Last miles and gene pools should be considered when discussing manufacturing jobs.

Sir, John Kay writes about “Our fetish for making things fails to understand ‘realwork’” November 14. Of course, services is as real as any manufacturing job, but, as an economist, I still want to see some solid real assembly line manufacturing jobs close to me, for two reasons: 

First, the just in case; I do not want the last mile for delivering me ploughs, cloth, guns and batteries, to have to go over enemy land. 

Second, manufacturing is part of the biodiversity of a strong economy, and so I would like to keep some good solid real jobs for manufacturing workers, just like you would like to keep some heavy horses, “the Suffolk, the Clydesdale and the Percheron vie”, for your nations’ diversified gene pool reserve. 

Does that make me a manufacturing fetishist? I do not think so. The fact that I can get all on the web, does not mean I can get it all when the web is out.