The Problem? You're Too Dumb

    Well, that's kind of the message we've been bombarded with for the past decade or two: the solution to future employment is to get retrained and get smarter because, guess what, you're too dumb and unskilled in the great "New Economy" of the future. This has been one of my pet peeves for lo these many years...

     So, I've got a new column on this as part of my on-going series "Working in America" at TomPaine.com: "Workers of the Real World." Tell me what YOU think.

    Understand, this rhetoric we hear is not just heaped on us by conservatives and corporations--though as I point out in the article, there's a clear reason companies want workers to believe this nonsense (it offers hope and obscures how the unjust economy is really being planned and created).

    It's liberals, too. One of the great purveyors of the education-is-salvation myth is Robert Reich. A decade ago, I showed how Reich just makes up examples that crumble in the face of facts. But, he just keeps chugging along, espousing views that are artfully written--but, unfortunately, are nonsense.

    One of his most recent pronouncements appeared in the pages of The Washington Post on November 2nd 2004. Headlined “High-Tech Jobs Are Going Abroad! But That’s Okay,” it was amusing and bizarre at the same time—Reich was at war with himself.

    First, he acknowledged the loss of thousands of information technology jobs and the battering of peoples’ salaries. Then, he told us that 10 percent of all information-technology jobs will move off-shore by the end of 2004 into the waiting hands of foreign workers who “can do a lot of high-tech jobs more cheaply than they can be done here.”

    But, he, then, promised, “When the U.S. economy fully bounces back from recession…a large portion of high-tech jobs that were lost after 2000 will come back in some form.” Why? No reason given why any company would replace a job costing one-fifth in salary of what an American worker would command.

    He goes on to say that the threat of intellectual property theft, sabotage, cyber-terrorism or organized crime will keep “the overall percent of high-tech jobs going abroad” relatively small. But, then, in the next sentence, he admits that, “not much of this has happened.” Oh, well, nice theory even if there is no evidence to support it.

    He moved on to the academic equivalent of easy-listening music. We’re told that “high tech work entails the process of innovating” (gee, deep), that such work is about “discovering and solving problems,” (even deeper) and, then, (are you ready?), “There’s no necessary limit to the number of high-tech jobs around the world because there’s no finite limit to the ingenuity of the human mind. And there’s no limit to human needs that can be satisfied.”

    Before I can catch my breath, Reich tells us all about the great rewards awaiting the masses, and the professionals who surround them, who are willing to work in biotechnology, nanotechnology and new-materials technologies. And, then, the final stunner at the end: “But it makes no sense for us to try to protect or preserve high-tech jobs in America or block efforts by companies to outsource. Our economic future is weeded to technological change, and most of the jobs of the future are still ours to invent.”

    Nonsense, as I point out in the TomPaine piece. One thing I didn't mention, though, which is worth saying here is that the definition of a “high-tech” job is slippery—a small percentage of those jobs are of the type Reich and others view as elite high-technology jobs. Most of the jobs—software development, design—are within educational reach of a far bigger pool of workers around the world.
    The most jarring notion that Reich promotes is that American workers are smarter than anyone in the world. That simply isn’t true, particularly when companies are willing to invest capital in research and innovative technologies around the world. Frankly, Reich’s view is discomfortingly nationalistic and mildly racist.

    At one level, I know the man is just trying to cover his ass—his theory has proven to be dead wrong and, if people paid close attention, he would be discredited. There was a time where he was everywhere in the 1990s, promoting his Field of Dreams job theory—if workers would just get educated and retrained, they had nothing to fear, particularly of so-called “free trade,” because the future of the nation lay in “symbolic analysts.”

    It was Reich’s way of having it both ways—supporting so-called “free trade,” which would be devastating to millions of workers, but, at the same time, showing concern for their future by exhorting them to just get smarter. Reich represents a certain segment of political thought: college-educated liberals who continue to try to walk a very thin line. They view themselves as people with a social conscience, but they believe in the free market largely because it’s rarely bitten them directly in their behinds; some, though not Reich, are even anti-union because they view unions as restraining the dynamism of the economy. 

    But, until they get that so-called “free trade” is a mirage, that the market, far from dynamic, is a captive of abusive corporate power, they are not the allies of workers.

    Anyway, enough of that...tell me what you think.

Comments

[Steve Dondley]

I use the following simple hypothetical to disprove the notion that education is our salvation:

If every individual in the nation acquired a PH.D., tens of millions of scholars with doctorate degrees will be needed to pick fruit, mop floors, and ring registers at Wal-Mart.

The point here is not that education is worthless, but that every job is valuable. Every job must provide wages and benefits that allows us to live with dignitiy and respect no matter what skill-level is required.

[Bill Pearson]

Great analogy Steve. JT is right on, because these kinds of solutions of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps only perpetuates the myth our system works. With the evolving economy where the bulk of the jobs are in service and in retail, the masses will continue to fall behind. Where the measuring stick for workers is if they are doing better than walmart, we will always come out on the short end.

