Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter tells the story of the Vietnam War, but viewed from today’s perspective, the film can also be read differently: as a portrait of a world that was yet to experience its greatest loss. An industrial town, a steel mill, a neighborhood bar, a wedding, hunting trips, and everyday rituals come together to depict a community built around work, close relationships, and mutual dependence. The war takes several young men away, but the following decades bring an even more profound blow: industrial decline, the erosion of local ties, and the social consequences of deindustrialization. This parallel raises a broader question about the role of industry, cooperation, and community in modern economic development.

A small American town in western Pennsylvania, in the second half of the 1960s. An Eastern European immigrant community lives according to the rhythms of local factories, shifts at the steel mill, evenings at the bar, weddings, hunting trips, and everyday rituals that bind people together more strongly than any formal institution. Inside the steel mill, rhythmic industrial sounds mingle with the glow of intense heat. Among the workers, we recognize the film’s main characters: Mike, Nick, and Steven, carrying out their demanding, repetitive tasks.

The men finish their shifts. We hear them singing and witness their jokes, arguments, and friendships that require no grand declarations. Yet a tragedy is beginning to unfold in the background. Three young men will soon leave for the Vietnam War, torn away from the close-knit community of industrial Clairton. This is how The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino’s 1978 American war drama, begins.

The Clairton portrayed in the film is more than a geographical point on a map. It is an artistic synthesis of America’s Steel Valley, assembled from several locations, images, and shared social experiences. To capture the region’s rugged industrial atmosphere, the filmmakers used locations across several states, combining them into a coherent portrait of a world about to be disrupted by the Vietnam War.

Industrial towns in Ohio, including Mingo Junction, Steubenville, and Struthers, provided some of the film’s principal locations. Although these settings serve as the backdrop for a fictional story, they reveal something much broader: the condition of working-class communities in the northeastern United States at a time when industry remained the organizing force of local life.

The military draft and the departure of several young men for war became a tragedy for a community whose members had known one another for years, sharing work, leisure, family celebrations, and a sense of belonging. Yet, as the film powerfully illustrates, the Vietnam War, despite being a defining experience for the baby boomer generation, had not completely destroyed those bonds.

The real catastrophe was still to come.

Over the following decades, industrial towns increasingly became part of what came to be known as the Rust Belt, a region stretching across the northeastern and midwestern United States. Once the heart of American heavy industry, it began experiencing factory closures, job losses, and population decline with growing intensity from the 1970s onward. As industry weakened, it was not only the local economic system that began to collapse, but also the social order that had shaped everyday life for generations.

One of the most devastating consequences associated with this broader transformation was the opioid epidemic. Between 1999 and 2024, opioid-related deaths in the United States exceeded 700,000. That figure is vastly greater than the number of American casualties in the Vietnam War, in which 58,318 Americans were killed or listed as missing and more than 300,000 were wounded.

In 1968, the deadliest year of the Vietnam War for American forces, approximately 16,600 Americans lost their lives. By comparison, at the height of the opioid epidemic in 2021, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses in a single year, nearly twice the total number of American lives lost during the entire Vietnam War.

In Jefferson County, Ohio, home to Mingo Junction and Steubenville and with a population of approximately 65,000, 493 drug overdose deaths were recorded in 2023, the peak year cited in this comparison.

This parallel with The Deer Hunter brings into focus the foundations that helped create prosperity and a high standard of living in Western societies.

Industry and manufacturing were never merely sectors of the economy. They provided stability, employment, skills, aspirations, and social connections. Over time, however, they increasingly came to be viewed not as foundations of prosperity and progress, but as burdensome, dirty, and ultimately relocatable components of economic activity.

Steel mills and rolling plants resembling those depicted in the film gradually reduced production, declined, and eventually closed. Thriving communities built on strong relationships among residents gave way to shrinking towns, where people increasingly sought an escape from unemployment, frustration, and the bleakness of deteriorating industrial landscapes through drugs and alcohol.

