2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Mr. Sanders peddles fiction on free trade [View all]HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)My home town's biggest industry was Elgin Watch. When I was a kid the town had a population of 25-30K. Elgin Watch employed about 25k in fulltime middle-income jobs. Then there were associated industries...Waltham a competitor, a factory that made watch cases, mostly for pocket watches I was told, many tool and die companies and a couple of foundries.
So during the work-week, my home town was a bit bigger than it's own population. Then a city in South Carolina cooked up a plan with help from the state to 'entice' Elgin Watch to move it's factory. Cheaper labor was promised, a free factory site, lower taxes...standard stuff in the "Jobs Gone South" competition, and so for my home town time ended for Elgin Watch
For many years things were pretty dreadful, I left in the midst of that and have never gone back. I understand that place has made something of a comeback as a bedroom suburb.
I tell this story only to say that NAFTA was something of a death blow in a process that had been going on for a long time. Some places lost factories in the early 60's like my hometown, many lost them in the 70's, the wave of "Going South was over before Reagan's first term ended, but with Reagan US companies began moving out of the country.
The old industries died as new technologies developed, but there is really no reason within the technology that new facilities with new technologies had to be built overseas. New technology replacing old industries wasn't really the problem.