this is such a delight to. be here today introducing making it in america by rachel slade i just want to rachel i'm very

excited for this conversation i just want to share that during my own book tour for my book i my book is american made what happens to people when work disappears and i wanted to wear american made clothing and i was, i remember standing in the dressing room of nordstrom's saying why, can't i find one thing that looks good on me that made in america? and i wondered where all those companies went. so, so thank you for answering my question. so just just to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about the characters, your main characters, this wonderful couple you follow and their company. what are they all about? and what was what were they trying to create? just introduce us, bring us into this world. absolutely so i'd like to introduce. to the world. ben whitney waxman, they are a

husband and wife team. they are from portland, maine, where they live in portland, maine, actually, whitney not from maine. she's she has lived around the world. and when they met they were both at a moment of great ben had spent ten years very high up at the afl cio working pretty closely with rich who unfortunately passed away. but here he was the storied president of the afl, cio, which is which many people know is the large umbrella federation of many unions in the united states representing 12 million workers in. so many industries. but while ben was working with the afl, cio he saw what you chronicled. so in your book just factory

after factory closing as they moved operations, either south or down to mexico or even further abroad and that broke. that broke ben. and when he came back to portland, maine, his hometown, he spent a year really just grappling what he had witnessed in america and determined to prove that capitalism and labor could unite, could work together and be a force of good and rebuild community that he had seen in the places industry had left you create good jobs and create amazing products and so

so he created this company so. whitney and waxman together built this company american roots that creates all american sourced apparel. right? right. it was it's it's just extraordinary this how much this company is like a unicorn. right. it's they they invited a union in, right. or they they wanted to be union made everything sauce, every thread every button sourced from the united states. this is kind of what, you know, kind of impossible. right. you're i mean, were they were they encouraged in the beginning? i mean, you're sort of you sort of a lot the whole books centers around their struggle. build this company. that is what they think the united states needs, what they know america needs. tell us. a little bit about the obstacles that they encountered as they set out to make made clothing

that was you know paying a living wage and union union what were their what were their images. so i so i followed them from 20. so i followed them over three years. but their story starts in 2015 and the obstacles they faced making apparel are the obstacles. i think that every company faces in america, one of the biggest obstacles of is just sourcing, finding company use around the country that provide the materials. as you mentioned, to be able to build their hoodie we are actually the second or third americas, the second or third largest producer of cotton in the world, a of that cotton actually goes to china to manufacture wear goods american goods where where goods are made is made and then sent back united states.

so being able to notch into that chain is difficult when. you're a small manufacturer. they had to find zippers for their hoodies. and it turns out, as far as we know, only one company left in america. it's out in l.a. that's making zippers. so supply was a big problem, establishing a line that was reliable. and then labor is always difficult. and i just finding people to do the job. there were very few people in, maine, who had the skills that they were looking for. and so they actually had to provide training as well, which is expensive and time consuming. so what they were doing was rebuilding an industry from scratch. you know, massachusetts and maine used to be epicenter of shoe manufacture, touring and apparel, manufacturing but when all of left america and especially this region, after

the passage of nafta in 1992, that the workers dispersed as well, by the time ben and whitney were to build their company, they were gone. they had gone to other they were retired. these apparel workers and textile, they really had to rebuild the knowledge base from scratch. i think you've talked you talk a lot about addiction. and there's a one part of the book where you say the cutting, the fabric. they knew he struggled with addiction. or you talk about how some of these young people just didn't know to fix the aging machines these that that were required to make cloth or thread. i is this were there. well let me put it this way would this company have survived immigrant labor without without refugees refugees? in my estimation?

i mean, is every state is different. and maine has its own issues. and one of maine's biggest issues is that it is the oldest state, the union. so i think i think the median age is around. 50 and they have a great educational system, public educational system. but what tends to happen is that young people rise up through the educational system, then leave and that was that presents a serious problem for employers in maine. now, ben and whitney founded their company in portland, westbrook, which is right outside portland. so there's actually a very, very large immigrant community in portland. and and, you know, at first when they started their company, like i said, thought they would get former apparel workers had lost their jobs after nafta. but what they found was that the people who were willing do the work, what we new americans,

