A Retirement Home for Old Businesses
CHICAGO BOYZ
By Shannon Love
I started this post as a response to a comment on Mitch Townsend post on the abandoned textile mills of Massachusetts on a previous thread but I thought the idea warranted its own space. Arthur Kelley said:
>>>Textiles left Mass and went to the third world. Which, at the time, was the south. The south is no longer third world. Now, and for the same reasons, textiles are leaving the south and going to yet another third world. Textiles will always be a third world industry.<<<
That seems true at first but looking back to founding of the mills, it obvious that textiles were not a 3rd world industry in the early 1800's. Back in the early 1800's, textile mills were the high-tech, cutting edge business of their day. Massachusetts was not the 3rd world in the 1800's but instead had one of the highest standards of living in the world. People built textile mills in Massachusetts for the same reason they built computers in California in the 1980's: It was the place to put a high-tech, cutting edge, highly profitable business.
Industries don't stay cutting edge and high profit forever. They have a life cycle in which they have high margins and big profits in the industry's infancy but then then decreasing margins and profits as the industry ages. Regions that have have infant industries can support a high tax rate, high wages and a high standard of living. Regions that have mature industries have to make due with low taxes, low wages and a lower standard of living.
This is why protectionism will always fail to maintain a region's standard of living. Even if the industries cannot relocate or face no external competition, the industry's profitability and the standard of living based on that profitability will inevitably decline. If regions cannot generate or attract entirely new industries to the region, the region will inevitably grow poorer overtime no matter how rich they were at their zenith.
The computer industry offers us the best recent example of an industry life cycle. For computer hardware, the 1980's were the time when the industry had the highest return on investment and the time when the great fortunes and reputations were made. Apple Computer sold the Apple II on 150% margin for several years. Other companies did almost as good. Consumers paid that premium for computers because as a new technology personal computers gave advantages that no other technology could. Relatively minor innovations evolved into major benefits that people would pay a lot for. That profitability in turn supported computer manufacturing facilities throughout California and some other regions in America.
However, by the early 90's, personal computer hardware had matured. Few major innovations were being made and most manufactures concentrated on squeezing out a few percent performance improvements which their competitors quickly matched. Margins and profits shrank. Manufactures began to compete on price instead of innovation. As a result of this change, computer manufacturing moved out of high cost California and high cost America to low cost Asian.
Fortunately, for California, PC software took off big time just as computer hardware manufacturing floundered. No one noticed the collapse of hardware manufacturing because software became the new high-margin, high-profit business. By the late 90's, however, PC software had matured and margins and profits decreased. Fortunately for California, the internet took off at that time so no one noticed the decline of profits from the PC software industry.
California boomed in the last 30 years because they rapidly shifted from industry to industry as one industry matured and became less profitable. California could keep elevating both its standard of living and its tax base by shifting industries. Now, however, the internet is a mature industry and there doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon to take its place. The current budget crunch in California results in part from the reduction in the profitability of the internet associated industry.
The computer industry does everything in fast forward but the same pattern occurs in every industry. Steel was the the cutting edge, high-profit business in the late 1800's, then railroads, then oil, then cars, then airplanes, then plastics, then electronics. Each industry starts out with high-margins and high-profits but eventually matures into a low-margin, low-profit industry. Even if the industry never migrates from the region and doesn't lose market share, the region grows poorer because the industry no longer supports the standard of living it did in it's heyday.
Detroit was always doomed because it tied itself so closely to the automotive industry. The automotive industry was the young, highly-profitable industry from 1910-1940. Detroit during that time had the same cachet as Silicon Valley has today. Detroit got a reprieve from the aftermath of WWII that left it the only place in the free-world still building cars but the writing was already on the wall by 1940. The number of automobile manufactures was shrinking from hundreds to dozens. By 1950, there were only a dozen and by 1960 just four. Cars were no longer cutting edge high margin products but commodities that competed on price. Margins and profits (measured by return on investments shrank) this in turn meant a lower standard of living for workers and a smaller tax base. It didn't matter that Detroit was still building most of the cars that Americans drove, the margins just weren't there anymore.
Margins are important to the prosperity that an industry can support. Everyone eats and people buy food before anything else so it would seem that agriculture would be a profitable business but everyone from farmers to distributors finds it hard to make a living growing food. Agriculture is the most mature industry of all. Major innovations are few and far between. All this means margins and profits are thin. Communities that rely on agriculture struggle to maintain a decent standard of living because agriculture doesn't produce the high margins and high profits that pay for good wages and high taxes.
Detroit would be a poor place today even if we had always made it illegal to import and drive foreign cars because cars don't provide high-margins anymore. Detroit would be nothing more than a giant farming town struggling to survive on the thin profits made by selling cars as a commodity.
Detroit imploded because it cemented its economic and political structure around a single industry and then refused to create the conditions that would let a new high-margin, high-profit industry take its place. California could easily follow the same path if they continue their incredibly hostile attitude toward business because they will be stuck with a maturing, low-margin, low-profit industry. The internet boom is over and it looks like it maybe the last boom associated with the computer industry as a whole. Even if they keep computer related jobs in the state, they won't have the same standard of living they had before.
Massachusetts would be impoverished had it tried to keep textile manufacturing in the state. Massachusetts thrived for two centuries and continues to manage a decent standard of living today because it made itself a good place to start new industries. Texas is booming today because the state is good place to start new, high-margin, high-profit industries.
The flight or bankruptcy of old industries in a region shouldn't be viewed as a problem. It's natural to cling to what worked in the past but in the end it's innovation that pays the bills. Regions should make economic policy based on the idea that the region should serve as an incubator for new business not a retirement home for old ones. When a business reaches the point it can't support an advanced standard of living through wages and taxes, it should be politely shown the door so a young, vigorous and profitable business can take its place.
In the end, regions don't fall into poverty because of the natural life cycle of industries. Regions fail because they cannot create new businesses. The abandoned and converted textile mills of Massachusetts are not symbols of the state's failure but of its success. This makes the attempts to preserve old industries with subsidies and protection all the more counterproductive. |
