How to Make An Ethical American Job (Before It's Too Late)

Just three days after the Obama administration recently announced a commitment to reenergize the United States' manufacturing base, Intel co-founder Andy Grove released a compelling and widely-discussed piece, "How to Make An American Job Before It's Too Late," on the nation's need to move away from dependence on overseas production and toward rebooting the domestic manufacturing sector in an effort to rebuild our economy. But as discussions about the toll that offshoring is taking on innovation and jobs continue, changes among China's labor force are altering the economic landscape of the future. This leads me to wonder: How are these shifts going to affect the U.S.? Ethically speaking, what kind of industrial nation do we want to be? 


Grove hints at similar questions when he challenges the pervasive common wisdom that "as long as 'knowledge work' stays in the U.S., it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs." He recognizes how that assumption undervalues manufacturing's role in the economy, and asks: "What kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work -- and masses of unemployed?"

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