people who had just received their citizenship and many of them, yes, were political refugees escaping very dire conditions in the countries where they came, including the democratic republic of congo and iraq and other places around the world. so they were really eager to find and work hard and build a life in maine. so, i mean, it's an interesting that you paint interesting picture of these these workers, some of whom are wearing hijabs and they're there at these union conventions about the importance of american made stuff and american made labor just, you know, was that i guess did they face some backlash and you talk a bit about the backlash they faced that was one of the challenges i thought was

interesting to talk about the sort of white supremacist website backlash. yeah. so, i mean, let me just say that apparel in america has almost always been german, driven by immigrant labor. it's oftentimes the first stop for immigrants because the bar is low, it's an apprentice ship industry. so people can come in with very little knowledge. they get the training need and then they sit down. they start learning all these different skills. so when you think about it, you know, mills in the united states, especially in our region, start it with irish immigrants, then it then it, it, it moved to using immigrants from europe and italy, other places where there was civil unrest and, political unrest. so we are only seeing then of

course, it progresses and progresses the immigrant groups coming in are always changing at this moment in maine. it's really about people coming africa. but sorry, i just wanted to establish that so yes so in. 17 one of their workers was asked to speak. they are members of the united steelworkers and they were to speak at the national convention of the united steelworkers about you. the incredible opportunity that they had because now there was manufacturing mean now they can work at american roots now they could be represent by a union and it was a totally new concept for them to all these things to have from a union. and it was a really, really rousing speech and around that time united steelworkers also

put out their, i believe, quarterly magazine and with a photograph of of the workers of american brits on cover. and she was wearing a hijab and the company began getting calls, racist posts, their websites on their social media. there were threats because the perception among some people and i'm not saying that the people who were doing this were steelworkers members but the perception was that these these people didn't look american and therefore they were somehow american jobs or something else. and as i said before, they were the only people around to do the work in this case. so the reaction among some

people was outsized. it was horrifying for the ben and whitney and the people working in the factory. but i have to say that immigrant the immigrant community that they work with, as i said they came from very difficult places, democratic republic, congo is an extremely difficult place iraq became extremely for the people who are now working in the factory and. these are very resilient people because of that. and they had tremendous pride that they were finally in america. they had tremendous pride that they were being represented by a union and that their voices could heard. and they had tremendous pride that they were making things to finally be able to settle down and be safe and take care of their families. and so, in general, when these things happen, they've seen a lot. they've seen a lot. they tend roll with it. and i was there actually when things happened was there on

january six when when there was the riot at the capitol and i got to see, you know, reaction of people on the shop when they found out about what was happening. it's a really witness. yeah, yeah. there's shock, of course, because it's shocking that these things can happen in america. but then you, see, do you see it? just the result. that we will keep going because they have kept going and a lot of them have seen a lot worse and, you know, for them for for and i don't mean to speak for but both from what i heard speaking to folks there is that freedom for them. freedom means being safe being in a community where you don't have to worry every single day whether or not your children and

your spouse will come. that's freedom for them. yeah. yeah. you you i mean, the heart of the book is really this quest to make american company that treats workers differently and, you know, gives weeks vacation off. the bat that gives, you know, that treats with dignity, that has a union representation and, you know, they had you tell this great story about their first big order. he goes to a union convention and gets order for like, i don't know, 5000 sweatshirts. and it's big challenge to fill the order and then in the you know after they shipped the part of it he gets a picture on his phone that says, oh, there's a problem. tell us a little bit about what that problem was.

yeah. was a defining moment of the company so correct this this out the first third because they have a deadline and they're working overtime to try to get the shipment out because they do not have inventory everything that they do and we should talk about that. but everything that they do is made order at the moment they like to get out from under that. so there. so he had never been when he had never worked at that before. this was very early in the founding, near the founding of their and so they had to get a large amount of fabric in a short amount of time and not only did they need fabric to make the 5000 sweatshirts. but they also needed a lot of extra fabric because they were trying out this new product and they knew that there would be high level of error. so there they knew that there would be a stack of sweatshirts that didn't meet their their demand. so they had this relatively team, a new product and so they

ordered tons of fabric. now they didn't know how to get fabric. i mean up to that point they connecting with middlemen who i guess were able to get short runs through north carolina so so the they are the knitting companies are in north carolina huge machines and huge like buildings in north carolina. so anyway so yeah so they he at the last minute ben is able to locate who's who says he can get this fabric in a short amount of time. the fabric comes, they start cranking out these sweatshirts it's and when they finally get shipped it turns out that the fabric was basically what you and i would call a second. it hadn't been made properly. it would probably mixed different gauges, different lots of of yarn. there are holes the sweatshirt. right. and so because of that, it immediately the fabric

