To understand the magnitude of the industrial capacity during WWII in the US, we need to look at the manufacturers of a few weapons systems.
The M1 Garand was manufactured by Springfield Armory, Winchester Repeating Arms, Harrington & Richardson, and International Harvester. The M1 Carbine was manufactured by Inland Division of General Motors, Winchester Repeating Arms, Saginaw Steering Gear Division of General Motors, Irwin-Pedersen (operated by Saginaw Steering Gear), Underwood Elliot Fisher, National Postal Meter, Quality Hardware Manufacturing Corporation, International Business Machines (IBM), Standard Products, Commercial Controls Corporation, and Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation. Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation was a jukebox manufacturer, and of the rest of the M1 Carbine manufacturers, only Winchester was a firearms manufacturer. Tanks and parts thereof were manufactured by General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Detroit Diesel and pretty much every other automotive company. Chevrolet alone manufactured 60,000 Pratt & Whitney bomber and cargo plane engines; 500,000 trucks; 8 million artillery shells; 3,000 90 mm cannon barrels; 1 million tons of aluminum forgings; 1 million tons of grey iron castings; 2,850 tons of magnesium forgings; and 3,800 T-17 Staghound armored scout cars. But that's all in the past. There's no reason why the manufacture of computer and electronic components couldn't be moved back to the US, other than the whining of e-children miffed that their precious toys have increased in price and the deep disappointment of corporate parasites who have come to expect outrageous returns on their investments. "The idea of moving shoe manufacturing to advanced countries is a little bit of a farce," opined Ed Van Wezel, the CEO of Hi-tech International Holdings BV, an Amsterdam-based shoemaker that sells about 30% of its shoes in the U.S. On the contrary, if CEOs are not allowed to earn a king's ransom, with that ransom covering the jobs lost by employees whose jobs are outsourced, we can easily do it. New Balance, a company owned by former marathoner Jim Davis and his wife Anne, manufactures higher-end and customized shoes. New Balance is the only company which offers its shoes in multiple widths so customers can obtain an optimum fit, as compared to Walmart's one-Chinese-made-width-fits-all. New Balance makes about one quarter of the shoes it sells in the U.S. and estimates that its shoes cost 25% to 35% more than if they were made in Asia. The main difference between New Balance and the other shoe companies is that New Balance does not have to answer to Wall Street and its neurotic demands for higher profits. The US is the prize in terms of markets, along with the EU. All countries want to sell goods here. We have the leverage, but we refuse to use it because American capitalists have a direct line to Congress and the White House. Libertarians have always been wrong on free trade treaties and their effect on jobs. Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute argued during the Clinton administration: "The silliest argument against PNTR is that Chinese imports would overwhelm US industry. In fact, American workers are far more productive than their Chinese counterparts ... Moreover, Beijing's manufacturing exports to the United States remain small, about half the level of those from Mexico." Daniel J. Ikenson of the Cato Institute argued in 2006: "In fact, since China joined the WTO in 2001, US exports to China have more than doubled." He went on to say: "And the notion that importing from and offshoring to China is hollowing out American manufacturing is not supported by the facts." Ikenson later doubled-down on his vitreol, saying that "it is beyond doubt that certain Chinese policies have been provocative, discriminatory, protectionist, and, in some cases, violative of the agreed rules of international trade" and that "U.S. policies, politics, and attitudes have contributed to rising tensions, as have rabble-rousing politicians and a confrontation-thirsty media." Pat Buchanan pointed out in February 2007: "To the devout libertarian, free trade is not a policy option to be debated, but a dogma to be defended. Nowhere is this truer than at that lamasery of libertarianism, the Cato Institute." He went on to say: "For contrary to free-trade mythology, every nation that has risen to pre-eminence and power -- Britain before 1860, the United States from 1860-1914, Germany from 1870-1914, postwar Japan, China today -- has pursued a mercantilist or protectionist trade policy ... It is no accident all four presidents who made it to Mount Rushmore were protectionists." A look at Census Bureau trade data shows that the trade balance with China started off even in 1985, but became a rather ominous deficit over time, with a 2015 ratio of 483,244.7 / 116,071.8, both in millions of dollars, translating to 4.16 and not in our favor. Comparable figures for Mexico and Canada are 296,407.9 / 235,745.1 = 1.26 and 296,155.6 / 280,609.0 = 1.06, respectively. But then again, libertarians have never been proficient with history, math, or honesty. Walmart is the best example of a corporatist monopoly which would have been broken up during more enlightened times, with its ruthless demands for its suppliers to move production out of the US so Walmart can sell their products at a price no other retailer can touch. Libertarian jackals always warn that Walmart t-shirts would become more expensive if outsourcing were curtailed, like that is some sacrosanct measure of economic strength, ignoring the fact that the economy only grew at 2% per year during Obama, 2.7% during Bush the Younger, and 3.5% during Clinton, as compared to the 4% before that. Not coincidentally, Chinese imports have increased at a staggering rate since the 1990s. The Flint-Detroit corridor is the most dangerous one in the country largely because auto industry jobs have left. One would think that liberals would appreciate that outsourcing and H-1B visas hurt African Americans even more than they do other Americans. But since screwing the American worker has become one of the only bipartisan activities in Washington, politicians have joined forces to reduce life expectancy for white Americans. Not coincidentally, the same thing happened to Russians immediately after the implosion of the Soviet Union. Among the 10 countries for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks manufacturing employment, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden had higher manufacturing wages and lost smaller shares of their manufacturing employment than the US between 2000 and 2010. Those countries have socialized medicine, six or more weeks of vacation, and extended maternity benefits. Germany and other European countries have union representatives sitting on corporate boards. The US, on the other hand, lost 6 million manufacturing jobs between early 2001 and late 2009. It's not coincidental that China was allowed to enter the World Trade Organization in late 2001 after the Clinton administration led the cheerleading section for the event. Bill Clinton promised at the time: "We don't have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China any more," but China did require most companies to transfer technology, as Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, Kawasaki, ThyssenKruppp, and Weinig AG discovered to their financial detriment. In mid-2015, the ratio between average American CEO pay and worker pay was over 300-to-1, with some sources claiming a ratio of 354-to-1 or even 373-to-1. In 1965, that ratio was 20-to-1. In Germany, that ratio is 167, but workers there earn almost $6,000 more than the average American worker. Wall Street actively lobbies Washington to allow Chinese companies to buy American ones even if it's obvious that the Chinese company only wants the patents and other intellectual property, because Wall Streeters will make a killing on the deal. Even companies involved in chip manufacture, one of our remaining bastions, are being eagerly pursued by Chinese companies with Wall Street assistance. This confirms the old Bolshevik saying about capitalists selling the rope with which they will be later be hung, except that ordinary Americans will be dragged to the gallows along with them. Today's four largest job creation sectors, retail, restaurants, temporary staffing firms, and home health care, wouldn't be able to transform themselves into industries capable of weapons manufacturing. In other words, we could not act as the arsenal of democracy or win WWII today. But China could, though its arsenal would be of an entirely different nature. We should remember that China has been learning how to take down the Internet, stolen much of the design for the F-35, the fighter we have bet the farm on, and just about perfected its anti-satellite weapons, even though its use of them could fill orbital space with junk, preventing further launches of satellites or manned spacecraft. It would require more than eight years at a wartime tempo to replace the stocks of major weapons systems. The clock is ticking.
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AuthorPete Prunskunas Archives
March 2023
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