On the Good of the Whole

A few days ago,  I was listening to a radio interview of Beth Macy who has written a book called the "Factory Man" about the history of the Basset furniture company through the decline of manufacturing in the US    The discussion about the disappearance of US factory jobs brought up memories of my father.  He owned a small factory in Beacon, NY called the Davis Box Toe Company.  The factory made box toes and insoles that were sold to shoe factories throughout the US.  The factory had been in our family since 1876 until it closed in the late 70's.  This was a great tragedy in my father's life and just the beginning of similar stories throughout the US. After he died, I remembered reading carbon copies of letters he had sent to Congressmen, the US Department of Commerce and others complaining about price dumping in the shoe industry and the loss of jobs in the US. Anyway the business closed, we lost our home and my father never really recovered. At the time there were something like 175,000 people employed in manufacturing shoes in the US. Today the decline is almost complete, depending on how you count the numbers there are less than 18,000 jobs in American shoe factories.

My first reaction upon hearing this interview was anger.  Anger at all the forces within our economy and government that allowed so many jobs to simply disappear.  I am sure you can tell that this was not the first time that real outrage has come to me over this issue.  But this time after my immediate emotional reaction, I had the thought that while the loss of my father's factory was a personal tragedy for him, my family and his workers, it must in someway have been good for the whole.  New jobs were created overseas in primarily "third world" countries --places that desperately needed the jobs.  This was the beginning of increases in living standards and more complex manufacturing in many of those countries.  The gap between the richer and some poorer countries is beginning to shrink. So on and so forth.

I don't know, if I am at a point that I can be glad it happened, but I know that it had to happen.