The world is in the grip of a manufacturing delusion

Industry has an allure all of its own. “From manufacturing you may expect the two greatest ills of humanity, superstition and slavery, to be healed,” wrote Ferdinando Galiani, an Enlightenment thinker. More than 250 years on, governments share his view of factories as a cure for the ills of the age—including climate change, the loss of middle-class jobs, geopolitical strife and weak economic growth—with an enthusiasm and munificence surpassing anything seen in decades.