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Looking back at the past seventy years of production, both globally and in the United States, it is clear that the industry is never up nor down for long. Hypercompetitive battles to win customers in America’s “replacement” market and the current dominance of “localized” production models undergird a landscape of perpetual creative destruction.

the late 1970s is a good anchor point. By the end of that decade the country was engulfed in what sociologist Greta Krippner describes as a simultaneous social, fiscal, and legitimation crisis. The United States had overextended itself trying to manage both its domestic and overseas geopolitical projects. Military defeat, unrest at home and abroad, and increasing competition from European and Japanese firms led to skyrocketing inflation and rising unemployment.

While President Roosevelt and his New Deal administration quickly responded to labor unrest with legislative reforms like the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act), successive Canadian governments steadfastly rebuffed labor’s demands.

Writing in the Washington Post last September, the unimpeachably mainstream economist Larry Summers proclaimed, “We ... know that stronger unions are not just good for their members, they are good for our country and our descendants. Strengthening collective worker voice has to be an important comp…