> No amount of retraining or "bootstraps" is going to bring the jobs back. It's just not possible to compete with the corporations and their larger moats and bankrolls.
This, frankly, is patent nonsense. And this sense of learned helplessness is a specifically American affliction.
There really just isn't a reason why there can't be reasonably compensated manufacturing jobs, or why corporate and industrial policy can't help depressed rural areas. As anyone who's traveled across Germany or Switzerland is well aware.
As a society we choose policies that concentrate wealth in this way. The point of view you're expressing -- that this is inevitable and unstoppable -- is not at all fact, but rather the product of decades of public relations by vested interests in this country.
This, frankly, is patent nonsense. And this sense of learned helplessness is a specifically American affliction.
There really just isn't a reason why there can't be reasonably compensated manufacturing jobs, or why corporate and industrial policy can't help depressed rural areas. As anyone who's traveled across Germany or Switzerland is well aware.
As a society we choose policies that concentrate wealth in this way. The point of view you're expressing -- that this is inevitable and unstoppable -- is not at all fact, but rather the product of decades of public relations by vested interests in this country.