Why can't American manufacturing match overseas production?

[Whatthefluff]

We are really dependent on China, but why can't we develop from within the US and manufacture the majority of goods at home?

[The_Shadow_Dweller]

The primary reason is the population difference. The States has very very less population as compared to Asian countries like India and China. Between these two countries, China managed to leverage its population by systematic labour management. Thus catering to demand from home turf as well as the world too.

India, on the other hand, tried leveraging the population, but my country is failing to do so. Export goods are still manufactured here. But the manufacturing segment is stagnant in India. IT is flourishing here.

All the explanation above is simply based on demand and supply.

Another reason is the value of dollar currency. Outsourcing is done because it is really really cheap for American companies to pay through dollars in other currencies in other countries. An IT engineer takes 100K to 150K in The States. The same IT engineer is adjusted around 30K in India. With the same job, if not more. $30K is really big amount in INR. And the company saves $70K.

Hence, even when foreign people are not living in The States, they are inadvertently taking up the jobs that basically should have been for The States people only. But as you may know, any company will look for its own profits only.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to media, there is a person in here still believing EU is more independent about manufacturing because they are less capital-leaning than U. S, but in contrast, turn back the page of manufacturing in peak of Covid19. We can clearly see how trouble dependent of EU are on China. Right now, they still do when buy fuel indirectly from Russia through China.

In reality, the less capitalism, the more manufacturing dependent on China it is if you turn the fucking map of the world and see their government. I don’t try to conclude that, but it’s here for the purposeful counter.

Just a remind for whom misinform I argued in here, a dependence of manufacturing of EU to China is much more than U. S. that can easily be found in Google today where they can no longer hide it. And just because you read your favorite news doesn’t mean you can change something actual happening out there.

I don’t care how you guys hate capitalism by changing it definition like people in U. S. today changing definition of racism, but that is ridiculous and shamefully mislead people for a political purpose.

[Opinion Owner]

That should be shameful for people like to discuss about capitalism exploit benefits regardless anything but does not know what he is talking about was based on Karl Marx, the one never works as a abused labor. Also, one of the origins about capitalism and economy is from Adam Smith, and they don’t even know who the fuck he is or can not debate on it as all but still like to discuss. If you live in Sweden, I bet your country hasn’t turned to the complete anti-capitalism for a moral purpose (acutally there is no relationship between capitalism or anti-capitalism with morality), because I know Sweden even is one of the most country have highest benefits but still have a lot of capitalism policy.

If you deeply think Capitalism having no morality, so come and live in anti-capitalism country, give up your nationality and live in China, North Korea, Vietnam or Cuba as a normal person and they all welcome foreign people getting their nationality, I make sure for that. Of course you can’t, because you don’t know what the shit anti-capitalism they teach in there.

[Opinion Owner]

I wish this is helpful for people wanting to see more clear picture about why China is the most manufacturing country.

And for the dumb-dumb I debated, if you know how to read misinforming knowledge, so you should know how to read it, or you can never know.

One of the reason for why China have a cheap labor even their people are well-educated in their country: www.britannica.com/.../Education-under-communism

[Anonymous]

Economics. You can’t pay American workers the paltry wages you can in China or India and we have employer based health care, which is the most expensive in the world, and that cost is factored into the price of goods. Consumers here long ago decided they preferred the cheaper foreign goods to the more expensive US made products. We did it to ourselves really.

[LazerBean]

We can, manufacturers just prefer to do it in China because China doesn't mind working their people to death for no pay.

[The_Shadow_Dweller]

I can understand their point of view. Women there think, and they are right, that working in a factory is way better than prostitution.
Just look at India. This is a really good example of the mismanagement of its population.

Plus, your currency, which is your plus point in many cases, is also your biggest obstacle in manufacturing sector.

