Rural America is in crisis. One of America’s most provocative economists says the fix isn’t manufacturing — it’s something far less obvious

North America·Tariffs and tradeRural America is in crisis

One of America’s most vocative economists says the fix isn’t manufacturing — it’s something far less obviousBy Eva RoytburgBy Eva RoytburgFellow, NewsEva RoytburgFellow, NewsEva is a fellow on Fortune's news desk.SEE FULL BIO Bryan Caplan is an established member of anarcho-capitalist circles and a fessor at George Mason University

Courtesy of Bryan CaplanBryan Caplan doesn’t mince words: “tectionists are just fools,” he said

But the first tectionist that the economist, who runs a widely-read blog, ever knew was his own father

At 87, Caplan’s dad still runs a used car parts and remembers the 1950s as America’s golden age. “Anger is his muse,” Caplan said, describing how his father spends hours listening to talk radio, furious at foreigners “for selling us stuff.” The elder Caplan’s nostalgia is familiar across the Rust Belt, where officials in President Donald Trump’s administration mise that tariffs and factories can revive lost sperity

But the younger Caplan, one of the country’s most minent libertarian economists, and also one of its loudest champions of housing deregulation, insists that’s the wrong lifeline

He thinks that housing deregulation is an “almost perfectly tailored fit” to address the plight of the non-college male, a significant demographic in the Rust Belt states

Caplan’s desire for freer housing isn’t necessarily surprising, given his background

He’s an established member of anarcho-capitalist circles that desire to see all regulation banished, pretty much everywhere in the economy

He’s written a massive masterfile on anarchism for George Mason University’s notoriously libertarian economics department, where he is a fessor

To be , he’s also penned many texts with tamer subjects, including a graphic novel on housing deregulation

Caplan is a champion of the YIMBY (Yes, in my backyard) movement, which argues that restrictive zoning rules, and local opposition with aesthetic concerns, are the main culprits behind stalled construction

Above all, the movement opposes the scourge of NIMBYism, where development gets stalled from a “not in my backyard” attitude

YIMBYism has t to cluster on the coasts, especially blue cities plagued by housing crises and a chronic underbuilding over decades, but Caplan has thought (and written) a lot what he calls the “lost middle,” the people who in tent cities because they narrowly can’t afford the cheapest housing possible

He is unashamed to say that we should build cheaper, lower quality housing for this middle, or that we should give them decaying housing

Recently, a cohort of well-known liberal politicos have jumped onto his bandwagon, making arguments for broad deregulation to achieve economic abundance

But Caplan’s been fighting the same fight as he has been for years

Why construction fits, and manufacturing doesn’t Factories, Caplan thinks, are a dead end

U.S. manufacturing output is near record highs, but employment has collapsed, he noted: not because of China, but because of machines.“Automation has made every manufacturing worker extremely ductive, which means there just aren’t going to be a lot of jobs there,” he said. “It’s agriculture; we can duce more food than ever, but we don’t need millions of farmers anymore.” Housing, by contrast, is bursting with “pent-up demand,” Caplan said

Millions of Americans want bigger, cheaper s, but zoning laws, parking requirements, and minimum lot sizes keep supply limited

With deregulation, the industry could double.“We could do everything national conservatives hope to do for America’s non-college males, but through building, not factories,” he said

Tariffs under Trump have created at best a few hundred thousand manufacturing jobs, Caplan said

And un tariffs, which raise consumer costs and risk trade wars, housing abundance would lower the single biggest expense, by far, for most Americans: rent

That argument makes Caplan a contrarian not only to Trump, but to many conservatives who see tectionism as the answer to Rust Belt decline. “ is social,” Caplan sighed. “Even if tectionism is a bad bandwagon, everyone gets on it together.” Which regulations we should pull back If Caplan could scrap just one housing rule, he said, it would be minimum lot size: the requirements in many suburbs that each sit on an acre, or even five acres, of land.“Builders will always put as many houses as they’re allowed to

If you force them to space s out on an acre each, obviously you’re going to build far fewer,” he said.By contrast, many older s sit on a tenth of an acre or less, of that larger lots are more of an artifact from previous regulations rather than a demand consumers have

Next on Caplan’s deregulation list are bans on multifamily housing and strict height limits in cities

If land is valuable, people will naturally want to build apartments and towns, but currently builders are forced to leave land empty

Parking minimums are the last policy, one which he admits is “incredibly .” In many cities, developers are required to build two or three spaces per apartment unit, even if renters don’t own cars, driving up the price of every individual unit

After the industry collapsed, small builders died, and the rest of the industry’s titans consolidated, ducing less s but more fits than ever before

Housing demand Caplan acknowledges that it is precisely in rural areas where demand for housing is nonexistent

But he argues that rural Americans don’t need to close to a skyscraper to secure a construction gig and benefit from deregulation

Instead, they could commute to nearby growth hubs, places Madison, Wisconsin, or parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania where housing demand is strong. “Even if you in a town that’s declining, you might drive 50 miles and be on a booming construction site,” Caplan said. “That’s already how construction works

The jobs are mobile.” He imagines a kind of cascade effect, where experienced workers would return to the industry as wages rose, while others could start in entry-level laborer roles

From there, the job site becomes the classroom, with workers teaching each other: the way that “most jobs work,” Caplan laughed

For those willing to relocate, deregulation could also ease the very barrier that makes migration costly: high rents in booming cities

Caplan envisions temporary worksite housing to solve that blem. “It’s a chicken-and-egg blem,” he said

You can’t build more housing without workers, and you can’t get more workers without housing

Deregulation solves both

The result, he argues, would be millions of non-college men doing work that feels tangible and high-.“I think construction is even more emotionally satisfying for this ideal of manhood that a lot of people still have,” Caplan said. “You wake up, grab your tools, and build something outdoors — that feels higher- than being stuck inside on an assembly line.” Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world

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