The date was in the early 1960's when a major Boeing contract for the Air Force was cancelled and the result was that tens of thousands of aerospace employees of Boeing and other aerospace contractors in California, Washington and many other states were laid off. This sounds like a calamity but and reminiscent of today's bleak employment situation. However, the thousands who were laid off quickly were reemployed in comparable aerospace jobs by other aerospace companies who had or were getting other major aerospace contracts. The 1960's were the hay days of aerospace and hundreds of thousands were employed as the US embarked upon a race into space against Russia. Government money flowed into the economy and created boom times for our economy.
In addition all kinds of manufacturing jobs and small businesses thrived as our country produced virtually everything that we consumed. "Made in the USA" was the hallmark of our daily lives and virtually everyone benefited. Unemployment was as low as 3.5% and averaged about 4.85% for the decade beginning in 1960. High school and college graduates found jobs quickly and affordable homes, rents, health care, dental care, transportation, and food was generally available. Gasoline cost about 25 cents a gallon and a nice two bedroom home could be purchased for about $17,000 (in Los Angeles). A Chevy four door sedan cost about $3,000 and a Volkswagen Beetle about $1,500. The air and water was still breathable and drinkable and relatively clean in most regions except the heavy steel making and petroleum/chemical operations were prevalent. Families were able to pay for their children's education without accruing significant debt and tuition at most public universities was modest or negligible. Racial strife was not negligible but we were becoming a more homogeneous society and beginning to develop a color blind society.
The United States of America was working for the benefit of most Americans and relatively secure jobs were abundant and generally satisfying to most of us. Life was generally peaceful but the Vietnam War was lurking and beckoning the instincts that stir antagonism and war. The cold war with the USSR and flare ups with Cuba were ongoing but nonetheless not responsible for many deaths or maiming. We had emerged from the Korean War in the mid 1950's and over 35,000 of our troops were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded and maimed. The Vietnam War would eventually nearly doubled that number before it ended.
Generally the decade of 1960 was a prosperous time for most Americans and although irrational pay disparities existed between the typical worker and executives they were small compared to today's obscene spread that often is more than one thousand to one. The typical family was able to get by with one bread winner and children usually had their mothers home caring for their needs.
All of the positive aspects of the decade of 1960 were generally possible because we shared the economic benefits of essentially full employment, equitable pay, and available and affordable health care. But warning signs were beginning to show. The beginning of our economic decline was brewing in the class rooms of prestigious universities where business departments started to blossom a new breed of enlightened business executive, the "Master of Business Administration", otherwise known as the "MBA". Literally hundreds of thousands of MBA's graduated from prestigious universities and later less prestigious institutions with an inflamed passion to grow the "bottom line" of their businesses as the sole objective of management. They along with new economists who were considered to be experts in the mathematical modelling and predictive outcomes of economic systems began to proliferate throughout American businesses and vigorously started to transform business operations and purposes to a single purpose. That purpose was to increase profits by any legitimate (and some times illegitimate) means.
The most obvious way to increase profits was to decrease costs of production. The best way to cut costs of production is to reduce costs of labor. The best way to decrease cost of labor is to find people who will work for less pay. The solution was self-evident. Establish production facilities in countries where labor costs were significantly less than in the USA. This simple minded solution to maximizing profits started a wave of US production re locations to other countries in Asia and South America where workers were paid about 10% to 15% of the American worker counterpart. The cost of relocation and facilitation of new foreign plants was quickly recovered and increased profits fattened the bottom lines of American Corporation who were American mainly in name only and whose production operations were located where labor costs were very low. These new operations were helpful to the foreign economies where jobs were created and a common justification was that more consumers of "American products" would be created while at the same time lowering production costs and increasing profits even more. The golden goose was indeed discovered and every egg hatched more cash for executive pay, bonuses, and stock awards while American jobs dwindled and workers pay began to decline. The handwriting was firmly etched while most American blithely ignored the indelible future results for many years.
We have finally awakened to reality that began to shape our economic destiny in the decade of the 1960's. That reality is reflecting in our eyeballs with every blink. Virtually every piece of clothing we wear, every durable household product we us in our homes, every shoe we wear, every TV we watch, every electronic communication device and computer we use contains or is entirely produced in a foreign country where labor cost are still very low and regulatory impediments are nil. Without a stir from the American public American corporations have made the American worker almost extinct in all forms of production that mass produces product at the lowest possible labor cost.Technical support jobs have also disappeared from the USA and the typical American workers are relegated to mainly number crunching and other service jobs that pay minimal wages except for the executives who manipulate the puppet strings with the able assistance of government that enables more of the same by favoring corporations with low or sometimes zero taxes on foreign operation that are headquartered in zero-tax havens.
We American have become puppets because we have accepted this gradually sublimation of our economic survival to multi national corporations whose sole purpose is to maximize profit. We have acquiesced and blindly allow "made in XXXXX" to become our pathway to increased subservience to corporate domination. Will we ever wake up and demand that our government prevent the ongoing wreckage of American workers lives at the alter of corporate profits and use of least cost labor. Will we ever refuse to buy products "Made in XXX" and demand products made in the USA by reasonably paid USA workers? Or are we suckers who really believe that maximizing profits represents the best way to prosperity? Next time you buy something determine where it was made or grown and than ask yourself this simple question: Where are the jobs that produced this product and its parts? Then ask yourself what you can do to change your answer to "Made in the USA"? Then help do it. American jobs that pay a decent wage must be realized again if we are to become a nation where life, liberty , and the pursuit of happiness is available to all of us.
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