I completely agree with the notion we need to re-establish manufacturing in this country. As has been said, not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, or a software engineer, and that doesn't make them any less useful (I'd argue necessary) in a functioning society. Well-paying manufacturing jobs were the backbone of the middle class.
Yes, with one exception that the traditional concept of manufacturing jobs being "low brow" occupations is itself obsolete. Which was the point I was trying to make in my first post. As products become more sophisticated, it's only natural that the technology required to create them must advance in complexity as well.
Often, this relationship is non-linear. In the case of shrinking transistor sizes we're pretty much at the wall with regard to optical printing technology. The link on EUV (Extreme Ultra Violet) Lithography illustrates just how far this technology is being pushed. In a nutshell, to image smaller features (transistors) we need to use shorter wavelengths of light. Get this, to generate the 13.5 nm EUV light source, a CO2 laser fires
20 kilowatt pulses at droplets of molten tin, ionizing them into a plasma that fluoresces at the EUV wavelength. And that's just to turn on the "light bulb" inside the 180 ton, $120M "projector", that has a support crew of 50 engineers and technicians. This "manufacturing" stuff is up there with, and arguably beyond anything NASA is doing:
https://www.euvlitho.com/2017/S1.pdf
But I digress. Manufacturing jobs ain't what they used to be. Even in my case, working in a 20 year old "Fab" (semiconductor plant). In another time and industry, my equivalent title would be a "mill wright". Essentially a glorified mechanic with limited engineering functions. And while there are similarities in that I perform preventative maintenance (i.e. cleaning, lubing), trouble-shooting, replacing failed components, etc... I also have to perform metrology setups, understand SPC (Statistical Process Control), of which there are literally thousands of charts that can flag, and interpret what a parameter in alarm means in terms of what's really happening inside a machine. Many times that leads to process engineering coming to us (equipment engineering) for help.
So even though I'm just a lowly technician by title, I routinely have discussions with a process engineer who has a Master's in chemical engineering and a PhD in physics. Topics can range from issues associated with viscosity in photoresist, to optical changes in exposure systems due to changes in barometric pressure. I've also managed to pull off 3 utility patents. Not exactly the kind of blue collar stuff typically associated with a "factory" job.
The point being, from my perspective the idea that manufacturing is somehow devoid of opportunities for critical thinking, cutting-edge innovation, and need for higher education, is utterly and completely absurd. Sure, packing a bazillion transistors into a cell phone (so small they would look like jelly beans next to a bacterium scaled to the size of a cantaloupe) is pretty much the same as shoveling coke into a blast furnace.
Sarcasm aside, in reality, if that job function still existed in the US (?), it would be automated and tightly controlled through instrumentation and SPC. So yes, fewer jobs than a traditional steel mill but better paying jobs that are more technical in nature.