Can someone explain to me how the US can reshore manufacturing without dramatically lower their standard of living? Maybe they can subsidize some essential industries but I can’t see a path to do it for everything.
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No data points, but I like to entertain this.
A (very) partial solution is to build the factories at places where the cost of living for the workers is low. This way, the workers can maintain a higher standard of living at a constant salary.
Is it better standard of living to be in a small apartment in the city working an office job or is it better standard of living being in a more rural area working manual jobs. (I honestly don't know, personally, I prefer to do thinking work)
Americans may no longer have an unnecessarily large or luxurious automobile, or a screen in every room, but I would argue excess becoming the standard is the problem and a major cause of the imbalance.
The solution doesn't feel very democratic or free though, values that have been critical to the identity of the USA.
For rural employment to increase you would need to throw away all the technological progress from the last century. The country and economy would be unrecognisable from what it is now.
The question is how post-industrialism wealth redistribution looks like, when work does not seem to be a good key.
No it can't, not yet anyway.
But hey, changes take time!