Making It: Why Manufacturing Still Matters

by Louis Uchitelle

Overview

A veteran New York Times economics correspondent reports from factories nationwide to illustrate the continuing importance of industry for our country.
 
In the 1950s, manufacturing generated nearly 30 percent of US income. But over the decades, that share has gradually declined to less than 12 percent, at the same time that real estate, finance, and Wall Street trading have grown. While manufacturing’s share of the US economy shrinks, it expands in countries such as China and Germany that have a strong industrial policy. Meanwhile Americans are only vaguely aware of the many consequences—including a decline in their self-image as inventive, practical, and effective people—of the loss of that industrial base.
 
Reporting from places where things were and sometimes still are “Made in the USA”—New York, New York; Boston; Detroit; Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana; Los Angeles; Midland, Michigan; Milwaukee; Philadelphia; St. Louis; and Washington, DC—Louis Uchitelle argues that the government has a crucial role to play in making domestic manufacturing possible. If the Department of Defense subsidizes the manufacture of weapons and war materiel, why shouldn’t the government support the industrial base that powers our economy?
 
Combining brilliant reportage with an incisive economic and political argument, Making It tells the overlooked story of manufacturing’s still-vital role in the United States and how it might expand.
 
“Compelling . . . demonstrates the intimate connection between good work and national well-being . . . economics with a heart.” —Mike Rose, author of The Mind at Work

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595588975
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Louis Uchitelle covered economics and labor issues for the New York Times for twenty-five years. Before that, as a foreign correspondent for Associated Press, he covered the American occupation of the Dominican Republic in the 1960s and the rise of a guerrilla movement in Argentina. He is the author of The Disposable American and lives in Scarsdale, New York.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

1 The Long Unwinding 1

2 Redefining Skill 28

3 Urban Manufacturing 49

4 Subsidies 81

5 Offshoring and How It Could Be Reversed: The Challenges 104

Afterword 133

Notes 143

Index 167

Editorial Reviews

02/06/2017
Manufacturing in the United States “is not dying,” Uchitelle (The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences) argues in this slim, fact-packed book about how factories have declined but not disappeared in the U.S. Reports of manufacturing’s demise may be somewhat exaggerated, but there’s no question that the sector has shrunk dramatically as a share of the U.S. economy, displacing generations of high school graduates who depended on industrial jobs for middle-class lifestyles. Uchitelle convincingly debunks explanations that blame supposedly unskilled workers for their own plight, instead pointing to the rise of multinational corporations, a lack of federal government subsidies , and destructive competition among U.S. cities to attract factories that haphazardly relocate jobs from point A to point B. Uchitelle’s book is strong on nostalgia, history, and honesty as he concludes that, despite all his credible arguments about the value of manufacturing jobs, offshoring from the U.S. isn’t likely to be reversed. If industries that offshored manufacturing brought some of that production home, Uchitelle writes, “American would be restored as a manufacturing giant.” Could that happen? “The answer,” he says, “is no. It’s too late.” Though repetitive at times, Uchitelle’s book is an elegant swan song for a lost era of U.S. manufacturing greatness. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Making It:

"Uchitelle's evidence comes largely from years of visiting factories and knowledgeably interviewing workers, management, owners, and public officials—valuable evidence that makes this book worth reading."
—Choice

"Readers interested in U.S. labor and economics history, globalization, and political economy will find Uchitelle’s latest to be deeply engrossing, convincing, and thoughtfully written."
—Booklist

"A robust and fatalistic argument for a return to American greatness."
—Kirkus Reviews

"An elegant swan song for a lost era of U.S. manufacturing greatness. . . Uchitelle convincingly debunks explanations that blame supposedly unskilled workers for their own plight."
—Publishers Weekly

"Is there any way to bring back the manufacturing jobs that once supported the American working class? Louis Uchitelle, who so ably chronicled the massive layoffs of the '80s and '90s for the New York Times, thinks yes—if we are willing to accept the fact that manufacturing has always been publicly subsidized and owes the public something in return. If we should ever again have a rational and enlightened federal government, they couldn't do better than to start by reading this book."
—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

"Both a lamentation and a blueprint for manufacturing in America, this compelling and humane book demonstrates the intimate connection between good work and national well-being. Making It is economics with a heart."
—Mike Rose, author of The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker

"Here's a surprise: it is Big Government that makes manufacturing possible—yes, even here. And we better stop thinking otherwise if we want to compete in the world economy. Louis Uchitelle, the great New York Times journalist—and, for me, one of our best writers on the economy—makes the case for 'making it.' In this wonderfully readable book, he explains why the future of manual labor rests in our own hands."
—Tom Geoghegan, author of Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement

"Manufacturing goods in the United States rather than overseas matters in ways few understand as deeply as Louis Uchitelle, who for three decades has chronicled how government policy damaged this value adding sector of the economy."
—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality

"Louis Uchitelle brings the vital importance of American manufacturing to life. . . He effectively describes the important role manufacturing can and must play in our economy and delivers a wake-up call regarding the aggressive government action necessary to ensure that manufacturing remains the 'foundation of our nation's power.'"
—Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-MI)

Praise for The Disposable American:
"A tour de force of reporting, analysis, and—best of all—suggested solutions."
—Barbara Ehrenreich

"A strong case that the whole middle class is at risk."
— The New York Times

"An overdue wake-up call that could start making the wisdom of layoffs that much less conventional."
— San Francisco Chronicle

"Incisive. . . . An airtight case against the common wisdom that favors job cuts."
— Businessweek

"Uchitelle writes about the moral failings of our modern corporate structure with deep and persuasive insight. That alone makes the book a must-read."
— Detroit Free Press

From the Publisher

2017-03-21
A venerable economics reporter delves into the messy business of American manufacturing.Former longtime New York Times economics and labor writer Uchitelle (The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences, 2006, etc.) provides a slim but powerful critique of the American manufacturing sector. This son of a textile salesman augments his fact-filled account by traveling across the country to meet with manufacturing owners and workers, often being forced to confront his own prejudices. "I finally visited enough factories and interviewed enough blue-collar workers to shake off the stereotype that white-collar office workers were more skilled than their blue-collar counterparts by virtue of working in offices rather than in factories," writes the author. "Factories house the same cross-section of restless, intelligent, achievement-oriented people as offices, where many of the tasks are also repetitive, requiring different but not necessarily superior skills." The heart of the issue is that manufacturing by its very nature requires the government to subsidize this vital economic activity, a necessity that both elected officials and governmental agencies actively choose to ignore. In addition to arguing for a comprehensive federal policy to organize subsidies intelligently, Uchitelle argues for a radical reversal of the controversial practice of off-shoring jobs. It's a smart, well-articulated line of reasoning that touches on the reasons that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders resonated with blue-collar workers during the last election cycle—candidacies, the author notes with bitter irony, only made possible by "the relentless downward pressure on factory output and employment: not just lost jobs that paid well, but the mountain of imports that have supplanted U.S. output, and the free trade agreements such as NAFTA that have kept the imports flowing." Yet Uchitelle is also brutally honest, admitting that none of these changes is likely to come to pass: "Too many horses, in sum, are gone from the barn, and unlikely to return." A robust and fatalistic argument for a return to American greatness.

Kirkus Reviews