Should We Still Make Things? A Symposium

SINCE THE 1970s, economists and sociologists have forecasted the inevitable decline of large-scale U.S. manufacturing and the birth of a post-industrial society dominated by service and high-tech economies. In his 1973 The Coming of a Post-Industrial Society, Daniel Bell observed that we are experiencing “a shift from manufacturing to services…a changeover from a goods-producing society to an information or knowledge society.” Now in the midst of a severe economic recession, two of our nation’s largest manufacturers are on the precipice of bankruptcy and many believe we should let them fail. Marcellus Andrews, Dean Baker, Susan Helper, Jeff Madrick, and Harold Meyerson contemplate whether we still need manufacturing—and if so, how we can save it.