Offshoring is not magically cheaper. Why do you think manufacturing in the US might be more expensive? One quite possible reason is "some weird pretentiousness of the American workers".
Or, maybe, just maybe, it's because the average per capita income in China is $6,567, compared to $46,381 in the US?
No, that can't be it. Surely the order of magnitude difference in living cost, lack of safety and labor law has nothing to do with it. Surely it is the "weird pretentiousness of American workers".
And voters who don't want businesses in their area. Why do you think that since the early 1970s, first manufacturing, then new shopping malls, migrated out of the towns and cities? They were forced out, partially by economic costs, like land prices, but even more by galloping tax and regulation growth concentrated on any non-residential activity. They were forced out of the cities and eventually most manufacturing enterprises were forced out of the country by regulations.
"Pretentiousness" is a good term, especially given David Brooks's "did not want their children regressing back to the working class, so you saw an explosion of communications majors and a shortage of high-skill technical workers." But high-skill technical work is also much harder than teaching and the newer "high touch" "professions", so I think "wussiness" may be as good a term, depending on what influences predominated.
Or, if you try a furtive glance at the real world, you might find the reason is that the rest of the world is full of poor desperate and oppressed people willing to work for very little money and in bad conditions.
