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169 comments on The Freezing Point of Industrial Society
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169 comments on The Freezing Point of Industrial Society
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The US has offshored much of its industrial capacity, but Americans still enjoy industrialized commutes, industrialized entertainment, and work in industrialized agriculture. Despite the high level of imports, the United States still has a high level of manufacturing capacity per GDP. So no, I don't think it's fair to call the US a deindustrialized country.
The US has exported the part of industry that makes actual machines, clothing, chemicals, steel and some other products to a virtual empire. These industrial colonies get all the disadvantages of the resulting pollution and can be attacked by the Pentagon at will, but the US has no responsibility for their well-being. So they are a plausibly-deniable extension of our country.
What remains of actual US manufacturing is trucks, food (since it's become too unnatural to be called anything but a manufacture), refining (though we've begun to import a lot of gasoline), and houses. I'm not thrilled.
You forgot to mention the biggest part of remaining US industry: weapons.