What if America Never Exported its Industry?

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Finally, an alternate history that isn't about 17th century balance of power wars. If you guys like this econ alternate history, say so in the comments.
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My dad grew up in Pittsburg. He remembered how the big the steel industry was during the 60s and even during the 70s. However, he noticed it all go away. When he went on a overseas business trip to Seoul, Korea around 2000, he told me about his great surprise. The industrial sector of Seoul looked exactly like Pittsburg did during the 60s. Massive steel mills went on for miles along the Han River near the highway from the airport to the downtown area. He remarked, "Ahh, this is where they all went."

Gauntlet_Videos
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The rust belts fatal flaw was that towns were built AROUND factories, as opposed to factories being built near towns which already had their own local economies. A town that relies on 1 single industry for the vast majority of employment is not something that is sustainable in a country as spread out as the US. Once the factory leaves, the town dies. That gives employers huge amounts of leverage.

stupidcommentmaker
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The steel mill at the end of the second Terminator movie, was moved to China right after the film was made in the early 1990's.

alanhowitzer
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if civilization games taught me anything, the one with the best production will ALWAYS win in the end

TheWolf
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Germany is still exporting products instead of industries.

Small and medium size companies are the salt of the earth. This is where the jobs are, this is where the expertise is.

krollpeter
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up until the 1980s the US followed policy outlined in Alexander Hamilton's 1791 Report on Manufactures. When the US abandoned these polices de-industralazation followed

wpatrickw
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It's so crazy to me that a nation with as much talent and expertise as the United States can make the strategic mistake of creating a rival superpower in the space of 20 years.

woahfarout
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The US would have jobs, income, and our taxes would have paid for quality infrastructure. It's all tied together.

SG-jsqn
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What if America exported its industry to India so that the second most powerful/ wealthy country was a democracy aligned with the US and not an authoritarian country opposed to it?

rexappleby
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America's short-sightedness is downright treasonous. We literally gave it away.

kichigaisensei
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I would like some more economic alt histories.

ironraccoon
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This summary leaves out so much. The de-industrialization debate began in the 70s. We knew it was happening as Japan rose. Our export of industry to Taiwan was deliberate: we wanted to shore them up to protect them against invasion from the mainland.

In the late 40s into the 50s there was a serious possiblity that Japan would go Communist. We helped there too.

Of all far eastern countries, China was the one American Presidents and the foreign policy establishment had most familiarity with: Herbert Hoover spoke Chinese after living there in his years as a mining engineer, entrepreneur. FDR's family fortune was made in the opium trade with China a few generations prior. FDR felt he "knew" China based on his grandfather's reminiscing. G. Bush One was ambassador to China.

Many in our diplomatic corps in the state department were children of Protestant missionaries who had founded hospitals and other institutions expecting to make China our own.

The US open door policy was advocating a way to end the humiliating British, French, German, and Russian carving out of regional monopoly. In 1899 America thought it could out compete them all and seize the China market.

The familiarity led leadership into a narrow set of preconceptions which blinded them.

When labor costs in Taiwan in 1980s rose the natural thing was to use mainland China as the low cost workshop. If we hadn't been blind.

American autos really were miserably made by the mid-60s. I grew up hearing my parents talking over breakfast (it sermed) every morning negotiating who would take the car in for yet more expensive repairs.

When imported cars began their rise, US auto workers held protests where they would sledgehammer a Japanese import.

I've worked in the rust belt: PA, WI, MI, MN. The tool and die makers, the guys who did sand casting were bright, but the automotive line workers were some of the most unmotivated people.

The rust belt towns had lots of working people with alcohol and drug problems coming to work.

Auto repairmen told me they didn't want to learn computerized auto repair and tune up as cars modernized.

To be sure the MBA spreadsheet mentality made these big decisions, but the workers were very resistant to change. There's a coat hanger manufacturing plant that the owners sold to the employees in an ESOP and the employee owners themselves decided to offshore to China. AND SHIPPED ALL THE FACTORY EQUIPMENT TO THE FAR EAST. Their own factory.

As labor costs in Taiwan rose American companies like Nike suggested that low cost in China should be the next step.

If we hadn't been blinded by refusing to own up to our failure in Vietnam, we might have diverted the Taiwanese offshoring to Vietnam rather than mainland China, but it was an easier language fit for Taiwanese to prefer working in China.

LBJ knew he had blundered into a mistake with Vietnam, we have the tapes, but here's why he had been so stubborn. He didn't want to be the first to lose a war, and he recalled how viciously Truman was treated by Republicans when China fell to the Communists. American foreign policy establishment viewed China as "ours." Ours to convert, ours to modernize, ours to make a fortune off of. "Who lost China?" Was a witch-hunt LBJ didn't want to relive.

I'm working my way through Christopher Hitchens' book on Kissinger's international crimes. It goes at length about the Nixon- Kissinger violations of the Logan act and bad faith bargaining and bombing of North Vietnam, but not what the motivations were, other than anti- Communism.

The common theme here is the US refused to be honest with itself. The repair shop guy, the shop floor workers snorting cocaine at the plant, the MBA whiz kid quants like MacNamara oblivious to quality and eager to be lied to, the foreign service workers, Time magazine (Luce), Taft Republicans, LBJ and his Senators, Nixon, and the voting public who believed in a secret plan that really meant more bombing, more poisoning, more Americans dead. American business refused Demming's advice: that's why he brought the quality movement to Japan.

This enablement of China is not one generation's mistake by Bush and Clinton. And not solely a Boomer mistake.

We don't seem to be interested in facts and reality in our national debate now either. Here in Georgia the Senate runoffs have cost $450M already, and the ads and mailings have not addressed our real issues or even listed them.

talmoskowitz
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What if the Droids haven't atacked the Wookies?

comradejellobiafra
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The real reason for this scenario happening would be Ross Perot beating Clinton and Bush Sr.

normanwhite
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I studied abroad for one year in Huntingdon PA which is in the centre of the State more or less. I saw for myself exactly what whatifalthist described in the first minute. After that, I always understood why people voted for Trump because these people were screwed by one set of people who should’ve protected them from cheap Chinese imports. They’ll never forgive Bill Clinton or the Democratic Party for this and it’s why you can never write off the President.

SoaringNato
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As much as I hate to quote Adele, here it goes:
“We could have had it all”

matthew
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I live in PA myself, and shit like this is why I feel more loyal to my home state than to the USA, which has really let us down by exporting our industry.

sdagoth
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What if Byzantine Empire defeated arabs and kept Levant and North Africa?

xiejoxs
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I live outside Meadville PA and it used to be the tool and die capital of the WORLD! Here in NW PA everything seems like it's dying. I'm 20 and I don't know if I should stay here or maybe to another state or somewhere else in PA.

Mantis_Toboggan_TrashMan
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As one Pennsylvanian to another, too true... too true.

Salamon