Winning Back the Working Class
Jay R. Mandle
In a recent New York Times column, Thomas L. Friedman offers a strategy to enable the Democratic Party “to again be the party of the working class.” According to Friedman, Democrats need “a strategy to push advanced manufacturing in America into wholly new realms.” Doing so, he reasons, will create new employment opportunities for members of the working class who in the recent past have become disillusioned with the Democrats. With good new jobs, they will return to the Democratic fold.
There is merit to his argument. Growth of the manufacturing sector in the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world. According to World Bank data, United States production of manufactured goods, as a percentage of the world’s total, declined from 22.2 percent in 2004 to 15.5 percent in 2021. Friedman is right that the United States should reverse this down- ward trend with “a strategy to push advanced manufacturing in America into wholly new realms” which will create good working class jobs.
The industry that Friedman chooses to illustrate his argument is that of autonomous automobiles – driverless cars. For him, its importance is that it is “an industry of the future in which American technology is still more than competitive and can become even more dominant.” Furthermore he notes, autonomous driver technology has important spillover consequences beyond the manufacture of those automobiles. The use of similar technology will stimulate the creation of new products and new manufacturing jobs.
Despite his advocacy for new working class employment, Friedman barely mentions the fact that, in his scenario, robo-taxis would eliminate thousands of taxi and limousine jobs. Surprisingly, he offers little solace to the victims of the future technological progress he seeks to promote. His only comment is that “I don’t enjoy seeing anyone put out of work, [but] taxi drivers are not in a growth industry.”
Friedman’s studied indifference to technology-driven job loss mirrors this country’s similar neglect of the workers who have lost their jobs because of imported manufactured goods. The neglect can be assigned to both political parties, though most recently it is Democrats who are most at fault. In 2022, the Biden Administration failed to strongly oppose the termination of a Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program that compensated individuals and communities for the job losses created by imports. TAA had provided supplemental unemployment benefits, job training, and help with the search for new employment and relocation. Though this support was not adequate to offset the trauma of job loss, it did signal that the government at least took note of the pain of working class victims.
That the Biden Administration allowed this program to expire without much of a fight sent a damaging signal to those left to cope on their own. Buffeted by the winds of economic change, people looked in vain to Washington for supportive federal policies. Their frustration certainly contributed to the electoral flight of the working class from the Democratic Party.
The fact is that to address such job losses, a renewed manufacturing sector as well as a well-funded TAA program are required.They are both important. Programs like TAA can help American workers adjust to the continuing economic dislocations caused by domestic technological change. And at the same time, new jobs in technologically advanced sectors of the economy can ensure working class employment at high wages.
There is nothing wrong with Friedman’s celebration of technological modernization in the United States. But his silence concerning its negative consequences for the working class is shameful. So too has been government inaction to address those consequences.
The government’s failure to act in the face of the decline in working class jobs resulting from technological change and imports has been politically costly to the Democratic Party. It is not hard to understand the resentment of those who have been ignored by the government. Their resentment has been an impetus for the growth of the MAGA movement and the election of Donald Trump. Unless that neglect is corrected, the likelihood is that MAGA will grow beyond the minority status it now occupies. But that outcome is not inevitable. However, it requires a radical correction to the way this country has dealt with working class victims of technological progress.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Mandle is the Emerita W. Bradford Wiley Professor of Economics, Emeritus,at Colgate University. His many books include Change Elections to Change America: Democracy Matters Students In Action, and Creating Political Equality: Elections As a Public Good,. Mandle’s regular monthly editorials, Money On My Mind, appear on the Democracy Matters website where they explore the role of private money in politics and other critical social issues.
The views expressed in Money On My Mind are those of the author, (not necessarily those of Democracy Matters, and are meant to stimulate discussion.