"Within this group is a quixotic band of soldering, laser-cutting, software-programming types who, defying all economic logic, contend that they can reverse America’s manufacturing slump." (Image by littleBits.)

Anand Giridharadas has a really good piece in the Sunday Times Magazine this week about littleBits founder Ayah Bdeir and the American culture of manufacturing things, in the wake of the credit-default swap scheme that made nothing and left us nearly bankrupt. An excerpt:

“If you lived in Detroit in 1961 and watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho at a drive-in, you might have caught a 30-minute trailer called ‘American Maker,’ sponsored by Chevrolet. ‘Of all things Americans are, we are makers,’ its narrator began, over footage of boys building sand castles. ‘With our strengths and our minds and spirit, we gather, we form and we fashion: makers and shapers and put-it-togetherers.’

Fifty years on, the American maker is in a bad way. Such is the state of American industry that waste paper is among the top 10 exports to China, behind nuclear equipment but far ahead of traditional mainstays like iron and steel. Manufacturing employment has fallen by a third in the last decade alone, with more than 40,000 factories shutting down. More Americans today are unemployed than are wage-earning ‘put-it-togetherers.’ But the American romance with making actual things is going through a resurgence. In recent years, a nationwide movement of do-it-yourself aficionados has embraced the self-made object. Within this group is a quixotic band of soldering, laser-cutting, software-programming types who, defying all economic logic, contend that they can reverse America’s manufacturing slump. America will make things again, they say, because Americans will make things — not just in factories but also in their own homes, and not because it’s artisanal or faddish but because it’s easier, better for the environment and more fun.”

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The 1961 “American Maker” trailer mentioned in the article: