, right. While the rest of the world pontificates and conclaves, the dumpster’s minions continue to implement the autocratic plan. The courts can’t rule against something they don’t know. Will it be too late when they find out? I would bet a dollar to a doughnut that the FBI firearm background check data has already been compromised. So, when the gun owners become a possible threat, they now know who they are.
You really gotta watch the dealer in this casino. The senile orange eejit with diarrhea of the mouth is there to distract you from the smooth moves of the card mechanic, who ain’t in the game for the laughs.
Excellent post and great ruminations on the chaos.
Thankee, matey. We’ve certainly chosen an interesting time to be alive. What with the tariffs and all I’ll be surprised if we can afford torches, pitchforks, tar, and feathers for the march on Washington.
I’m no stranger to using tech toys and household goods every day. But AI scares me. Anyone who has had a product or system “update” knows how badly things can go after the “patch” or “upgrade”. A few years back a local CAFO pig farm had to bury thousands of pigs. The giant operation was hi-tech, with only 5 employees, but when power was cut off by Momma Nature, there was no one around to know the cooling/vent systems for the barns were out. Seems that after the last “update” the warning messages didn’t make it to the 3 guys who maybe, just maybe could have got there sooner and fired up the backup generators which didn’t kick in. The pigs were gassed to death by there own excrement.
I don’t doubt what POB said for a second.
A liberal with a gun(s) is a deranged menace and threat while a tRumper with an arsenal is a true patriot in the eyes of MAGA.
Law enforcement is in fact using very high tech info about you to arrest and prosecute you. If you’ve committed a crime, that’s fine and dandy. But just to get you off the voter rolls is truly Big Brother.
Never thought of myself as a deranged menace, but hey, why not? All those newly armed liberals and non-binary people with guns….oh dear. It’s not just the Three Percenters and Proud Boys armed nowadays.
As far as factory farms and dead pigs? Horrible story. That’s the #1 reason I am a vegetarian and that my younger brother only eats what he kills: because this is what eating meat means in modern America, at least if you buy at the Big Box Meat Counter. Even when the fans are running properly, imagine living nose to ass that way. Would make Auschwitz seem like a stroll in the park. And the ending, of course, is the same: fire up the grill.
Jaysis wept, that is a hideous story. We’re omnivorous, but Herself draws the line at pork, the pig being her spirit animal.
Interesting piece in The Atlantic the other day about the hazards of prewashed, chopped, bagged lettuce. O boy. The alarms got shut off on that shit, too.
Hey, Patrick
Thanks for the Foundation bit, got the fourth book at the Rutland library book sale,
now I think I should reread the first three first(fifty+ years since I read it, the old neurons are a bit slow on the connect-the-dots of a couple thousand pages).
We should always go back to the masters.
Happy V-E Day!!
Best, David Oswald
Yep, it’s V-E day! My uncle Roy got to come home!
I don’t know when my old man and his brother got repatriated to The Land of the Big PX. They were in the Pacific, and that party was still going on. Harry the Haberdasher hadn’t opened Pandora’s Box yet.
Good on you, David. I have the original trilogy, plus the first sequel, and think I read the other sequel and two prequels … but like you, I have a couple shorts in the cranial wiring harness.
I always loved “I, Robot,” too. That held up pretty well until A.I. actually became a Thing instead of a Concept, and now I wonder how benevolent it’s gonna be.
Susan Calvin may have been mistaken. But then she lived in a timeline where the Three Laws applied. Ours is a lawless realm.
MAGA cons Dios
Hilarious! But a little true to life as well Pat.