On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 09:01 PM, Chris Slee wrote: Charlie is correct in saying that: "The surge of U.S. industry outsourcing to China dates from the early 1990s".
Outsourcing to China took off in the early 90’s, but it began shortly after the decision was taken by the PRC to open the country to foreign capital. Between 1979-83, four Special Economic Zones were established in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, and fourteen more coastal cities across ten provinces were opened to FDI over the rest of the decade, Before that, there was outsourcing to Mexico and other countries. I am not sure when this started. The maquiladora manufacturing hubs began as far back as the the 60’s but the real impact on US manufacturing jobs began in the 80’s and also accelerated in the 90’s with the passage of NAFTA.. There was also, as Marv says, increased competition from Japan, as well as Western Europe. Competition from Japanese carmakers, steel producers, and electronics firms played a major role hollowing out US industry from the mid-70's until the Reagan administration’s imposition of the 1985 Plaza Accord and other protectionist measures against it. These led to the collapse of Japan's stock market in 1989 and the onset of its so-called “lost decades”. However the steady advance of automation has been seen as the biggest contributor to the relative decline in size of the US industrial workforce and strength of its industrial unions. So we can debate till the cows come home when the decline of the industrial base and unions began and what caused it. Charlie situates the retreat to “around 1973” and attributes its "fundamental cause” to “a change in capital accumulation consistent with, and validating, the famous remark by Marx that a time comes when the relations of production turn into a fetter on the productive forces.” Apart from this assertion flying in the face of the continued unfettered expansion of the productive forces of US and global capitalism since then, I'm less interested in what economic factors caused the decline of the US manufacturing sector and over what period it gathered steam - though I've offered my opinion above and elsewhere - than I am in the *effect* the decline had on union organizing and bargaining power. I’m not at all persuaded that looking at the average weekly earnings, based as these are on a sample of mostly unorganized as well as unionized US workers, or singling out days lost to work stoppages seen in isolation from the growth of the workforce, are better ways of measuring the effect than the sharp fall in strike activity beginning on the early 80’s which even the encouraging post-COVID uptick in trade unionism has not come close to reversing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29164): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29164 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104608543/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