immediately unraveling as. soon as people started trying to wear or use these pieces and. ben and whitney new to this game they don't know this industry like a lot of people who are trying get into manufacturing now that you know there's a very steep learning curve. the stuff looks easy, but it is not. and they went back to their supplier and said, you know, we're the middlemen in this case. and they said, what happened? and the guy basically them, they weren't going to sue because they don't have the bandwidth do that and they don't want to do that. they just want to get this thing right. and that's how they end up in new york, in the garment district, talking to what's called a fabric. so this is somebody actually has a partner in, north carolina, who works hand in hand with that partner to build the fabric basically from scratch so that it is perfectly for the the needs of the client.

but he also is there to shepherd it through to make sure that the fabric is perfect. and so that was a breakthrough for them, you know, for ben and whitney like they learned that this was somebody who existed and somebody who was there for them and they finally able to get the fabric that needed and put out those sweatshirts and they they they were perfect they were beautiful. but, you know, steep learning curve. it almost put them out business that that first order because they had to front the $25,000 themselves to get the fabric to get the new fabric. what i love what i love about that story is that it really highlights the importance of relationships because their buyer had to forgive them and wait for, you know, a bit longer for the delivery. and it also highlights quality of why some of our clothes are so disposable. much of what we buy today just falls apart in a couple of years

or even, you know, the clothes i buy for. my daughter, they don't even last three months. sometimes because the quality so poor. and i guess i'm just curious whether you think we become sort of a disposable culture, is that part of the what we got when we got free trade? yeah, there's a lot of talk about plan obsolescence. we see that in our appliances aren't supposed to last. well and you actually write about this you know, there are within those appliances that aren't supposed to last a day past. and yes. because our economy is based consumer culture and if you make things the last people aren't going to buy things when you're talking clothes specifically though. there's been a lot of talk about fast fashion and i don't to i don't want to lean too hard that because so many other people

talk about it and have written about it but that is indeed the case. it actually costs a tremendous amount of money, requires a lot of research to able to clothe ourselves with dignity. at this point, even the really high end brands, when you look how their clothes or apparel or shoes are made. questionable they're using less and less expensive methods. it's a very cynical approach. i think. so i'm a materialist, i guess you could say i was trained as an architect. i care about the details i care about the origins of things, obviously, but also the the care and materials and design things. and so i spend a lot of time. you mentioned your daughter. spend a lot of time. yes. looking at my some of the things that my daughter has bought that she loves. and i just think this is barely even clothing this point. and i actually about ghana i can

do farah would you mind if i just tell this quick story? yeah. go for it. yeah that's okay. so you know those bins that are in parking lots across america where you can discard your used clothing? yes. maybe we have them here. we we have them in new england. so it's a mystery where they go and turns out where those clothes go. we empty out our closets. we through our things. there's stuff that doesn't fit whatever you can just toss it into bin, close that bin, walk away. you don't have to think about it anymore. so it turns out that in the 1970s, early in the early 1970s, those started going to west africa mostly ghana. and when they landed in ghana the the africans would open up these containers and marvel at incredible clothes that suddenly

they were able to use and. whole industry popped up where the ghanians were, you know, tailoring the clothes to fit them and them to appeal to the local markets and. then reselling the clothes and it became huge, huge industry. and it's funny because the term for those clothes in their language was dead man's clothes because there was they could not understand. they cannot fathom the idea a living person would get rid of their clothes. so there you have it. right. and what is happened is that there is much junk now we're buying a lot of it with toxic dyes, a lot of it with petroleum product in it that the that this market is kind of drying up the clothes are still going over there but it's not the quality

that it needs to be for for africans, repurpose it for their own needs and. so what's happening is it's it's literal garbage when it arrives, when they unpack it and, you know, they, they, it ends up clogging the waterways and. if you look online, you can see photos of our clothes our junk, basically, you know, in in enormous landfill all over west africa now because it's all over. it's all over the continent. i used to live in east africa and the second hand markets were, i mean, amazing there. it's interesting that rwanda has been clothes from from coming like, nope, we're not into this. and, you know, some people credit with the rise of indigenous you know cloths you know in in rwanda i you know,

