Industrial Policy for Workers Makes No Sense: Matthew Yglesias

The labor strife at Boeing, which despite its struggles remains America’s No. 1 exporter, is a reminder of a fundamental tension inherent in industrial policy, which despite its critics retains broad bipartisan support: What’s good for US manufacturing workers isn’t necessarily good for US manufacturing.

The notion that all good things can work together derives from two key pieces of economic history.

One is that the biggest economic development success stories of the past 75 years have come from East Asian countries successfully growing their manufacturing industries. The other is that manufacturing workers have historically earned a “wage premium” ...