Apple's iPhones Are About the U.S. As Much As the World

If you love your iPhone, you passionately adore free trade. Absent the division of labor that the iPhone is a monument to, the supercomputers that sit in our pockets wouldn’t exist.

What’s important to remember is that just as no one person has the knowledge, resources, and intricate skills to create a pencil or toaster oven, no individual has anywhere close to the ability to create an iPhone. It doesn’t just take a village to create one, it takes the world.

Which is where some errantly get worked up about Apple’s modern technological marvel. And they politicize the fact that the iPhone is designed in Cupertino, CA, but built overseas.

More realistically, they should revel in the fact that the iPhone is comprised of parts manufactured on six continents. If not for the iPhone being a global endeavor, there would be many fewer employed by it stateside. More on that in a bit.

For now, the globalized nature of the iPhone is something to celebrate. It’s a continuation of the pin factory that Adam Smith reported on in the 18 th century, and that Henry Ford in so many ways perfected in the early parts of the 20 th.

In the pin factory, Smith observed that one man working alone could at best produce one pin per day, while ten men working together in specialized fashion could produce tens of thousands.

Humans are a productive input, and never a job taken. The more humans working together, the more that humans can specialize on the path to soaring productivity. When we’re able to focus on what we individually do best, we prosper.

Ford’s grasp of the above truth was nothing short of miraculous. It was rooted in his understanding of his own weaknesses. Ford said, “I am ignorant about most things.” His factories mitigated the previous truth whereby each worker would focus his energies on minute tasks, tasks that most associated with each factory-worker’s unique skills.

The result was rising pay. More workers didn’t push down wages as one would assume, rather more hands operating more machines boosted the very productivity that is the source of all wage increases. In Ford’s words once again, “the methods of mass production enable the worker to earn more and thus to have more.” Yes, precisely.

Bringing it back to the iPhone, it's said that its assembly overseas means no American hands are involved in its creation other than in the design stage. It’s a false narrative.

In truth, nearly 100 components that comprise the iPhone Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro are created in the United States. In fact, Apple works with suppliers in all 50 states. The work done stateside supports over 450,000 American jobs. More hands working together expand job opportunties at higher pay, as opposed to shrinking them.

Adam Smith would marvel at the remarkable tessellation of global skill on the path to the iPhone. So would Ford.

So should all of those reading this opinion piece, many doing so on an Apple device. Absent Apple’s genius at marshalling the world’s hands and machines, there would be no iPhones. The cost of the device would be enormous, after which the non-network effects of a device only available to the very few would make the iPhone’s production a non-starter.

All of which calls for a look ahead. The proliferation of AIs mean that millions of mechanized minds will join the global labor force in the coming years. They won’t cost jobs, but they’ll render jobs exponentially more remunerative on the path to devices that, if possible, will render the iPhone relatively primitive by comparison.

Originally published on Real Clear Markets.