What does America export, anyway?

If you look at the tags of the clothing we wear, chances are pretty high that it was made in a country like Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Honduras. Labor is inexpensive in those countries, but very expensive in the United States. When we are able to buy new clothes at Wal-mart at a price comparable to used clothing at a rummage sale or Goodwill, it is mainly due to the fact that workers in the third world cost so little to the manufacturer.

China is now our country’s #1 trading partner. We now import more goods from there than from Canada, which ranks #2. From consumer electronics to cookware, Chinese products are as coveted as they were in the days of paper, porcelain, and spices, when the Mongols forced open the closed society of China and trade with the west could resume. Why are they in such high demand? They are cheap. Too cheap to be made profitably in America with our high wages and standard of living.

So what is made in America? What do we export that other countries want? There are automobiles, computers, airplanes, and agricultural products. But I’ve come up with a working theory to tie together the law of supply and demand with the relative cost of labor.

In the past couple of decades, labor unions in the United States have been largely unsuccessful in using work stoppage, also known as a strike, to force management to accede to their demands. Consider the United Auto Workers and their negotiations with the big three US auto makers. Labor’s hands are tied. If they demand too much, the corporation will simply shut down its American manufacturing facilities and move them to Mexico or wherever unskilled labor can be obtained cheaply. Michigan’s single-state recession is largely due to the high cost of unionized labor in this state, and the unwillingness of the American consumer to pay significantly higher for products just because they bear the “union label.”

However, two strikes in the past 3 months or so have gotten a lot of headlines because they actually seem to be victories for organized labor. One was the Broadway stage hands union, which succeeded in shutting down New York’s theatre district during the holiday season, costing the Manhattan economy millions of dollars, frustrating tourists and other showgoers. The union won. It’s not like they were going to outsource Broadway to China. And, if reports are accurate, the Hollywood writers’ strike is nearing its end after three months. Without writers, there are no new TV shows, no Golden Globe awards show, no fresh monologues for Letterman and Leno. But the union has won. The writers will get what they want, which is apparently a percentage of future online profits.

My working theory is that these two successful labor strikes help to pinpoint what America makes that the rest of the world wants and can’t live without, otherwise management would call labor’s bluff.

Entertainment.