Viewed more broadly, these developments form part of the economic and social decline experienced by many developed countries. The relocation of production to other parts of the world, combined with the weakening of local economic structures, restricted opportunities for development, contributed to growing inequality, and intensified social tensions.

The loss of industrial capacity also weakened the ability of countries to independently shape their position in the global economy.

Observing these changes became one of the inspirations behind the establishment of the Foundation for Cooperation and Progress and its accompanying blog.

They also highlight the need to reconsider the foundations of development, both economically and socially. This means exploring models that enable not only the largest corporations, but also individuals, local communities, and smaller businesses to participate in economic progress.

Community and Cooperation

The modern economy is a system of interconnected relationships rather than a collection of separate, self-sufficient entities. Every business, institution, and individual operates within a network of dependencies, drawing on the work, knowledge, infrastructure, and experience of others.

Under these conditions, cooperation is not an optional addition to economic activity. It is one of its fundamental mechanisms.

Working together allows individuals and organizations to overcome limitations they could not surmount alone. By combining resources, expertise, and different perspectives, cooperation makes it possible to use available assets more efficiently. In practice, this translates into higher productivity, greater capacity for innovation, and improved adaptability to changing circumstances.

This is particularly important for smaller businesses and individuals. While their capabilities may be limited when acting independently, relationships with others can enable them to operate at an entirely different level.

Communities provide one of the most important environments in which cooperation can develop.

Within communities, relationships emerge through trust, reciprocity, and repeated interaction. These relationships reduce the costs of coordination, make joint initiatives easier to undertake, and establish a shared context of language, norms, and expectations without which sustained cooperation is difficult to maintain.

Where strong communities exist, mobilizing resources, sharing knowledge, and developing local entrepreneurship become easier.

Cooperation also has a systemic dimension. It facilitates the faster circulation of information, better matching of capabilities, and more efficient use of resources throughout the economy. It also strengthens resilience during crises by helping distribute risks and enabling the development of more flexible organizational structures.

Yet the potential of cooperation remains far from fully realized.

In many areas of economic life, approaches based on isolation and competition continue to dominate, restricting information flows and making collective action more difficult. This results in duplicated efforts, underutilized resources, and a reduced ability to address increasingly complex challenges. The weakening of social ties further undermines opportunities to establish lasting relationships built around cooperation.

For these reasons, the blog will regularly explore topics such as cooperatives and the cooperative movement, network-based relationships, cross-cultural cooperation, local initiatives, and organizational and ownership models that combine innovation, high productivity, and strong connections to local communities.

Why Industry Matters

Industry plays a fundamental role in the functioning of modern economies. It is a sector that makes an especially important contribution to the creation of tangible economic value through the production of goods, technological development, and highly productive employment.

Unlike many other areas of economic activity, industry establishes durable foundations for growth that extend throughout society, from individual workers and local communities to businesses and the economic condition of entire countries.

A well-developed industrial sector is one of the principal foundations of national prosperity. It provides stable sources of income, strengthens exports, develops technological capabilities, and increases economic independence.

Its influence therefore extends beyond citizens’ living standards to a country’s ability to pursue effective domestic and international policies. Where industry remains strong, the economy tends to be more resilient, and society benefits from a wider range of development opportunities.

The importance of industry, however, goes far beyond economics.

It is also a major factor shaping social structures and entrepreneurial activity. Industry creates an environment in which large organizations and smaller businesses alike can develop, including suppliers, subcontractors, service providers, and local initiatives.

In this way, it contributes to the development of entire economic ecosystems and allows individuals and small enterprises to participate in broader economic processes.

Over recent decades, however, many developed countries have experienced gradual deindustrialization.

The relocation of manufacturing, an increasing emphasis on services, and short-term cost optimization have weakened industrial capacity. The wider consequences have become increasingly visible, including slower productivity growth, reduced opportunities for technological development, weaker local economies, and rising social tensions.

Only more recently has the full significance of these processes received renewed attention.

