ABC News has been hammering on a “buy American products” theme for weeks now. A few times they have pointed out that in the 1960’s, something like nine out of ten products purchased were made in America, whereas lately that ratio has become inverted.
What’s the reason behind this change? Did people in the 1960’s deliberately eschew foreign-made goods out of some patriotic sensibility, or were foreign-made goods just harder to find back then, what with the global marketplace not yet having developed to its present capacity?
Or did both developments coincide (i.e. attitudes toward buying foreign-made goods relaxed, and supply rose up to meet the resultant demand)?
The US had the stronger manufacturing capabilities and made the good stuff. The Japanese, for example, were known as the source of cheap crap that you didn’t necessarily want to buy unless it was your only choice. You bought a Ford, not a Datsun. You didn’t want that Honda motorcycle. Over time, however, the Japanese improved their knowledge and capabilities and started taking over some sectors while US manufacturing kept doing the same thing over and over again.
See Honda vs. Harley
GM/Ford vs. Datsun/Honda
So - you COULD buy American. American was generally superior. American was generally available.
This is a fast, off the cuff response based on vague recollections of a class in college back in the 80s.
There wasn’t much of a global trade infrastructure, as compared to today. Standard shipping containers (and the associated ships, ports, train cars, and semi trailers) were a very new thing in the 60s. Trade agreements were more restrictive back then as well. And there weren’t foreign industries sufficient to meet local demand AND produce competitive exports.
The US made the best stuff back then. I still have some tools from the period. Japan made junk at first. Then Japan made good cheap stuff. People started to switch. Then Taiwan came in with cheap stuff. Then the Japanese started making their stuff in Taiwan because of costs. Then the Taiwan stuff got pretty good. Mexico came in with junk electronics-batteries, chargers and other. Then the Chinese came in with junk and still have a lock on junk. But the name brand Chinese stuff is sometimes made to a high standard of design and executed well. India and other countries stepped in with textiles. American manufacturers went with the flow and established plants overseas or purchased from overseas. Now some companies are coming back with manufacturing, but it’s an uphill struggle. Sure, buy American if you can.
Having lived in the era, I first thought “a lot of foreign-made goods back then were of lousy quality.” I find it interesting that this explanation did not seem to occur to you.
My thought as well. In the 60s, the Japanese were famous for making radios, but they were cheap, tin-sounding, and not at all what was considered preferable. At least not by “adult” standards–teenagers though bought them, because they were cheap.
Once you got above the transistor radio market, American products were much better, and longer lasting. For example, I had a Westinghouse clock radio, given to me as a Christmas present when I was about 11 years old. It died a year or two ago, so it lasted over 35 years. The cheap Japanese transistor radios would’ve lasted a couple of years if they were lucky.
But it wasn’t just radios, all sorts of products were the same way.
However, Japanese car makers really got a leg up in the US during the gas crisis of the mid-70s, when Detroit was still building land yachts, and Honda had the Civic, and Datsun had their small cars, and Mazda thought they had a breakthrough with their Wankel engine.
But the short answer to your question (too late!) is the American made stuff was just superior to the majority of foreign made merchandise from the post war until probably the 70s.
It wasn’t just a matter of quality, though; it was a matter of availability. You simply didn’t have as much manufacturing of any quality outside of the United States as there is today, and international trade networks and infrastructure weren’t what they are today, either.
If you were American, you bought American because the vast majority of the stuff you COULD buy was American. Even if a Japanese company had been making first rate radios it wouldn’t have made that big a dent in the percentage of American stuff being bought because what’s a few radios?
Availability was part of it, certainly, but IMO the deciding factor was quality. Foreign made stuff was almost always regarded as crappy, with a very few exceptions. Swiss watches were considered better than American made, from what I remember, and I THINK that German cars were also regarded as quality. But stuff from Japan was considered to be very cheaply made, about on the order of things of Chinese manufacture today. You only bought something that was made in Japan if you couldn’t afford anything better, and it was somewhat shameful. Plus, a lot of the WWII vets didn’t like seeing ANYTHING made in Japan.
I remember a visit to the US about ten years ago. My girlfriend at the time and I decided to buy a laptop (hey, when you’re abroad it’s not real money!) and went into this shop.
The proprietor spent a good 20 minutes doing the hard sell on a particular laptop. At the same time my girlfriend was complaining aloud that her camera batteries had run down too quickly and asked for some more.
The guy looked at the batteries she was using and said “There’s your problem. You should always buy American”.
I looked down at the laptop he’d been lauding the qualities of, back at him, back at the laptop, and said “What, like Toshiba?”
If that ratio would revert America would solve a great deal of its problems.
The fact is, corporations discovered they could make more profit by taking their factories overseas and hiring labor for pennies on the hour; even when factoring in the cost of shipping the merchandise back to the US.
And, the US Federal Govt is stupid and won’t somehow entice these corporations to bring their factories back home which in turn would give American people jobs. As Andy Rooney put it so well the only thing America makes anymore is hamburgers.
Shipping containers weren’t standardized until beginning in the late 50s and I think it wasn’t until the late 60s that they became the norm. After that, shipping millions of tons of cheap consumer crap to sell in the US became thing to do. It was cheap and easy.
Yup, 15 trillion dollars of burgers. The US, which has less than 5% of the world’s population, does more than a 20% of the world’s production by making burgers.
That’s correct - even innovative American companies like Apple manufacture their goods overseas. If you look on the back of an iPhone it has something along the lines of ‘designed in California, assembled in China’ printed on it.
The fact is, the US Government offers SUBSTANTIAL incentives to move production out of the USA. Take taxes: a US-based firm pays the corporate rate, plus all the state taxes, unempolyment, etc., and healt benefits. By moving to China, you avoid all of the state taxes, and you pay nothing to the Federal Treasury (on profits earned abroad).Plus, if you have a staff of clever tax lawyers, you can avoid most taxes (GE earned $14 billion last year, paid 0 Federal taxes).
The next hit for US industry? Carbon taxes-firms will pay a tax based upon their energy consumption-which will make it profitable to close down all manufacturing in the USA.
Actually yes. I do believe that if corporations moved their factories back to the US the unemployment rate would plummet. There’s various reasons they won’t (e.g. taxes and minimum wage) but if the US govt could creatively find ways to compensate the economy could once again thrive. Or at least be better than it is.
30-40 years ago I could buy a small appliance and expect to still be using it 15 years later. American companies have outsourced quality and reputation along with jobs. Look at reviews for any small appliance and note the one-star reviews, which typically constitute 10-20% of the comments: cheap materials, DOA upon purchase, flimsy plastic parts that break easily, under-powered, toasters that don’t toast, coffee pots that leak, food processors that are more work than convenience, uneven heating, and on and on and on. Consumers can’t buy old trusted name brands anymore because confidence is now non-existent.