3-D Printing vs. Factory Jobs

September 14th, 2015

Awake Goy

We have all heard about 3-D printing. A machine that costs around $1,000 can produce copies of some product, even a gun.

Over the next three decades, these machines will become more powerful. They will get cheaper. Tens of millions of products will be produced in millions of basement 3-D machines, or else in small local businesses that will rent them. Each year, from now on, it will get cheaper to do this… permanently.

There will be websites that offer cheap or free programs to produce millions of products.

Manufacturing will move from factories to cheap machines that almost anyone can afford.

Should the government ban these machines? After all, these machines are going to destroy millions of jobs.

You probably would not want this. After all, you believe in limited government. You prefer laissez faire. You don’t like the idea that politicians can restrict free enterprise.

Maybe you will buy one of these machines. Why not? You want better deals. Think of the labor savings! You will not be paying for workers on some factory floor. The factory floor will be in your basement.

Even if you don’t buy one, you know that products will get cheaper. These machines will be everywhere.

Do you really care about all those lost jobs? No, you don’t. And even if you do care, at least a little, you are not going to pay 50% more for what you want to buy, just to save those people’s jobs. You are going to go online and look for better deals, just as you do now.

So far, so good… but not for factory workers. For them, it’s a looming disaster. And it is inevitable. It’s already happening. It is the wave of the future. It is like a steamroller. Either factory workers get out of the way or else they will be crushed.

I think they will get out of the way. They have been getting out of the way ever since the end of World War II. As a percentage of the labor market, employment in American manufacturing has steadily fallen. It will continue to fall.

The consumers will buy more things. They will save money on factory manufactured goods, but that will leave them with more money to buy services. Or maybe they will invest. It doesn’t matter. They will put the saved money to productive purposes, as defined by individual consumers. This is how the free market works.

Economists have been arguing this way since about 1752.

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