Do you want to be a farmer? I dont. But around 1900 there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and wailing about rising urbanization and the loss of agricultural jobs. Of course, as we (hopefully) all understand today, the important thing was producing a lot of food inexpensively. The decline of the US agricultural sector was never a reality in terms of output only in terms of its declining share of employment. Agricultural workers freed up from the farming grind are todays manufacturing and service workers.
It seems crazy to lament this economic shift, but folks are making the same mistake today with the supposed demise of the manufacturing sector. Like agriculture in 1900, manufacturing output has never been higher. So on this basis, the manufacturing sector is as strong as ever. The only thing that has changed is that manufacturings share of employment has declined. Yesterdays blue collar worker is now a service or office worker.
It is particularly odd that the Left should today be the ones lamenting the job shift away from manufacturing and expressing nostalgia for the 1950s. When I grew up in the 1970s, the soul-sucking mindless dangerous awfulness of manufacturing work was a big concern of the Left. They wanted nice, clean, more cerebral and rewarding jobs for manufacturing workers, but now, never satisfied, they want the opposite.
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