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Prospects for a Manufacturing Revival in America

Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the US (And How It Got That Way), by

Rachel Slade (Pantheon Books, 2024)

Reviewed by Frankie Saggio

At a moment when a new administration is imposing wideranging tariffs to try to revive American industry, this new book is an illuminating reading on America's manufacturing sector's obstacles. The narrative revolves around American Roots, a furniture company based in Maine, trying to make top-of-theline furnishing products within the country, competing against a globe-publicized, low-cost assembling world. Slade's book portrays a depressing picture of a once-thriving sector falling victim to outsourcing, trade policies and even weakened labor protections. She takes a look at the broader economic forces that crippled American manufacturing and the sociopolitical and economic impacts that set American manufacturing on its downward slide. The central claim of her analysis is that the decline in US manufacturing is not a natural consequence but the product of conscious choices made by policymakers to maximize corporate profits rather than to promote public welfare and workers' rights.

In this review, we critically assess Slade's qualifications as a writer for this difficult issue, the methodology used, the evidence provided, and the possibility of Slade's potential bias in her analysis. The paper also evaluates the merits and demerits of her argumentation in the book and ascertains if any lacunae existed in the book that would have improved it. This review will focus on how Slade's research, interviews and narrative techniques have influenced current trade policy debates, unionism and labour's future in America. Understanding contemporary American manufacturing makes it wise as a book that has to be read as one concerning the economy of the present day, affected by issues like globalization and yesterday's collapse of domestic industries.

Rachel Slade is a seasoned journalist who has authored pieces on business, economics, and labor and has lately written several books. She is also a noted voice on the intricacies of the global economy and industrial recession in this regard. Slade previously covered the impact of globalization on America's workers and the stress that economics places on their lives. Her experience informs her to analyze the contentious subject of American manufacturing with an analytical, beneficial degree of educated intuition. She is a leading expert on unearthing the economic

inequality systemic roots and the daily life of working-class Americans by working through labor in major publications. Sulser's previous work, Making It in America, made her a subject matter expert by contributing to in-depth investigation reports on declining industrial cities and the rise of corporate power. This book marks the culmination of her reporting years as she ventures into the very real impact of policies such as deregulation, free trade treaties and the impact of labor unions.. Such an investigative approach lends credibility to the book as Slade writes her analysis based on first-hand accounts and interviews rather than statistical data or secondary sources. Her approach, however, may be biased. There is an underlying advocacy for reforming labor practices and curtailing the exploitation of workers. Her ideological stance may lead Slade to focus on the detrimental effects of free trade and deregulation, thus posing doubts about her analysis's objectivity. However, her background as a journalist lends her writing a balanced perspective, as she attempts to present a complete picture of the story and base that on evidence from both sides — the company owners and the workers.

The book predates Slade's access to American Roots and its workers. She gained access through interviews and observation of the company's operations. Slade was permitted to come to the company's facilities to see how hard the company and its workers work. However, she had the opportunity to observe the daily suffering of small American manufacturers against the competition from offshore production. One of Slade's strengths in her work is her ability to interview both the company owners and employees, giving a multi-faceted approach to the problems of American manufacturing.

Slade interviewed long-term employees and some of the company's key stakeholders. The selection of these workers has been deliberate from the outset of Slade's business venture; Slade has picked workers with experience who would contribute something worthwhile to learning how to make a go of running a domestic manufacturing company. The sample size is not explicitly mentioned in the book. However, its nature implies that Slade could get hold of a few employees' opinions on the controversy, which provided diverse opinions. Te trouble is that she mainly

focuses on American Roots, which may create selection bias. Slade might not have provided much detail on the broader industry trends affecting other manufacturers, limiting the scope of the company's findings.

Slade integrates her analysis with data, including historical economic statistics and personal accounts. However, the comparison between storytelling and statistical data needs to be considered. Personal stories add an emotional weight to the narrative but also seem too selective, given the reliance on them.2 Slade should have included more robust data on the overall trends in US manufacturing, including industry-wide statistics about job loss and productivity. Despite this lack, her methodology is important because it provides insight into the human side of the decline in manufacturing.

The story of American Roots features unions, essential to the company's efforts to adapt to challenging conditions presented by international competition. Slade documents how unions shaped the company's survival strategy, specifically regarding wages and working conditions. In the competition with low-cost overseas production, however, the company's unionized workforce was critical for protecting workers' rights, yet it posed difficulties. The company's owners could not strike a balance between the demands of fair wages and benefits and the fact that they had to meet the same obligations as other companies and compete financially.

