By Jack Stevenson Contributing columnist

Replacement theory has a precedent. Ask any native American Indian.

There is a replacement in progress, but it is not replacement of white people by Black citizens and immigrants, a fear being exhibited by a few people and callously exploited by too many politicians. The replacement is jobs. Some six or seven million U.S. jobs have been shifted to China or other low wage countries to enhance investor profits. The current job replacement process is completely visible. My nearest Walmart store has 20 checkout lines. One of them is staffed—sometimes. The staffed checkout line serves both the manufactured merchandise and the grocery. The clerk has no one to bag the groceries or manufactured merchandise. If a customer wants to buy groceries or the imported Chinese merchandise, the only practical option is to do an unpaid self-checkout. Walmart has shifted its labor costs to customers.

The same conditions apply at my nearby Lowe’s Building Supplies and Home Depot. Better, it seems, to enhance the profits of investors than to provide employment. These two companies, together, can operate at near monopoly status. They have put almost all smaller stores offering the same kinds of merchandise out of business. Other companies also appear to be experimenting with automated systems that reduce the need for employees.

Where does job replacement end?

Neither the border wall nor any other existing measure will protect our citizens from job replacement. We know from our job outsourcing experience that job replacement does have consequences: unemployment, alienation, distrust, destabilized communities, addiction, and health and welfare costs for society.

We are literally financing China, a serious competitor, perhaps a future formidable enemy, while simultaneously undermining the well-being of our own society. Is that intelligent behavior? This is even more concerning when we recognize that 40 percent of the ownership shares of American businesses are now owned by foreign entities according to Robert Reich, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley.

Our national government has spent 30 trillion dollars more than it has collected in revenue. That promotes what economists call inflation and the rest of us call price increases. Government debt may be desirable in emergencies, but permanent emergency is not desirable.

Not fewer than 15 million bicycles are sold in the United States each year, and almost all of them are imported. Would it be too difficult to manufacture bicycles in the United States and support the process with an import tax to limit bikes made with cheap foreign labor?

In 1983, the administration of President Ronald Regan imposed a 49.4 percent tax on imported motorcycles, an act that saved our famous Harley Davidson motorcycle company. It gave Harley a five-year window to upgrade their motorcycles and make them competitive.

Container ships loaded with foreign manufactured goods stack up in U.S. harbors. They leave empty. It is time to reverse the flow.

There are golden opportunities for young Americans who acquire advanced academic qualifications, but those opportunities will be tarnished if our society is in turmoil. All of us need good jobs—good enough to support a family, good enough to provide for retirement. We need hope and self-respect. We need to believe there is a good future ahead for ourselves and our children. We need to elect politicians who view public service as a duty, even as a hardship. We do not need politicians who seek personal power, wealth and notoriety. Let us make America the envy of the world again.

Jack Stevenson is retired. He served two years in Vietnam as an infantry officer, retired from military service and worked three years as a U.S. Civil Service employee. He also worked in Egypt as an employee of the former Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Currently, he reads history, follows issues important to Americans and writes commentary for community newspapers.

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