Like the title says, how likely is this? I understand that the material conditions don’t really support it. Additionally, porky is just fine keeping manufacturing over-seas if it means more profit.
Obviously such a move would take decades and would be wrought with environmental havoc. But if not for profit, what if the US government sees it as strategically smart to wean it self from dependence on foreign manufacturing? What sorts of tricks could it pull to return manufacturing to the US?
Return of domestic manufacturing would also result in a resurgent labor movement and unionization, moreso than even the current moment, which is why manufacturing was moved overseas in the first place; I don't see it happening without some major caveat or restructuring of the production relation type to slave labor or automation
Was manufacturing moved abroad to prevent a labor movement, or because porky saw a cheap labor force to exploit? Or was it a little of column A and column B? Genuinely curious.
Tendency of the rate of profit to fall was causing stagnation in profits, so costs had to be cut. Since domestic custom was dependent on a careful balance between prices and wages, the best course was to cut the costs coming from wages while retaining the same prices. Manufacturing was moved, costs lowered, and best of all, no pesky unions to negotiate with
Offshoring came about at a time of loosening of capital controls as well as rapidly advancing information technology such that increasing amounts of data could be captured, analyzed and managed ever more remotely.
This context allows one to see that low-level manufacturing and assembly were shifted to where labor was cheapest often in former colonies whose economies were forcibly opened to foreign investment.