But you are never going to have 1950’s number of steel mills & factory workers given the advances in robotics (much more to come!), etc. Now we could purposely subsidize those industries to keep the numbers of “human workers” high!
Maybe we want to do that. I can make a social policy argument as to why it might be necessary. It would possibly be poor economics but good sociology. I am not comfortable with the argument I can construct, but I could see a need for doing it.
> But you are never going to have 1950’s number of steel mills & factory workers... <
Right you are, for the reasons you stated. I am concerned about jobs for Americans. But I am equally concerned about where the wealth creators are. If the factories are overseas, that’s where the wealth is going.
Then there’s the national defense angle. If, heaven forbid, we get involved in a really big war, do we still have the industrial base to win? We had it in 1941. Do we have it now?