It may not be better, but the space of responses to such a situation is totally different. Incentivizing manufacturing won't bring back manufacturing jobs, because the new jobs are at least as easy to replace with machines as the old ones. Banning the machines will just make your manufacturing uncompetitive internationally. Making labor cheap enough to compete with machines necessarily lowers living standards for laborers, which will get you overthrown.

If you want people to learn how to make things even when it's economically non-viable to do so, you need to explore a totally different solution space outside of private industry. E.g. encouraging maker hobbies, or subsidizing trade schools. Industry will always move toward automation as long as it is cheaper.