it's it's very interesting to see this coming full circle has this book writing this book changed the way you shop? do you do you wear different clothes? now, i have to say this is i'm wearing taylor j. it took me a year or two after writing my book to that. oakland had a whole bunch of american made american design clothing. it's not. but if you if you only want to have a few really well-made things that's it's you know you can find great stuff so this is taylor j that i'm wearing right now do you do you shop differently now? oh, good to know. i didn't know about taylor. i look them up. i have always obsessed with this. it comes from my parents. my dad always bought american. he made a really, really big deal about buying american and also buying union. and so that i just internalized and so forever in a day i have

always tried buy american when i can and i can name a whole bunch of companies that i rely on. there's a lot of bait and switch. you know, when you look up american made companies on the internet there there who list bunch you know tons of companies and unfortunately requires a tremendous amount of research just to confirm that your stuff will actually be made. the u.s., there are lots of companies that that trumpet designed in america in fact. yeah, a of clothes are designed in america but they're not made here. so in of changing how i shop i guess i've always been that really annoying person who was looking for american made there's some things i think that are difficult to find here, but there's some things that are not so hard to find here when you're talking about clothing obviously american roots for all your sweatshirts. but also there's a really large

making industry in l.a. yeah, we are probably. a lot of people know about american apparel, which kind of thrives. then i then revived. there's also bell luna. they make t shirts in l.a. but if you look, you can find them. you just have to be clever about your search and do a lot of confirming their been times. actually, when i've been on the internet, when i'm at a product and i will literally in on the tag because i don't trust the copy or the copy isn't clear. and so zoom in on the tag to confirm it says made in usa but but things are really out there and i've noticed also when i go to instagram when you start following one american made company, the others pop up in your. but i guess that's that's one benefit of algorithms so i do appreciate that and finally i would urge amazon to to include

one more search feature. you know when you search for something on amazon or however you feel about amazon people use amazon and along the left you can check and uncheck boxes about brands and size and color and all stuff. i really that amazon would add one more little box that said made in usa again are a lot of work on their part because. somebody would have to actually vet the claim but i just think it would help all of us because stuff is out there it's not expensive. it doesn't have to be expensive. yes, some it expensive but some of it isn't. but if we really care supporting american workers and also getting around the awful guilt. right. that you feel when you buy something you don't quite know its origins. you don't quite know who made it getting around that that that concern if you care about that then a little box would be super helpful for for shoppers who

want to do good and don't have the time to be super and will like me about the research. all right. want to go deeper deeper into sort of you and this writing process. you're obviously the author of a very well-received book into the raging sea about the sinking a container ship. right, a cargo ship that is that where you of started being interested in supply chains you have a passion for supply chains. where did it. i am such a nerd. so i wrote about alfaro which was the container ship an american container ship that in 2015 all 33 people aboard perished when this ship sunk. and yes, that really began to connect me with the idea that 90% of everything that we touch, everything that we use, everything that we buy, spend some time on a container ship.

when i first started giving talks about that book, i would start with that fact and people kind of look around like, oh, really? you know they look at their shoes, which obviously were made in vietnam and they looked at the chairs, which may have been made in china. and you know, i think i think it made a little of an impact, but the pandemic right. and i was pleased to see i mean, the news was terrible, but i was pleased. see that finally our dependency on imported goods making headlines, we that these ports, you know, lay in savannah and new were completely backed up that there were dozens of ships coming from abroad full of stuff waiting to be unloaded. and you know, manufacturers who depended on imported components were suddenly totally hamstrung, including america's audio auto.

so i thought, you know this is the perfect moment for me to bring my my deep interest in in material goods where they're made, how they're made and combine that with my deep interest in shipping and supply chains and maybe make a good out of it, too, something that people actually enjoy reading, trying to get away from. so you're hoping very much it wouldn't it wouldn't be a driver. so that's why i was thrilled when i found ben and whitney because. their story is so gripping and the people who they work with tell such incredible stories about, their journeys to manufacturing, so i kind of want to go into sort of more the more politics here. i mean, your touches on something that i think is a little discussed but very very important. so for past 30 years in america

or, let's say prior to 2016, for 30 years, we had both democrats, republican presidents, very gung ho about free trade. and then since trump both trump and biden have been skeptical of free trade. and so, you know, despite all the polarized, we sort of are seen a change in attitude about free trade. you know, do you credit trump with this. well, trump certainly brought the issue to the fore and so did many of the people who voted for him, i think absolutely. there is strong narrative that, as workers lost their which you describe in beautiful detail in your book. there was nothing left to