[Anonymous]

Simple logistics really. Why did the United States remain on top for so long? Why is there sort of a malaise in American production now? Think about it after WW2 most industrialized countries infrastructures were smashed while Ameria's being the Victor's were not only untouched but were brought to life and humming by the war. This gave us an unfair competitive advantage to sell to the rest of the world as we had no real competition. After a couple decades the rest of the world had recovered but we were already a couple of laps ahead by then. Now when you compare countries like China WE simply can't compete. The United States has to import much of it's resources to manufacture goods while China's are closely located. Couple that with the MASSIVE Chinese workforce it allows the Chinese to do almost everything quicker and cheaper then us. This is why so many businesses in the United States choose to take their manufacturing, send it to China, have it assembled, and have it shipped back. Because it's STILL cheaper and faster than employing an American workforce.

[MuddyMole]

The cost of labour, and the cost of having to comply with various other standards and regulations - for example, there are health and safety regulations for the workers, environmental regulations, and standards that the final product must meet. It also helps that corporate espionage and intellectual property theft are common among Chinese companies, meaning that they don't have to spend money on research and development - they can just very quickly reverse-engineer a product design from a foreign company.

In the past, it wasn't a problem. Other countries couldn't match the US on quality, allowing the US to charge a premium for their sophisticated exports. The US couldn't match other countries on price, allowing the US to benefit from cheap basic imports. It was a win-win. These days, the Chinese can beat the US on both price and quality, and all the US has left are some fashionable brand names, like Apple (never mind that Xiaomi and Huawei are better...).

[AngryCarl]

The irony being that Apple manufacture in China.

[Soteris]

The simple answer is capitalism. Capitalists does not have a national loyalty, they will not invest in your country "just because". As such, they will build factories when and where it makes economic sense to do so. That means that even if you build a world beating company in USA they will still put their factories in another country in a heartbeat if it is beneficial for them to do so.

As such, as long as there is a country that will let companies get away with more exploitation of their resources and people than USA does then companies will prefer to build their products over there. You could change the equation by reigning in capitalism somewhat with legislation but Conservative Americans are going to scream bloody murder at you for even thinking about that.

[Tanhoaon]

Working with not exploiting. Do you still think the government in those countries stupid enough for you playing on their land? There is no Conservative Americans, there is just a lot of people trying to work with a wrong countries to hurt their owns but exploit for themselves and for the government there, and we know who they are. They don’t like to admit that, they don’t like to be called that they are doing that, but like to blame everything else. Even capitalism didn’t do a shit about something stupid you call “national loyalty.”, see Japan to open your eyes. Feel contradict by yourself when talking about “national loyalty” and “conservative Americans.”

Let me be clear, capitalism exist a long time. Those countries that U. S company put their factories there are red capitalism countries where government raise their own businesses to compete with private businesses of their people in their countries. Yes, nothing change, still need capitalism in their country. Read a history to see problematic countries used to follow their own way until their economy is on crisis so they need to do partial capitalism in their country even it’s contradict to their government belief.

[Soteris]

@Tanhoaon


I have no idea what you just said.

[Tanhoaon]

If “Conservative Americans scream bloody murder at you” is something wrong with you, let me use your card. I don’t know when people cooperate with murderers, authority, exploiting cheap workers, dangerous with clear intention to become the 1st ruler of the world with violent way like China is supported. That would be ashamed. Let me point one of the most famous event but I don’t know whether “moral people” know that, reread 1989 Tiananmen protest in China and then why U. S. in Bill Clinton not only work but also open the door for China to work with U. S.

[Soteris]

@Tanhoaon You are still not making much sense. Furthermore you are trying to drag politics into this by talking about China being violent or American presidents cooperating with China. This is irrelevant. Corporations, the ones who builds and operates factories, only cares about making profits. They will cooperate with genocidal murderers and employ children if they are allowed to do so and it makes them money.

[Tanhoaon]

I know my writing is not that complicated because other people understand that, so let me clarify. You point generally that's a problem of capitalism in America. That is not, reread them. Then you mock "Conservative Americans", turn the stories like it's Conservative Americans and capitalism make that issue, so I need to point something wrong in yours. There will be no additional explanation about clarify what I've just said.

[Tanhoaon]

I don't know what problems in your knowledge but "capitalism" and "Conservative Americans" are literally political terms even I don't know whether you intend to mention that. You tried to mock both, see yours. You point out U. S. factories and reside in other countries but refuse to talk about China, the territory of factories of U. S. and other countries in the past. If in the beginning, no one open the door for those factories, there is no need to say why U. S. factories not favoring to reside in U. S., and that is political. How did you define "Politic" when you think you didn't pull politic in your writing?

