America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

Well, sure, but perhaps some kind of plan is warranted?

Isn't the point of capitalism to not have a plan and let the market figure it out?

Which is why things that bring back manufacturing to the US is something we were doing. It's just unfortunate that instead of continuing that, the current administration is trying undermine the effective efforts of the previous administration's actions that helped bring manufacturing back into the US.

Capitalism as such went out the window with tariffs.

That's what we did, and it moved everything to China.

I'm sure that the capitalists would disagree in this instance.

How are markets going to figure anything out with tariffs changing every day, depending on the mood of dear leader?

No, purely free markets (which weren't free to start off with) went out the window.

That's a problem for the markets to suss out.

No, it doesn't. There is a presumption that manufacturing is Better, a more ideal way of organizing the economy, based on a false nostalgia of America past.

Countries that believe that are dominated by those who plan.

Citation needed. How did those five year plans go?

Who is going to commit the resources to make serious money losing plans vs manufacturing overseas?

They've sussed out that if you suck up to him he'll give you an exemption. Of course if you are a medium sized business you are screwed and have to wait in line, but you'll get your chance as long as you can hold on through the summer.

In two years of course it won't matter.

It's a principle of capitalism, but taken to the extreme, it's just a strawman. At this point, I think we are pretty sure that some interventions make capitalism better.

This post is specifically about Industrial Policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_policy

But other effective interventions are anti-trust and demand-inducing regulation (e.g. people want to fly because they know it's safe).

The free market (which I think people also include in capitalism) would correctly predict labour intensive jobs would be outsourced. This is very much a feature (comparative advantage), not a bug. I realized a lot of supposedly free market people don't even know the basics of it. Politically the free market has become an identity associated with national greatness and a sense of control of ones destiny. The dominant feeling seems to be if you have a free market, you will win everything (which is actually opposite from the truth).

sure, but it will take longer than 4 or 8 years and everyone in power wants their own thing, not continuity. it cannot happen without a long term plan and long term plans cannot happen if have, maybe, a year to do things and the rest is election time.

sounds about right.

No, of course not. That's oversimplifying to the point of idiocy.

Markets do not mean that an Industrial strategy / Industrial policy is not needed.

Markets respond to incentives created by such a strategy.

IIRC correctly, the previous administration did try to do some of the slow, steady imperfect work of planning to gradually bring back key industries.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act and https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/11/24195811/biden-ev-factory...

Of course, the voters wanted something else.

> They've sussed out that if you suck up to him he'll give you an exemption

It's a very thinly veiled protection racket. People do tend to repeat the plays that they know.

The point of Capitalism is Marx needed a straw man to tear down. The world has never seen what he envisioned.

What you might call capitalists very much plan. They don't believe in central planning where one "guy" makes a plans and everyone else implements them, but they do plan.

> they do plan.

I've just sat through a long meeting with lots of Jiras and Q2 objectives. Trust me, there's planning. Lots of planning.

China, who do have an industrial strategy. It worked for them.

Seem to be doing OK, actually

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China

Marx never said that capitalists didn't plan. In fact, the possibility of the transition from late stage capitalism/imperialism to socialism is based on that very fact, capital got concentrated in very big companies with internal planification. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Republic_of_Wal...