replace the infrastructure supported them and that was a fact and i think it remained hidden from a lot of people for a long time and now those stories are really being told in very gripping ways and important ways and now i think we understand that if you leave people behind, although the country has been prosperous on paper if you leave large segments of the behind, they will finally their voice and put in polish russians who speak their language. you know, it's certainly trump revealed that this is an issue in a large percentage. the population has been deeply

impacted by the loss of biden done, in my opinion, really amazing things to right the ship. i think what he is trying to do and what i, i hope he is able to achieve is true industrial policy, like one that we haven't seen years. we're competing countries like germany and china and vietnam and lots of other countries around the world that have true industrial policies that put manufacturing first. and we haven't a real industrial policy in in a very, very long time one that that understands the importance of manufac training. you know you talk about in your book and i talk about in my book that a lot of big thinkers or a lot of powerful people in the eighties and nineties were happy to leave manufacturing behind,

as if manufacturing were something that americans no longer should deign to do and obviously we're seeing the repercussion of that from a political standpoint there's been a sea change in how talk about politics or but i think also the the other thing that's happening is that we're realizing we cannot depend on imports because it affects how we deal with countries on the international it compromises our ability to to advocate for human rights to advocate for unions, to advocate for environmental protections and other places because we're so dependent on places for basic things like medicine. i'm you're aware that 90% of our medicines come from india and china and really, really was shocking, i think, to a lot of people when we started

experiencing shortages after the pandemic or when pandemic started. so i would say, you know trump certainly spoke that language, that grievance language that a lot of people who had been in manufacturing feared for their jobs or had lost their had felt. but i think was nothing like the pandemic to really drive home the repercussions of the choices that we had made by by neglecting manufacturing as an important part of american life. so i'm curious about i mean, i'm curious about whether you ever had self-doubt about your very view that we to get back to

manufacturing here it was such an unpopular view for a long time. there's so many people who are concerned that if we retreat behind these two big, beautiful oceans that protect us, we just, you know, bring everything home there. there are a lot of people who say, well, you know we're going to we're going to cede leadership to china because china's trading china's china's building infrastructure, all over the world. i know your your book like a geopolitical book, but i'm curious. you know, i wrestle with this. i'm somebody who very much believes in this message that we need to get back to making things again and. we should care about jobs, not just how cheap. our stuff is, but i do you i do wonder sometimes what is the appropriate of self-sufficiency? should we be able to make everything 100%, you know, did you come with some thoughts on

what's the right balance? yeah well, when you're talking about down course, i always have doubts. we all doubt. i mean, but the doubt wasn't so much whether or not americans should be things and whether or not there should be the thrust of policy moving forward. my dad was whether people would care as as you've shown in your book and as about as i have discovered in mine, you know, there. 350 million americans, maybe now 360. i haven't kept them in our population, but a huge of that population would like to make things they're not they don't want to sit in front of a queue computer. they don't want to answer phone calls. they want to be in a community produces things that makes things. it's also no question about it, environment really better for us to be making more things a large percentage of the cost imported goods actually is in the

transportation costs. and that, you know, real serious environmental repercussions. so so there's the labor piece of it like what should americans doing? there's the environmental piece of it, which is if things made more locally and domestically, that really reduce the costs of those things, especially since we do have, you know, environmental regulations in place to try to contain some of the fall out of production. but but most importantly i'd like to talk a little bit about the economic factors here. when you spend a dollar in your local community, it actually studies have that it bounces around that community three or four times before it goes out, you know, goes to maybe national or international. so it's really amazing when you when you support domestic

manufacture caring how many people that lifts. it's not just the workers who are working in the factories, but of everything that they touch. right? so it's yeah, it such a compounding effect. so it's their children, right? are are now, you know, are impacted by that. but it's also the accountants, the lawyers like all kinds of white collar jobs that sprout up around supporting manufacturing and supporting workers. it's it's restaurants and food and supermarket and all kinds of things. when you have a community now that is anchored by so when buy something again i'm going to i'm going to talk about amazon for just a sec. you know, when you buy from amazon, oftentimes buying it directly from a chinese supplier and i don't want to single out the chinese because this is now happening globally. but a lot of those chinese manufacturers are deeply

subsidized by their government. there's is deeply subsidized their government, which means that the price that you pay for that could actually doesn't the actual cost of that good and more thing when you buy a directly from china through amazon your dollars go straight out of the country it's not supporting anybody except you know the shippers so you know the local which is something but it's is pretty minimal. so you know you compare that to what happens when you buy something made in america. and as i just pointed out, you know, it has such a compounding effect on the economy, not to mention the tax base that it's supporting because now you have american workers who are in america earning an income here paying taxes on that income. it's it's just so profound the impact of of your dollars when do buy domestically made goods you're talking about across.

