[frodo8sam]

The nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real bridge builder in cha...

[aprilthird2021]

Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?

[roenxi]

Probably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link.

The issue looks from afar like a double-whammy of (1) pushing capital investment offshore to China resulting in most of the productive capital formation happening in Asia and (2) banning a lot of industrial activity in the US for environmental reasons. A lot of what the Chinese did to get ahead was literally illegal in most Western countries - some of it was labour laws mind. Even today there I question whether something like Shenzhen would be legal in the US. If Shenzhen was magically transplanted to the US, what would happen when the lawyers move in?

[sgt101]

- high wages are not evenly spread geographically in the USA

- high wages are not evenly spread demographically in the USA

- the wage distribution seems to me to be unusual in that it has a very long fat tail whereas the UK's is very clustered (I've forgotten the right term) on the median.

- modern industry can be highly automated

- modern logistics mean that industry can be decentralised

I believe that the last two are new since the USA and Europe outsourced large amounts of their industry to China. However the bigger issue is that competitive industries require very significant capitalisation because on the one hand modern products are staggeringly well engineered (with the trade offs of cheap, good and sophisticated taken into account) and on the other hand the processes used to make them require lots of tools, infrastructure, and robots.

[suraci]

Due to underdeveloped economies, developing countries cannot avoid economic dependence on developed countries, especially in areas such as high technology, equipment, and precision instruments. However, this dependence varies depending on the development stage of each country. For example, African nations primarily require food to sustain basic living conditions.

Regardless of their specific needs, this situation has resulted in a unique exchange mechanism: developing countries must offer their best products in exchange for goods from developed countries. As a result, people in developing countries are unable to enjoy the finest products produced in their own countries, and sometimes not even second-tier products, as these are reserved for foreign consumers.

The U.S. market features products from various countries and regions, including China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Jamaica, and Mexico. The world's finest products flow into the U.S. market in exchange for U.S. dollars. As everyone competes to obtain dollars, competition intensifies, leading to high product quality and low prices. This has created unprecedented prosperity in the U.S. market. This outcome is a result of market mechanisms and the benefits that the U.S. has gained from the global status of the dollar, established by the Bretton Woods Conference after World War II.

However, the massive influx of foreign products into the U.S. has also impacted its domestic industries, causing factory closures and rising unemployment. This issue cannot be ignored, which is why the forces of free trade and protectionism in the U.S. have been in constant conflict.

— Wang Huning, America Against America

[colechristensen]

Sure.

We do not need to rely on foreign labor which is a tiny fraction of American labor to maintain our quality of life. Lots of things need to be reorganized to make this work and some people with a lot of wealth will have a lot less certainly.

But foreign manufacturing of nearly everything is relatively new, you have to remember. America was plenty prosperous not so long ago before we started exporting so many jobs to Mexico, then China and beyond. We had the highest wages in the world then too.

[nickdothutton]

This comment of mine is light, so don't take it too seriously, but I'm reminded that the factory in the film Minority Report (2002) has no people in it. It is entirely automated.

[buu700]

I would argue that it isn't only possible, but on track to arrive sooner than most people realize:

* AI models are steadily continuing to improve in capabilities and efficiency

* Massive investments are being made in scaling up AI infrastructure (see Stargate and xAI Colossus)

* Tesla expects to produce a few thousand Optimus robots this year and use them for some level of internal production workload, meanwhile Hyundai has acquired Boston Dynamics with what I can only assume is a plan to take its tech out of the research labs and commercialize it at scale

* Aside from all the other recent and ongoing advances in energy tech and infrastructure, production fusion power is coming; if you take sama-backed Helion's word for it, they may be fulfilling a contract to deliver it to Microsoft as soon as 2028 (knock on wood)

Add all that together, and it's not difficult to see a trend that converges on a rapid massive expansion of global and particularly US manufacturing output kicking off within the next decade or two. As soon as the hardware and software are good enough for robots to outcompete average unskilled human laborers at most tasks on cost and quality, expect fully automated assembly lines to start pumping out humanoid robots 24/7, which will then be put to work 24/7 on any number of manufacturing and construction projects with logistics based around autonomous vehicles.

The overhead of US labor cost and safety regulations will become moot with machines doing the work, while our abundance of resources and first mover advantage on AI will give us a big headstart over the rest of the world. Meanwhile, our low population density means we'll have a ton of empty land to build on and a population size that will make UBI payments comparably easy. In that scenario, eclipsing 2025 China's shipbuilding capacity will be the least of our concerns. Whoever wins the AI race wins global hegemony, and right now that race is America's to lose.

All of which is to say, there's a reasonable argument that America is currently sitting at a firm local minimum in strength and prosperity, which conversely means that China is plausibly approaching a ceiling on its own relative military and economic power for the foreseeable future. If that is the case, it means that the next decade or so may be an exceptionally high-risk period for Taiwan. However, it also means that competent US leadership would throw everything it has at a defense of Taiwan in the event of an invasion; irrespective of any fabrication capacity that may end up built out in the US, allowing a Chinese takeover of the main TSMC facilities would be surrendering far too great a strategic asset in the AI race. That being the case, while Chinese leadership may or may not agree, I would argue that the rational move on China's part would actually be to give up on Taiwan and focus on investing heavily in SMIC and other fronts of the AI race. Invading would at best yield a pyrrhic victory, at worst yield an expensive defeat and burn a bridge with the people of Taiwan for generations. The right move would be to put aside the short-term economic gambit and nationalistic fervor, and instead lay out a roadmap for a possible future peaceful unification or alliance by proving themselves to be a good neighbor over time.