Comment by snarf21

We don't. We need only take a look at Detroit, holdout of American manufacturing. They have been automating and robotizing everything they can. ["... However, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis notes that motor vehicle manufacturing employment declined 17% from 1994 to 2018, while motor vehicle productivity increased by about 13% over the same period..."] If manufacturing does come back to the US, it won't create very many jobs. Mostly just the people to maintain and fix the machinery.

Given the improvements in cameras and computer vision and AI and robotics, there is no reason to think this won't accelerate. A long long time ago, labor was cheap and resources were expensive. Today, the opposite is true. Keynes predicted in the 50s that we would be working 15 hour work weeks. The reason he was "wrong" was that he underestimated our insatiable human greed. We all want more. Average house size in the 50s was < 1200 sq ft. Today it is 2400+. Each kid must have their own room that is 12x12!! (I grew up with 4 boys in a 10x10, lol). Each kid must get a new $200 bat each year for little league, etc. We want a higher standard of living for ourselves and our kids. This is understandable but we forget our role in the never ending chase.