alt Hacker News> was it the unions or executives that decided to offshore manufacturing?
Neither. It was consumers, who prefer lower prices.
> why are executives now (successfully) lobbying for protectionism against Chinese manufacturers?
Because they were fools who thought they could offshore the factory work but not the management work.
> If chinese goods could be ported as easily and cheaply into America and American labor was ported to China
This is literally what has already happened.
The actual solution is for the US to do something about high domestic costs, especially housing and medicine, which are the things keeping US workers from being globally competitive.
>> was it the unions or executives that decided to offshore manufacturing? >Neither. It was consumers, who prefer lower prices.
Right, because every executive who pursued offshore manufacturing was thinking, "gosh, how can I deliver even lower prices and better value to my customers?", and not "OK, we've shown the market will pay $X for product Y, how can I cut my costs and free up more money for bonuses and cocaine?"
Graphs of price indices (aside from a few sectors such as electronics where it was the core technology that improved, not labor efficiency) and wages over the last 50 years clearly show that the bulk of any offshoring savings were not passed along to consumers or front-line workers.