[Soteris]

@Tanhoaon You misunderstand then. It is a problem of capitalism, as in capitalism as a whole and anywhere it exists. Capitalism pushes corporations to make decisions based on profits over all other concerns. Things such as patriotism does not have a profitable value so it is meaningless to a capitalist corporation.

They will go and do anything as long as there is a profit in doing so. That means they will build their factories in the country where it is most profitable for themselves without regard for either the country where they build their factory or the country where the corporation lives in.

As for Conservative Americans, they are obsessed with the ideology of Capitalism and Free Market. As such, limiting either of them to prevent corporations from building factories in for example China makes them angry and as such is impossible. As long as Conservative Americans believe this you can't stop corporations from building factories in China instead of USA.

[Tanhoaon]

@Soteris No, I don't misunderstand that. If you say "Capitalism pushes corporations to make decisions based on profits over all other concerns", so why there are capitalists don't do that, that's not because of their patriotism or their capitalism, that is just a common moral decision whether they should do that or not. Do you know anti-capitalism supporters do that "profit over all other concerns" more than people supporting capitalism? They are people supporting anti-policies to capitalism and is still able to keep profit for them, there is no capitalism if you restrict a competition between owners, I don't know why you define "capitalists" like that after centuries. What you are trying to say is, let me rephrase it in the more general term (not a specific term): "Authoritarianism pushes corporations (everything possible) to make decisions based on their power in the society system over all other concern."

Capitalists are more than a neutral term when they are just regarded a person doing capitalism (not your defined capitalism.) And then whatever their idealism is like authoritarianism, patriotism, religionism, or whatever shape their decision. There is not such a thing of capitalism problems doing that.

And a Conservative Americans just prevent corporations from China, and no China could mean in U. S. but could be somewhere else not China.

[Tanhoaon]

@Soteris I may know where your defined capitalism come from. It may come from the economists or politicians who write about capitalism's aspects from the past until now, and somehow it becomes an essential definition for some people even it's misleading from the original definition.

[Tanhoaon]

@Soteris You don't need to read the whole but you should read and know about Adam Smith capitalism's ideal then I think, thay may help you see more clearly what's wrong with your capitalism's definition. You can reread "Karl Marx theory of capitalism", that could be one of the fundamental misleading of defining what capitalism is. And I think you know who Karl Marx is so I don't need go further from here.

[Soteris]

@Tanhoaon There is no "Morality" in capitalism. If a person inside a corporation made a decision based on morality then they would be fired for reducing their profits. They become "inefficiencies" and capitalism is all about removing inefficiencies for higher and higher profits.

There might be people with morals or patriotism as part of the corporation but that is overruled by the ideology of capitalism which transforms the corporation into a simple profit driven machine. As such, there is no morality in business and only money speaks.

Building factories makes more money if they are in China, therefore they build them in China. End of story. As for Conservatives in America? They want to prevent corporations from building in China but they can't because the only way to do so would be to limit Capitalism and the Free Market which is impossible for them, therefore corporation keeps building in China and other countries around the world instead of building in USA.

[Tanhoaon]

I will end here. I said what I needed to say, I wrote enough and you just want to repeat your points disregard all of my encountering opinions. Now I can say you have prejudice to capitalism so you embrace your ideal more than arguing on it, it is or not people in here will judge by themselves. I will let you figure it out, or it may not gonna happen.

[Tanhoaon]

@Soteris I didn’t say anything about morality in capitalism. I distinguished morality and capitalism into different terms, and point out what you misunderstand. You just want to combine them as capitalism = doing everything for profits disregard sequences or morality, it’s enough to say about your prejudice and long misunderstanding from how capitalism actually is and how some people think about capitalism and then think it is capitalism’s “facts.”

[Soteris]

@Tanhoaon *facepalm* This is among the dumbest conversations I have had on this site, no doubt.