Growing competition from emerging economies and disruptions to global supply chains have demonstrated the importance of industry in ensuring economic stability and the ability to act independently.

In many cases, however, this realization has come only after rebuilding lost industrial capabilities has become considerably more difficult and expensive.

Against this background, reindustrialization is becoming increasingly important.

It should not be understood as a return to outdated production models, but rather as the development of modern, technologically advanced manufacturing adapted to contemporary economic realities.

Such an industrial system can combine innovation with local roots, efficiency with resilience, and large-scale capabilities with opportunities for smaller participants.

At the same time, efforts to rebuild and expand industry should not focus exclusively on the largest corporations.

Their long-term effectiveness depends on whether they create opportunities for smaller companies and individuals to participate as members of value chains, technological partners, or initiators of new solutions.

Within such a model, industry can once again become a powerful driver of development in its broadest sense.

From this perspective, reindustrialization is not simply a matter of economic structure. It is also a social and strategic challenge concerning quality of life, opportunities for advancement, and the ability of countries to act in an increasingly complex and competitive world.

Other Issues and Areas of Focus

Changes in the global economy, together with their political, cultural, and economic implications, raise questions that require deeper analysis and discussion.

The blog will therefore connect reflections on industry, community, and cooperation with a broader examination of developments at the microeconomic, mesoeconomic, and macroeconomic levels.

Attention will be given both to the experiences of individuals and small businesses and to the condition of local communities, regions, and countries.

One important area of interest is geoeconomics, a field of research and policymaking that examines the relationship between geography and economic processes within the context of international competition.

It focuses on how economic instruments, including trade, investment, sanctions, and control over strategic resources, can be used to achieve broader strategic objectives.

While geopolitics has traditionally placed particular emphasis on military power, geoeconomics highlights economic influence as a major instrument for shaping relations and the balance of power among countries.

In an era of intensifying international competition, geoeconomic developments affect economic opportunities at every level, from national governments and businesses to individual citizens.

The blog will therefore examine not only global economic processes in the abstract, but also their implications for everyday economic activity, opportunities for cooperation, local manufacturing, and the ability of smaller businesses to participate in larger value chains.

Within this broader perspective, particular attention will be devoted to Poland and the Three Seas region.

Central and Eastern Europe, despite its relatively shorter history of membership in the European Union, has demonstrated considerable economic dynamism and retains substantial potential for further growth.

Its location along the north–south axis connecting the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas makes it an important area for the development of energy, digital, and transportation infrastructure.

The region has the potential to become not only a destination for investment, but also a place where new models of cooperation, local entrepreneurship, and industrial renewal can emerge.

The blog will therefore address issues directly connected to the Foundation’s mission and objectives, including industrial policy, reindustrialization, decentralized manufacturing, networks and network-based cooperation, cooperatives and the cooperative movement, innovation, and modern forms of economic activity undertaken by smaller organizations.

Particular attention will be given to those who are often overlooked in major economic debates: local communities, small businesses, and individuals seeking ways to organize their economic activities in circumstances where achieving meaningful objectives independently is becoming increasingly difficult.

Redistributed manufacturing offers a useful illustration of this direction.

The concept involves shifting some production activities away from large, centralized facilities toward smaller, geographically distributed units located closer to where demand arises.

It relies on digital technologies, automation, and networks of cooperating organizations, enabling greater flexibility, shorter supply chains, and faster responses to market needs.

Its objective is not only to improve the resilience of manufacturing systems, but also to create economic value within local communities.

In this sense, a renewed emphasis on industry does not mean nostalgia for the past.

Rather, it represents an effort to restore what has proven essential to modern development: the capacity to produce, to cooperate, to remain connected to local communities, and to take responsibility for the common good.

The Deer Hunter portrays a world in which community was still rooted in work, place, and mutual dependence.

The question today is whether we can build its modern equivalent: one that is more open, technologically advanced, and conscious of global interdependencies, yet remains equally grounded in the real economy and in human relationships.