alt Hacker NewsThis goes far beyond skilled labor. But I'll start with that point. The US already has a huge shortage of skilled labor, and it's not like we would ever take people from the HVAC industry and put them in a factory. People in the US are gonna still want air conditioning. Culturally, the US absolutely pushes young people to aim for white collar service industry jobs.
Second, it takes a huge amount of engineering talent to do what China is doing as well. In the US, a lot of engineering talent has been attracted to software (or other service industry jobs), where there's a lot of money to be made, and you can sit on your ass and argue on an orange-colored website all day. I prefer that to wearing a hardhat and waking up at 6 AM to go to a factory.
Third, China concentrates a lot of this talent into dense cities, and people make a lot of sacrifices to live there. You're definitely not gonna convince an HVAC guy to leave his suburban home and sell his pickup truck to go live in a dormitory in a dense city and ride a scooter. In China, there's plenty of people that are itching to leave the countryside for the city, leave their families, and search for a better life. In the US, people that live outside of cities, generally want to live there, and aren't interested in relocating. Most developed nations feed this need for skilled labor by importing labor from countries where people have a strong desire to better themselves but don't have a cultural expectation of a backyard and a white picket fence. But the US has had a fucked up immigration system for a long time now.
Fourth, China pulls out all of the roadblocks in order to facilitate the growth of their industrial base. They don't need to go through 10 years of planning to build something, they don't need to argue with a local zoning board, and if they want to build something they don't wait for the free market to decide to do it. If they want to support an industry, they just do it. Single-party unitary governments are efficient as fuck. Of course, this comes with many drawbacks, which politically are just not viable in the US.
Edit: I grant I could be old and outdated. But having seen cycles. Having seen Japan go up and down. Having seen offshoring first go to Mexico then easily transition to China, I just don't see any black and white here.
1. The HVAC guys would definitely fill the the quick turnaround, small shops that surround the manufacturing industry in China if that was an option.
Culturally doesn't matter. The majority of young men I know are underemployed and hate the service industry, but would be a fit for having their own adjacent business like that ones in China that get so hyped as enabling their dynamics. I think you are very focused on the crowd you know. The young people I know are so itching to create they have 3d printers, or make fishing flies, or make their own clothes.
2. Sounds great, if you live in the bay area or other tech scenes. I no longer do. I left tech to work (albeit tech) in a factory. For the majority of people I know, what you lay out it isn't an option or on the table. They are under-employed in brain dead service jobs they hate, and that do not provide them a future. They would jump on building up the adjacent small businesses that China's manufacturing depends on and that people here hype as 'wow, you can find a shop that does XYZ'. The stuff people say 'we just don't have in the USA'.
3. Small town America was factories since forever. I don't think China's way is the only way. We have a very good transportation system whereas when China established it's manufacturing it didn't. I think your view is myopic here and clouded with 'the China way'.
4. Again, the 80% of America you seem to ignore, pulls out all the stops for shitty ass 50 employee employers to build. You seem to be focused on a very small part of the US.
Nothing you say is a limiter IF the jobs are there. American companies pulling the jobs killed American dynancism, not any of the things you list. If it's TRULY no longer about cost, we could EASILY do it again. The people I met in China weren't better than the average American. They were great, and I think very highly of China. But the advantage I saw were wages, and people from the countryside willing to put up with a lot, but I don't think they will put up with as much long term (and I hope they don't have to, again the people I met are all great people and I hope the best for all of us). And a side of environmental pollution (I know 2 guys that moved their factories to China purely because of savings by not having to be environmentally friendly. So many that falls under your regulation, but that isn't a long term solution/state for China and that was a decade ago, maybe things are changed for the better already).