[Ill_made_Knight]

@Soteris absolutely spot on. Left to their own fully deregulated devices, corporations will bring industry back to the US when the cost of labor becomes cheap enough for it to be the most profitable option... and not before.
The citizens united decision has made it almost impossible to do anything against the best interest of the corporation, even impose a modest tax... It was suggested to me in a conversation just this week that no corporation should have to pay ANY taxes as they are the "job creators".
They've run quite the successful propaganda campaign, I think.

[Soteris]

@Ill_made_Knight No doubt that USA is powerless against the manipulation of corporations. Luckily the rest of the world is doing decently with EU putting up an acceptable showing.

[BeMuse]

American manufacturing is superior to Chinese manufacturing. That said, labor prices are vastly different when you compare a free market economy with a high standard of living vs a communist slave state. America also has more strict environmental laws than China which demands a larger up front investment in cleaner technologies. Either way, China and America are decoupling. Much of American manufacturing will return to our shores, specifically toward the South East. China will take a big hit by losing American customers and American manufacturing will get a big boost. Hopefully what does return, focuses on clean advanced manufacturing methods to reduce labor costs and pollution impacts.

[Price511]

If I had to be honest, it’s more so because it’s cheaper to export that work to other countries. We are fully capable of our own homesteads, manufacturing, and so on. However, because it is simply cheaper to do so, it makes all the difference in logistics and finance planning, especially since usually the businesses’ main goal is to accrue wealth.


We are fully capable of taking care of our own manufacturing, it’s just simply cheaper for them to export the work. Less labor laws, less expenses, less legal problems, less of anything to worry about (whether it’s morally correct or not) is what allows them to expedite work via exporting. Security in their power and profit is the name of the game here in America.

[GreenLanternI0I]

It is a simple business formula. Americans LOVE to buy cheap stuff, the only way to sustain a consumer type of society, is to have a slave labor force somewhere else. You cannot pay someone 30$ an hour to put together an Apple laptop so you can buy it for $2,000 or you cannot pay someone 50$ an hour who builds a factory car that will be sold for $30,000. The only reason Americans are able to live so large, is because of a slave labor and dirty poor salaries that other nations get that produce useless stuff that American population buys.

[nolabels]

The U. S. used to be the manufacturing titan of the world, producing many very high-quality products.

Unfortunately, when overseas manufacturing began to rise in the 1970s, using extremely cheap labor, consumers in the U. S. quickly began to choose to buy cheap foreign-made crap versus purchasing quality U. S. products albeit at a higher price.

Warnings to BUY American were made by those who could foresee the results we have today. Those warnings were disregarded by most consumers.

The situation could still be turned around, but there are certain products that are no longer made in the U. S.

It would take a years-long massive boycott of foreign-made products to kickstart U. S. manufacturing back into action.

I've been trying to do so on my own for years.

It will take the resolve of the vast majority of U. S. citizens to turn the tide.

[ArtemisSilver]

It can, but still works out costing more because there's rules against treating staff so poorly that you need to install suicide prevention nets like at foxcon.

The western world in general also has expensive rules about not dumping industrial waste in the river etc.

I think that we're going to have to temper our expectations and live small compared to past generations.

Polyfidelity relationships with income pooling can help people break away from this trend though, which is part of why I'm in favor of it.

[Alex8736]

We did have American Manufacturing Jobs in the United States along with Keystone Pipeline jobs where up to November 2019 The AAA National average for regular unleaded gasoline was $1.93 a gallon. Unemployment rates were at a record low and then comes Hunter and AARP Biden. To be fair i'm independent and focus on actions vs words which for one I was completely unimpressed with all the candidates running for 2020 and it would be fair to say that moving forward from 2021 and beyond I never once heard "what can (WE) not (I) do as the American People would like to improve" but instead "I WANT TRUMP"... Fast Forwarding to the present time the only question I would like to ask is... How many people here are doing much better financially now since January 1 2021? Personally my 401K dropped but all I can do now is raise my contributions with stocks at bargain prices.. Happy Tuesday Everyone

[Astarlessnightsky]

Pricing. Mostly.

