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Go to your closet. What do you see? For me, it is a collection of shirts, ties, sweaters, hats, pants, suits, shoes, socks, underwear, jackets and belts. Thanks to Frank Matthews, who owned Matthews Belk and lived in this cottage before me, my closet is well-organized.
I bought every item of clothing I wear in an American store or ordered online from an American company. I am a “buy American” kind of guy.
Pick up anything randomly. The first shirt I see is a good color for me. It accentuates the color of my striking green eyes. It is inexpensive and reminds people of my other exceptional qualities, such as modesty and humility. That aside, where was my green shirt manufactured? It’s on the tag: Made in Taiwan. But I bought it in a store in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. That’s in America, I think.
What about the shoes? Made in the UK. The LL Bean pants? China. Belts and ties? Italy. Jacket? Vietnam. Socks? Bangladesh. Hats? China. Sweater? Ireland. Good grief!
Gaston County, North Carolina, where I live, was once the textile capital of the world. In the first half of the 20th Century, the textile industry migrated from New England to Piedmont, North Carolina. Labor up north had grown expensive. There were plenty of unemployed people in the South who would work hard for modest wages. Plants and housing were built. Families migrated to work in local mills from the Appalachian Mountains and nearby areas. The textile industry flourished.
In the summer of 1965, I earned $1.25 an hour as an entry-level worker in a cotton mill. The work was hard. I came home with cotton dust covering every part of my body and clothes, but I needed the money and was grateful for the job.
Twenty years later, these low-wage jobs began moving farther south to Mexico, Latin America, China and Vietnam. The sons and daughters of textile workers got jobs in finance, real estate development, supply chain management, information technology, and healthcare, to name a few. These were not low-wage jobs, and there was no cotton dust.
Few of the things we consume, especially textiles, are manufactured in America. However, they are sold and used in America by American businesses that benefit from sourcing production globally. Thus, they wait in Americans’ closets to accentuate the color of their eyes.
As I drive to work in my Ford, I am reminded of the foundation of American industry that Henry Ford laid more than a century ago. He did not invent the automobile, but he created the assembly process by which cars and trucks could be built with great efficiency. Thus, average Americans could afford basic transportation.
As a proud American, I enjoy owning a Ford. But my Ford was built in Canada, while my wife’s Honda was built in Tennessee. The average modern automobile has 30,000 parts manufactured worldwide, in China, Mexico, Germany, Japan, and dozens of other countries, even in America.
America is not an island. We are interconnected with the entire planet in an intricate web of business and personal engagements. It makes little sense to try to unravel this for any reason. Moreover, it is impossible. Consumers and businesses do better when markets are free and when production goes to the low-cost producer, no matter where they sit on the Earth’s surface. Some may think otherwise, but they are wrong. Making things in America is not always good for America.
Michael McMahan is a resident of Gaston County.
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