Gary Winslett: The American Dream Has Migrated South

Middlebury professor Gary Winslett argues the South—not China—poached the Rust Belt’s manufacturing base by out-competing it on policy.

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Gary Winslett: The American Dream Has Migrated South

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Why did the Rust Belt really lose its manufacturing base? Middlebury College political scientist Gary Winslett has a provocative answer: It wasn't China or robots. It was Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, and Florida. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Winslett argued that the South's pro-growth policies—not foreign competition or automation—were the real drivers behind the industrial shift. That makes for an uncomfortable narrative in a political environment where both parties have a stake in telling more convenient stories about trade and globalization.

Winslett explains how factors like "right to work" laws, housing construction, regulatory efficiency, and immigration made the South more attractive to manufacturers. The conversation moves beyond nostalgia for lost factories and asks whether the American dream now lies in places like Nashville and Raleigh—and whether we're too busy looking backward to notice.

Sources Referenced:

• "Manufacturing is thriving in the South. Here's why neither party can admit it." by Gary Winslett
• U.S. export share: Rust Belt vs. southern states
• Annual New Privately Owned Housing Units Authorized by State, by the U.S. Census Bureau
• "What to Know About the U.S. Trade Imbalance, in Charts," by Alana Pipe, Drew An-Pham, and Jeanne Whalen
• Milo Yiannopolis on X: Americans will love working in factories again

Men are depressed and addicted and broken because they have nothing to do. They get no stimulation or satisfaction from BS email jobs. I'm telling you, white Americans will love working in factories again. Making things, in the image and likeness of God the Maker.

— MILO (@Nero) April 4, 2025

• Howard Lutnick on CNBC: You and your grandkids will work in the same factory

Lutnick: It's time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future. This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here and your grandkids work here pic.twitter.com/dRq9aDfdgH

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 3, 2025

• J.D. Vance's 2024 Republican National Convention speech

Chapters:

• 00:00 What really happened to Rust Belt jobs?
• 05:11 The politics of the manufacturing decline
• 10:22 Nostalgia and the rise of southern manufacturing
• 15:20 Unionization, right to work, and labor policy
• 20:43 How immigration and housing fueled southern growth
• 26:02 Why the Rust Belt didn't adapt
• 32:21 Permitting, regulation, and business friendliness
• 38:36 Trade deficits and service exports
• 44:05 The myth of manufacturing as America's future
• 50:01 Remote work and the class divide
• 56:26 Upward mobility and bipartisan economic failure

Comments

[Don't look at me! (I’ll post my list if you post yours)]

Yes we have steel mills in the south the size of Gary works.
Not.

[InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität)]

In fact, they’ve even left the South. The largest used to be in Birmingham, Alabama.

[mad.casual]

Even with deregulation, coal isn't coming back no matter what Trump does.

[In the background China builds more carbon equivalents of coal power in a year than the US could offset from all emissions sources]

But the real reason Midwest jobs went away is because The South is a more labor-and-regulation-friendly market.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Steel was because of Nucor. WV Coal was because of Wyoming coal. Detroit was because of first employer provided health insurance and then in 2001 China and high oil prices peaking in 2008.

[Don't look at me! (I’ll post my list if you post yours)]

Nothing you say is ever true.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Derp derp.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

That’s because of Nucor’s mini mill technology…..derp derp

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Anecdotally I spent 15 years moving mostly steel from place to place. There's a whole lot of steel coming out of Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia and all points in between. Easily much more than US Steel in Gary. But that plant isn't even a majority of steel coming out of NW Indiana. There are dozens of mills. I don't know on a regional basis which would be the winner but there's plenty of business in the south. If you put Ohio in the mix there's no way Gary wins.

[mad.casual]

Remember how you guys told people "Learn to code!" and "Only idiots think 'MESSICANZ IZ STEELING UR JOBZ!'" and it didn't change things one iota?

What do you expect to get out of this quasi-oxymoronic "NUH UH! TEH SOUTH *REELLY* STOLE YER JOBZ!" messaging?

"OMG! They're right! Instead of tariffs on China, we should've been putting tariffs on Alabama all along!"

"OMG! They're right! All the jobs went to Mississippi so we should just let other countries tariff our goods, steal our IP, inflate their currency, pass immigrants on down the line..."

"OMG! They're right! The jobs went to Georgia. Well, I guess all that off-shoring is a Georgia problem now!"

[mad.casual]

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

The Bush family were true believers in making China great again…they were there under Nixon and in 2008 Bush’s final foreign trip was a victory lap at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Bush family successfully made China great again. Even invading Iraq was about flooding the global oil market with cheap oil to help China expand their middle class.

[MWAocdoc]

I don't know why some old articles keep popping up as new articles, but I previously pointed out the statistical flaw in saying that the percentage or jobs and production shifting from the north to the south is not the relevant fact. If the total number of jobs and or production dropped but only in the north while southern production and jobs stayed the same or dropped, those jobs and production could have gone to China and not to the south. "How to Lie With Statistics" should be required reading for all students, teachers and Reason contributors.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

2001-2009 was because of China and high energy prices…the two trends worked in concert. The 2001-2009 energy crisis was about oil and natural gas and Katrina supply shock and elevated CPI peaking at 5.6% in July 2008. So it’s not a coincidence that once fracking was proven economical in 2010 we started adding manufacturing jobs again first in fracking and then around 2014 SUV factories started being announced with a 3 hour radius of Atlanta and ATL is the preferred metro/airport for global vehicle manufacturers.

[Ted Levy]

"The American Dream Has Migrated South"

Argentina?

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Remember when slavery turned out to be a failed economic model and the hillbillys were all sick with worms and shit and the north was an economic powerhouse? Remember when Lincoln waged the war of northern aggression and burned Atlanta to the ground? Of course not. None of us were around at the time. Remember when some wags claimed that the South would rise again? Godammit looks like they were right.