For me, it's equally about the labor practices & philosophy as it is about the quality.
Yes, there is a clear trend downward from the once dominant American manufacturing standards, but that doesn't mean there's not fantastic stuff being made in the USA. As we all know on here, Warmoth makes stuff that is - especially considering the cost - of fantastic quality. That's partially a factor of it being a smaller business where the people that work there want to work there & have some skill in luthiery/woodworking, and that, in turn, is enabled by the company paying something close to a living wage. I dunno exactly what they get, but Warmoth employees probably don't make minimum wage, and there's a number of laws & labor regulations (in addittion to cultural attitudes) in this country that try to ensure people are treated decently by their employers.
Japan, Korea? About the same, for all I've been able to tell. There's some differences of attitude & culture about the workplace, but treatment of workers is relatively the same or better. And as has been mentioned: there are Gibson-clone Agiles, ESPs, Japanese Fenders, and all sorts of stuff coming out of there that put many American factory (& some 'boutique') guitars to shame.
But Indonesia, Vietnam, and especially China? That's a whole different world. There might be some folks that work in these shops that actually
want to work on instruments and/or have some skill with it, and it's not uncommon for a fantastic instrument to be found in an otherwise garbage pile of Squiers or Rogues. But the majority of factory work done there is done in factory cities, where people work on lines for far longer than is safe or fair, and are paid a fraction of the amount a burger flipper gets here. All because they have no choice in the matter - work in a factory where guitars/cellphones/plastic toys/etc are made because that's what's made there, or poverty. That's the choice, and there's so many people over there clamoring for work that just about no one turns down jobs.
And why are just about all of these guitars solid or 'foto' finished? Because the wood used in them is (usually) not great quality. If a factory in China has an order to fill, they're going to get that order filled whether the wood has been properly dried & tone tapped or not. Yes, we've all heard about the major fails of quality from Gibson, Fender, PRS, etc - but how many are actually surprised when their $150 Indonesian Ibanez unceremoniously breaks? It's much more the
exception when one of these asian factory guitars turns out to be truly great & memorable. You might be tempted to accuse me of stereotyping, but it's a statitical reality: cheap instruments made under poor working conditions with the most economical materials & parts are going to be largely junk.
That's a direct result of the faux-Communist oligarchy that
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I'm ok knowing that the mark up on an American guitar gets split out among the factory workers & administrators, and yes, perhaps more stays upstairs with the owners & shareholders than some of us would like, but it's not as if that money never goes to the actual workmen in the form of bonuses, higher wages, better conditions/tools/workspace and so on.
For sweatshop built guitars in the poorest Asian countries, that's almost never true - their wages stay just above the gutter (despite potentially being relatively
good for those countries) whether they produce Heritage wannabes or planks with strings.