Companies build their stuff in South East Asia, China/Taiwan/Hongkong/India/Pakistan... and other countries with low wages like Mexico for US and East Europe for EU to keep costs the lowest to maximize their earnings.

If you would produce a Nike Shoe 100% or close to 100% at US Salaries in the USA, the Shoe would be three to four times as expensive and Nike would still make less money.

[ibodi]

USA did that lost Japan because you just manufacture yourself that did not suit everywhere actually. You move back that is ok that is good to see you as communism spirit and dont blame weather to China and solve by yourself and did that expensive goods to Europe. dont blame cheap china workers if workers in USA work up that can do in the same price. If you dont know then you even did not master it.

[loveslongnails]

Primary reason is cost of labor, including benefits. Next would be raw materials and the cost of bringing them to the USA. By the time you're done with former, the cost is already prohibitive. There are a few industries left in the USA where the product itself is better, like steel, but it also costs a lot more.

[Anonymous]

Because you have been indoctrinated to believe that capitalism is wonderful and captialism doesn't care about people or what is in the interests of nations, or the environment.

So if a company thinks it can make more money by closing down a factory and moving to Mexico or China etc then it will do that.

Just like banks will loan money to people buying houses and not loan money to people starting businesses, one is safe and the other isn't.

[hafinjun]

If we are to believe the internet authorities it's because big business's holds the little guy back , doesn't encourage the employed to perform well , they don't appreciate the working class by showering the least talented , new to the workforce kids with a 20 dollar an hour job flipping burgers.

[nawtee_me]

When we did make products in the United States they were far superior to what you bought overseas. To do that today the cost of materials and labor would not be profitable. That is a shame too. Biden would not allow it because of carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses

[Twalli]

We can, it costs more. Our labor laws benefit the workers a lot more than the labor laws of other countries.
There's a movie called Anmerican Factory. It's a documentary about a Chinese company building a factory here and how the labor rules are different there than what they were when it had an American company working there. We also see how the work is different in that company's factory in China.
We can make everything we need here, but it would cost the employers A LOT more to do so.

[ChefPapiChulo]

America does tho? we are dependent on the world because we live in a world economy where every country effects the other.

America has also moved into a new age, called the information age. No other country matches America in this regard. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

Regulatory costs forced businesses overseas in the name of environmentalism. But of course, China doesn't give a shit, so it has the opposite effect on the environment. Made some people feel like they really did something, though, so that's all that matters.

[USLegionary]

China a has lots of cheap manpower. This will end as the next wave of automation comes in. You see in factories like in South Korea that are basically all robots doing all work, China can't compete with that.

[josephcovell417]

It is system of economy that we builded for many years. I think most toughest way is to change the system of if most people would agreed. If there is a vote based on that question. I would voted saying yes. We need to set up our own company that is not based in China.

[20yearsolder]

It could happen but it won't. The reason it's manufactured in China is because labor wages are horrific in China. They can build it for so much less than it can be built in the good old USA

[jshm2]

Because your quality of work is shit and so is your productivity.

Also the manufacturing costs are very high to ship and build on the USA.

[NathanDavis]

America is selective with their exploitation practices, other countries are just not...

[Faith18letsgo]

We can but our labor isn’t as cheap because there aren’t as many of us.

[exitseven]

Politicians like Biden had taken money from China to not develop American industry the way President Trump did.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I blame it on politics is why this happens in America, for once if everyone got along this wouldn't happen.

[Guy13]

The Left as in UNIONS and those who like to use the word Equity, Globalists, and Elitists.

[CloudMassacre]

Because we have labor laws and greedy rich people who will always find a way to make something cheaper

[Dargil]

Because Chinese work for slave wages. We buy their cheap, low quality shytte.

[joeldalton]

Labor costs and government regulations is why. Your $1000 iPhone would cost probably $5-$10k.

[Anonymous]

You absolutely have the ability to manufacture goods in the US. What you don't have is the ability to market them at an affordable price. You could never cover the cost of labour.

[FilmGuy93]

The cost of labor.

[BJP21]

Lots of red tape. Thank the regulators.

[BLP11520]

Wages paid in China a slave wages