i have no that i was on the right side of history the question was what kinds of people would listen? what kinds of people would care and? how much do care how how convincing is this argument to get people to care so much that we actually shift policy and shift consumer behaviors? yeah, you're talking about costs. tell us what one of these hoodies costs. okay. well, i want to say that that american roots is generally not direct to consumer. as i mentioned before. and this is this is part of the story they don't have inventory. so you can actually buy a sweatshirt them. i think they're zip sweatshirt, by the way, has a metal zipper and takes 45 minutes to make all sourced. i think it is now at $110. however that is the consumer. and when when they take bulk

orders, there's there's room in pricing now that's a lot of money. but then you think about i mean, what people spend on multiples of things because things don't last long and then you compare that to an american roots hoodie which i'm probably going to be bequeathing to my grandchildren and it's built so darn well then you to think that maybe this is an investment again that's not true for all of american made goods want to make that super clear american made goods are not necessarily more than imported goods, but they're harder to find in many cases. also, if i, if i, if you don't mind me this one more, more note is that, you know, the hoodie which which american roots manufacturers is an american product it was designed here was made here was made for american

workers and of course it's copied now all the world intellectual property rights and protecting those for the american companies is a key component to developing effective industrial policy. protect the things that we develop and invent from, you know, just being fabricate elsewhere and then dumped right back into this country at very low prices. so your book is this. one powerful accumulated collection of little histories in addition to the people you talk about all the history of wall and its impact on the british empire, you get into all these histories, it's and it's also sort of a metaphor also against free trade. but but there's a a way in which it's a big celebration of businesses and small businesses

and businesses that actually care about workers. i guess i, i, i'm you know, i'm just wondering if, you think that, that the way we talk about business in this country should change because so much of the rhetoric we hear is about businesses, their fair share of taxes, not too much has been said, you know, about how they treat their workers or what are the missions. you know, the mission itself. so i guess i'm just curious what whether you intended lift up business people small business people. you know that's a really great question. i'm glad you asked that. i mean, we live in a society. there is very little redistribution of of wealth. i mean it happens through taxes. but generally speaking, people have to work and unless you work for the you're working for

business and. i absolutely want to celebrate the entrepreneurs out who are trying to do three things in my opinion the right way like ben whitney like companies all across america. i think when we talk about business the way you're talking about it, i suspect a lot of that is focused on these extremely large multinational companies like nike, for example these are companies that are american. certainly they have headquarters in america, but they're multinational companies and what they're doing and i don't mean to single out nike because the big brands, all the big brands do this h&m, zara, what they're doing is they are finding the cheapest places to manufacture their goods and that's how they keep prices low. so they're pitting countries, countries, and they're pitting

small factories against small factories. so in in vietnam, in bangladesh you have all these small business people who set up factories and get contracts with these multinational brands, and then, you know, and then find themselves really squeezed because the brands are dictating the pricing. and so the manufacturers have to figure out how to make things cheaper. it's cruel and and the other problem is that this capital, you know, the capital from these multinational brands is nation less so when country fails them, say bengal fails them somehow they can look for new places, manufacture. so it really is countries against countries, small countries against folks, small contractors.

this is all business. right? this is the state of global business. this is this is globalization. but we can run an end run. we can do an end run around this craziness, this tragedy by, again, supporting small businesses in america who are, again, to do things right. so so be. again your book really it how do i say this it gets at something it's beyond you know, tariffs free trade almost industrial policy. there's a point which you say domestic, but domestic.

