Manufacturing fetishism is back. It is easy to understand why. People have made large amounts of money for themselves – and occasionally have claimed to be creating large amounts of wealth for society – by exchanging bits of paper. But since the financial crisis of 2007-08, the public views this process with increased scepticism. The claim that real wealth can only be achieved by making things falls today on receptive ears. You can’t have an economy of hairdressers, the saying goes.
Yet you can’t have an economy of steelworkers either. Mao Tse Tung tried this: he encouraged the creation of backyard furnaces in which peasants melted down pots and pans to meet national targets for steel output. But the experiment is not generally regarded as a success.
The productivity of modern economies is based on the division of labour. If everyone grows their own food, and gathers their own fuel, it takes them most of the day. There is little time or energy left for conversation, entertainment, trading derivatives or inventing new goods.