Last week, despite the great effort elites typically make to conceal their contempt for the rest of us, a frightening moment of truth emerged. The president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Adam Posen, who looks to earn $450,000 a year, expressed his utter contempt for the working class during an event hosted by the libertarian Cato Institute.
Posen stated that “the fetish for manufacturing is part of the larger desire for maintaining white guys outside of the cities with low levels of education in the positions of power they are in in the United States.” Posen cited the fact that no one noticed when recessions harmed Black Americans as evidence.
Posen’s words revealed more than he probably intended, such as the elitist desire for those with less education to hold less power, the way wealthy elites pander to Black Americans by bringing up the topic of them in order to divert attention from class disparities, or the ignorant and racist belief that Black Americans don’t work in manufacturing.
Posen’s admission that manufacturing offers those without a college degree lucrative jobs that in turn provide them political power was maybe even worse than the social justice racism. And although his awakened racism may keep him from seeing it, bringing manufacturing back to the United States would provide everyone—not just white men—the chance to work and start businesses.
Why would Posen leave out the advantages of reshoring manufacturing for working class Black males or working class women? It encourages opposition to bringing back manufacturing, which is a form of idiocy that appeals to the Left-wing equity movement. And why would anyone be against reviving manufacturing? Well, who would want to assist “white guys with poor education,” as Posen described them?
Posen is hardly the first person to demonstrate how wokeness and elitism go hand in hand, allowing a member of the overeducated elite like Posen to reach the delusion that white males without a college degree somehow hold the levers of power such that anybody may be part in “keeping” them there.
It’s also a fantasy. Nothing you see happening in the world is within the control of those of us in the working class who are “low educated.” They are fully aware that the educated are in charge of everything. The power centers of America are made up of individuals with degrees, a lot of them, whether they are in politics, the media, the rich, or the professional management class.
They are frightened of the influence I have politically. Of course, it’s difficult for us to think that things might be worse than they are. You’d have to be quite well off to think that if any of our modest political aspirations came to pass, America would blow up.
The saddest aspect is that bringing manufacturing back to the United States would benefit a huge number of Black Americans. Because it would benefit everyone—exactly for the reason Posen outlined: It would partially restore political power to the working class.
Everyone should be aware of the fact that the number of manufacturing employment in the nation has been shrinking. Many of my fellow blue collar employees that I have spoken to are suffering greatly as a result of major firms moving a significant portion of their production to China and displacing Americans from those jobs. Many of the communities whose industrial jobs were moved to China or Mexico are now shells of what they once were, and many of those places are plagued by record-high drug use and poverty among the people who were left behind.
It turns out that when individuals lose their employment and means of support, they frequently lose their sense of purpose. When despair strikes in, many people fall into the addictional black hole. Men without college degrees are dying at higher rates than any other group in the country, yet elites like Posen only perceive “powerful positions”!
However, manufacturing has benefits beyond those of the employee. Because it gives all the supporting industries of manufacturing business possibilities, it has an impact on the entire community. The machines must be able to be fixed by someone. The laborers must be fed by someone. Their dwellings must be built by someone. A tide that lifts many boats is manufacturing.
However, individuals like Posen would prefer that the American economy be dominated by service employment and end consumers, which are often low-skilled and low-paid. This conflict targets the middle class. In addition, it is a war on everyone else. Every American is exposed when your whole pharmaceutical sector is located abroad. Every American is exposed when your whole military industrial complex is dependent on semiconductors produced in a nation governed by your main competitor. Your whole population is at risk if all of your personal protective equipment is produced in China.
We shouldn’t be subject to constant subjugation by other nations.
America: You have skilled blue-collar people who are prepared to create and manufacture goods. That is being impeded by the government.
If we stop listening to folks like Adam Posen, small town America may come back in a significant manner for all Americans, white and Black.