According to Slade's analysis, there is a rift between management at American Roots and the union. The reality of unionized labor and the extra costs that came with it forced the company's management to negotiate with a concept of guarded workers. Slade suggests that unions, necessary to maintain decent wages and conditions, made it impossible for the company to compete with offshoring companies that could pay so much less. The labor dependence of the company based on unions proved to be a double sword, for while it made the company more noncompetitive and less capable of cutting costs, it somehow protected the workers by being fair and equitable towards them.

Slade compares American Roots' circumstances with non-union corporations operating within the same marketplace. He sees how manufacturing plants operating in the union system within the US still suffer bigger challenges. Trade unions at American Roots rescued the laborers but, in return, were a massive strain on the company's finances. Conversely, unorganized companies with a comparatively lower cost of labor tended to adjust more readily to foreign competition; this lies even more in contrast to the predicament of American producers who have to weigh retaining labor rights and keeping prices competitive within the quickly globalizing market.

Slade examines The US manufacturing sector from the perspective of industrial relations (IR). The issue of unions, employees' rights, and the interaction between employees and employers as factors

that contribute towards a dynamic economic scene is raised. Slade laments free market trade policies like deregulation and free trade agreements like NAFTA, which she claims have killed American manufacturing. Slade contrasts the neoliberal emphasis on free trade and minimal government intervention with a more labor-oriented policy, stronger labor protections and government support for domestic industries.

Free trade has long been the target of her detailed criticism, as she believes trade liberalization harms American workers. Slade observes that the decline in manufacturing is not the result of globalization but decisions to let corporate profits trump the public interest. Her advocacy for unions and labor rights is a part of her IR approach in that she advocates for the union to ensure workers are not exploited, and fair wages are earned. Slade's approach to greater state intervention is also hers. She has argued for increased government intervention in the economy, a position rejected mainly by US free market policy in recent decades. However, Slade's conflation of labor rights and unionism prevents it from having the power to speak to a broader audience. Her study of the workings of the market economy is not perfect; it does not encompass, for instance, the role of automation and the effects of international competition regarding free trade. Nevertheless, her concern with employees' rights and unions' place is an interesting and good critique of American manufacturing's status.

While Making It in America has a lot of positive points, some parts could have been addressed more thoroughly. However, her shortcoming is that she misses the chance to consider the role of technology in reshaping the manufacturing industry. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) radically redesign the production world, causing enormous changes in labor markets. While Slade's emphasis on trade policy and unionism is important, the absence of technological innovation is a potential key driver of job loss and job creation within the manufacturing sector. An additional step into exploring how automation and AI affect labor markets, particularly within manufacturing, would have been a crucial element of her analysis.

Slade's study of the effects of globalization on US manufacturing narrowly concentrates on the apparel industry and exclusively on American Roots. Slade's American Roots case study is a compelling narrative. However, he fails to explore whether the challenges faced by American Roots represent challenges to other industries, such as electronics, automobiles, or heavy industry. The book's scope could have been expanded to a more comparative approach, which would have enabled a broader analysis of the decline of manufacturing in the US and its disparate impacts on various sectors. Slade could have made the book more impactful for readers today by tying the story of American Roots to broader issues within the gig economy, automation, the changing nature of work, and more. For younger readers, the discussions of economic instability and the future of work may be easier to relate to. If he had included these contemporary issues,

Slade's analysis would have resonated more with a younger, techsavvy audience that faces his unique challenges in today's labor market.

In Making It in America, Rachel Slade provides a compelling analysis of the collapse of once-thriving industries and the decline of American manufacturing. In her thorough examination of American Roots, she investigates small businesses' struggles to survive in a globalized world. Slade's journalism expertise and focus on labor rights help infuse credibility into her arguments. However, her alignment can often seems too close with union positions, which sometimes limits the reach of her analysis. The book's critique of free trade and deregulation is timely. However, a more comparative approach would have enhanced its usefulness and discussed the role of technology in reshaping the manufacturing sector.

Slade's book demonstrates that this dynamic interaction between trade policy, labor unions, and American manufacturing survival is beneficial in justification of its purpose. However, it does not offer a complete point of view on the subject. The book would substantially impact readers today, especially younger generations, if it focused on automation, the gig economy, and work's future. Regardless of such gaps, Making It in America is still a good and helpful book to those interested in understanding why American Manufacturing fell and its broader social and economic implications.

Frankie Saggio is an Economics major at Hofstra University.

REGIONAL LABOR REVIEW, vol. 27, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2025).

NOTES

2 Keller, Samuel, et al. “Narratives on Leaving Care in Switzerland: Biographies and Discourses in the 20th Century.” Child & Family Social Work, vol. 26, no. 2, Apr. 2021, pp. 248–57, doi:10.1111/ cfs.12813.