> Take a drive through Gary, Indiana or Flint, Michigan or a thousand other towns throughout the country that were supporting thriving, middle-class communities and are now burnt-out, depopulated husks.
It is Revisionism to blame the fall of Flint/Detroit on NAFTA.
{The South / union benefits, Saudi Arabia / the Oil Crisis, The Civil Rights Act / The Southern Strategy} destroyed Detroit, not NAFTA. Detroit’s population peaked in the late 1960s, but NAFTA/WTO didn’t start until late 1990s.
The 1960s was an amazing time to be an auto worker in that area, but those companies became uncompetitive when oil got expensive and union labor became a liability in a time when the entire US auto industry needed to compete with tiny Japan and Europe exports moving up the value chain. Also, auto companies figured out it was far cheaper to move to the old slave states than to keep paying defined benefits plans to Rust Belt workers.
Self-inflicted wound by unions. They get too focused on self-interested negotiations and can’t see when innovation is ready to disrupt the current market leaders.
>Self-inflicted wound by unions. They get too focused on self-interested negotiations and can’t see when innovation is ready to disrupt the current market leaders.
Dock work isn't a free market. It's pretty much mandated by whoever the government allows to work in that sector. That's why they can technically mandate this as an illegal strike.
This is self-infliced wounds from benefiting from decades of efficienty while buying power torpedoes. As we see, this isn't some one off anamoly this year.
It is Revisionism to blame the fall of Flint/Detroit on NAFTA.
{The South / union benefits, Saudi Arabia / the Oil Crisis, The Civil Rights Act / The Southern Strategy} destroyed Detroit, not NAFTA. Detroit’s population peaked in the late 1960s, but NAFTA/WTO didn’t start until late 1990s.
The 1960s was an amazing time to be an auto worker in that area, but those companies became uncompetitive when oil got expensive and union labor became a liability in a time when the entire US auto industry needed to compete with tiny Japan and Europe exports moving up the value chain. Also, auto companies figured out it was far cheaper to move to the old slave states than to keep paying defined benefits plans to Rust Belt workers.
Self-inflicted wound by unions. They get too focused on self-interested negotiations and can’t see when innovation is ready to disrupt the current market leaders.