I Do Not Buy American
To be accurate: I Do Not Buy American products just because they are made in America. I often come across well-meaning bloggers who exhort their readers to buy only American-made products. However, it is a silly, futile gesture for a number of reasons:
- It's Un-American. We should buy products to get the best value for our money. In America, we base our decisions on merit, not race or creed or country of origin. If a product is superior to all others and affordable then we should buy that product thereby encouraging others to improve theirs or rightfully they should go out of business. To purposely buy shoddy products to spite foreign competition not only penalizes achievement and good craftsmanship but possibly introduces harmful and dangerous products into the marketplace.
Buying something just because it is made in American leads to low standards. Although it may seem contradictory, it is precisely because we have lost respect for quality that has encouraged the buying of inferior items from China that flooded our country with harmful and dangerous products. See my post China Beats Our Meat.
We should not be buying a product because it is cheap or because it is made in this country. We should buy for quality and no other reason; any other standard leads to shoddy and dangerous products.
- It's bad business. If you are a business owner and you buy a shoddy but more expensive product just because it is made in the USA, that product will fail sooner and cost your company more money to replace. You will lose customers and end up laying off your employees. Not a good way to do business.
- It can't be done. It's nearly impossible to buy 100% American-made products. There is no such thing as an all-American product except perhaps for fruits and vegetables that you yourself grow in your garden using fertilizer that you personally scooped up from that American-raised cow you have in your backyard and using seeds of American origin.
- It's counterproductive and self-deluding. Some Japanese cars have more American-made parts than Ford, GM, or Chrysler do (1).
- It's unnecessary.
There is nothing wrong with buying non-American-made products. Despite the fact that manufacturing GDP is just 12 percent of our economy (2) more Americans are working now than when the manufacturing GDP peaked at 28.3 percent in 1953. What American wants to be sewing buttons on shirts? We should be adding value to products in other ways than manual labor. Amazingly, even though we hardly manufacture anything anymore, even though we are in the worst economic crisis in a century, there are still more than 141 million Americans working [Bureau of Labor Statistics June 2009]. Once we get rid of union-infested companies like GM, Ford and Chrysler, this country can get to the business of making better products.
ENDNOTES
(1):
Daily Tech, 7 JUl 2009, Study: Toyota is More "American" Than GM, Ford, Chrysler
Many of us have seen a coworker, neighbor, or friend purchase and prominently display a "Buy American" bumper sticker on their domestic automobile. However, in this changing global economy which has seen Toyota and Honda building new factories, design centers, and more in the U.S. and domestic automakers moving their production overseas, are "American" automobiles really that American anymore?
A Cars.com study compares the Ford F-150, a classic "American" vehicle, and the Toyota Camry in its annual American-Made Index and comes to a shocking conclusion -- the Japanese automobile has more American parts in it than the truck. The study, in fact, finds Toyota Motor Corp. to be the most "American" company based on multiple factors.
The thorough study takes into account several critical factors including where the vehicles are assembled, their popularity based on sales volume, and the percentage of the parts made in the U.S. based on the cost or value of those parts. After five years as the most "American" vehicle, the Ford F-150 truck was dethroned in a shocking upset by the Toyota Camry.
(2):
All Business, 21 Jun 2006, Manufacturing continues to shrink as a percentage of U.S. economic activity.
Manufacturing's share of the U.S. economy continues its 50-year decline. Last year, manufacturing GDP fell to an all-time low of just 12 percent of the economy, according to a Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI analysis of recent data from the Commerce Department.
...
In 1993, manufacturing as a percentage of the U.S. economy stood at 15.9 percent, down from its post World War II peak of 28.3 percent in 1953.
...
The service sector now accounts for 80.6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, an increase of 2.6 percentage points over the past 10 years.
