Government is not powerless to prevent the decline of manufacturing employment.
Wealth creation through manufacturing is true wealth creation. It is not wealth shifting or extraction masquerading as wealth creation as is so often the case in the financial sector. Manufacturing supports and enlarges the pool of skills and middle income/status employment – crucially it achieves this throughout the country unlike higher value services which tend to be concentrated in cities – and is therefore a force for social cohesion in a way that services are not.