Free Republic

What exactly did United States Senator-elect Jim Webb mean when he wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "the most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century." Certainly we can agree with him when he asserts that "In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future... . Manufacturing jobs are disappearing." And, of course, the average corporate...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Gone are the days when U.S. manufacturers united to compete against the likes of Germany and Japan, pumping out high-quality goods under the protective shelter of the world's most vibrant economy. Today, amid liberalized trade and widely available cheap labor, manufacturers have turned against one another, threatening to topple a house built upon the pillars of ingenuity, productivity and competitiveness. It's no secret there's a civil war going on out there. The U.S. manufacturing landscape is being ripped apart by a series of attacks on its traditional strongholds that has left...