manufacturing would only succeed if a majority of business leaders shifted their goals from profit to sustainability, from growth to equal librium and and you you quote been saying if you can figure a way to keep your shareholders happy and your workers employed with living wages, retirement and benefits, you're not doing your job i mean, what calling for is really kind of a re-imagination of itself is that isn't that a heavy lift what are we getting there? i would say i would i would argue that point that's i would say that's not true. there was a moment when american companies cared very much about their stakeholders. right. so their stakeholders not just in including not just shareholder but everybody who worked for them and all the people in their orbit who were impacted by the decisions they

were making. there was sea change. a real as as know because you've written about it when corporations finally found a theoretical theoretical construct that would support their interest in cheap labor through milton friedman through the free trade economics folks at the university of chicago way back in the seventies, that it took a while for the idea that companies should only be beholden to shareholders. but once that took flight once enough. in power decided like we should care more about the stock market than about the health of workers. that's when basically my life started. so i mean and i'm talking about 1980, you know, the chips start

falling or in the late seventies, you know, the things that the z guys changed it's been in credibly destructive we know it's been incredibly destructive all i'm saying is pause stop we tried that we see the rupert cautions let's get back to where we were but let's do a better let's make sure we're clear, including all workers in this. and because as as know union is a little sketchy when it comes to people of color and women. so i think now in this moment now that we've been through the pandemic, now that we know the stakes of, offshoring, everything, i think this is a clarion call to rediscover what we used to have, that a working one working person could take

care of a family of four, one working person didn't need a degree to have good job. one person could work in a factory or a business for 30 years and get a pension at the end this is not crazy stuff happening right now american workers and every level are unionizing. i just saw in the new times that doctors are starting to unionize. nurses in the new york times, but doctors are unionizing. and now there's a call among the younger generation for pensions. i never thought i would see that in my lifetime. most us are retirements shifted 401 ks which meant companies were no longer connected us once we left. pensions bind you to your employer for life. it's a really interesting concept. it used to be ubiquitous. now it's rare, but i think, you know, as kids, as younger people, as my daughter, who's

22, are looking around, they're asking more of capital. listen, they're asking more government, but also more of capitalism to take care of them. so can give back in good faith. i think i think there's just something here because we have we have only a few minutes left. and i really want to ask you about unions, because your your you're mentioning all of the victories we've seen recent. lee biden is the most pro-union of my lifetime. why don't more union members seem to like him, oh, i think he has really strong support. unions certainly at the top. and i, i think i mean messaging is always very difficult in my from my perspective for liberals and democrats because we have a tendency i think to take every

issue and kind of explore it and make it about a lot of. so it's very difficult, i think for democrats particular to distill things to talking points, to distill issues, to talking points. case in point, you and i've been talking for an hour, but i hope that the messaging gets out. you're right, biden is the most pro-union president that we seen probably since bill johnson. i say. and that is reflected in the the power of organizers. get people to start thinking about unionizing because they have support at the very top. that hasn't been easy to to reconfigure the nation to support the courts and the nation to rise up to to support

collective bargaining. but i think there's so demand for it that moving whoever is in power will absolutely have to support and not just, you know, talking the talk, but really walking the walk and standing side by side with people who want to unionize. but again, i want to be clear, we're talking about different levels of business, right? there are these corporations and they are monopolists and they do run a lot of production. so a lot of the things that we get made by these huge companies and there are very few of them out there, obviously, and they're controlling lot of what we buy and use. but you can do an end around this by by looking for those smaller brands that that are working locally within communities to support workers. so we only have like maybe 2

minutes left and i just to sort of give you it's a it's holiday season. it's, you know, a lot of people are going on shopping like, you know, give us your quick elevator speech about what you want to leave with at this moment when they're about to go spend a bunch of money. yeah, all right. if you spend $10 on a locally made i mean, domestically made. that $10 is an investment and it will pay off. we have seen that it can multiple fly, it can double, it can triple the united states. it can grow the tax base it supports all kinds of people within the broader network that are holding up whatever industry produce good. i can't think of a more beautiful gift than than

supporting domestic. it's i think i mean i would even dare to say it's in some ways better than charity because it is the that keeps on giving it keeps on those dollars keep on bouncing around and can and allowing entrepreneurs and other to find opportunities within our economy to to lay down and to support each other. so just give it a minute just give it another look. whatever it is that you're looking for it there is an analog there is a product made america you just have to spend one more minute looking for it. and if if you're having trouble finding that product, definitely google made american made. there are out there committed compiling lists of manufacturers but you will find them you know

the search patterns are just are out the algorithms are out there and keep googling that stuff even if you kind of because it it will also communicate to businesses that like this is important to you. yeah yeah. well with that we are out of time and hopefully people be able to buy your bookt their local bookstore. it in america rachel slade you so much for joining me today. thanks. this has been an honor. thanks so m