It is the one weakness organized labor could expose, exploit and actually build a new movement from. Virtually all new jobs for middle class Americans (including immigrants) will be in the low paying service and retail sector.

Anyone with half a brain has to know organized labor can't rebuild itself by doing one NLRB election at a time. The cost and outcome will break us, and workers will never see us as a solution. We need to talk to/engage millions and millions of workers en masse and begin to inspire their collective strength and make them believe they have a right to decent paying jobs, good benefits and quality education for their children.

Orgainized labor has missed the boat. They have been so busy talking about who the king will be and what unions "own" what workers, we have become irrevelant in workers lives. The scary thing is, too many unionized workers are looking at their unions in the same way.

[Tasini]

Yes, well put, Steve.

[Jan Cornell]

I know many folks who have lost good union jobs, been retrained, lost THOSE jobs, been retrained yet AGAIN. It's all hogwash. I know plenty of Ph.D's driving cabs and living in homeless shelters. I'm all for education, in fact I have one myself, but it isn't the end all for everything. Like the other post says, all that gets is Ph.D's working at Sears and picking fruit.
In our little area an economic developer for a small city was on TV saying well, YES, we've lost 50,000 manufacturing jobs in our area but well RETAIL jobs are picking up and available. Say WHAT? So that's like OK? Losing an $20 an hour job and having to work at WalMart for $7 is well FINE? I kept waiting for him to say this or for the reporter to mention it but no one does. Do these guys REALLY think we are all stupid or what? It continues to amaze me.
Like I always say, we're all going to end up as greeters at WalMart. Terrific future.

[Alan Saly]

I hate to say it, but "productivity" is not the answer. Most of the economic activity in the U.S. is useless, if not actually harmful. Technology, pure and simple, has made most of the jobs which people used to have obsolete. You need only a few people to do the jobs which many used to do. So, is the solution to keep finding ways to exploit natural resources, to pollute our air and water, to create more cancer, more sprawl, and destroy more species? No, the answer must be that we humans have to limit our numbers. First, by restricting immigration -- now, I know that's a tough pill for the labor movement to swallow, but the real truth is that working people don't want the competition from immigrants. Second, by announcing a national population policy which aims at zero or negative population growth. We have 295 million Americans now. I live in Brooklyn, and I have friends who live in the Poconos and commute three hours each way to work. By 2050 there will be 450 million Americans. Who will find jobs for them, and at what cost?

[Phil]

yeah i noticed that about Reich and other "liberals." not a very systemic analysis of the economy. very individualistic. just let every one have a chance at college, provide that equal opportunity, and everything will be fine. everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, or upper management. same old depoliticized thinking of "if you apply yourself, you can be anything." especially espoused by many black professionals as the best way of helping their have-not counterparts still suffering from the legacy of slavery. civil rights without any class analysis. not that education and equal opportunity aren't things we should pursue. but what steve said. every job should pay decently.

Reich was just on a Conan O'Brien sketch tonight and said some crap line about NAFTA helping all three countries. yeah right. this is denial as bad as Bush and Iraq. We lost decent paying manufacturing jobs. Mexican wages went down and Mexican farmers were devastated by US-subsidized corn. Environmental regulations considered non tariff barriers to trade were subverted by some weird undemocratic tribunal. and where the heck are those jobs they promised?

productivity's great. the problem is the capitalists are using it to steal more of our wealth. in a just society, increased productivity should mean a lower work week. in our unjust economy, people are working longer hours for less pay, if they're lucky enough to have a job. Keynes actually predicted that we'd eventually have a 15 hour work week. Organized labor should add that to the platform.

The best way to limit our numbers is sharing the affluence. The best way to limit immigration is to stop US corporate imperialism and to reform the IMF/World Bank and the crazy extreme laissez-faire economic policies they impose on developing countries.

[D Flinchum]

The main problem with Reich, Friedman, etc is that they are completely out of touch with the average working person and heavily protected, often by connections. They travel in their own circles, rarely talk - or more to the point, listen - to folks outside of those circles, and therefore think that what works for them is the answer. It reminds me of the New York writer who commented in 1972 that she didn't see how Nixon won the election because she didn't know a person who voted for him. I'm sure she didn't, but he won 49 states, including NY........

[Alan Saly]

It would be great if everyone could work less for the same pay. But, as Juliet Schor documents so well in "The Overworked American," companies, and Unions, have chosen money over time. The consumerist cycle of work and spend, then work more to spend more, is not being seriously challenged by Unions. Where are Unions with an economic analysis that would allow for more leisure time?

[la]

I saw Reich debate someone on SS deform on CNN one day. I decided that he actually a conservative that acts as a poison pill for liberals. I could have done a better job debating than he did.

Have you read Kevin Phillips book called Wealth and Democracy? He talks about England and "free trade." Some of the quotes by the English aristocracy of the time, are straight out of today's playbook. One wonders why, if England failed so miserably at these theories, our government supports them so fanitically now.

[jack rasmus]

JT's critique of Reich is correct. However, it fails to mention that Reich is just representative of an entire Academic 'line' on this topic. For a more fundamental critique of Reich (which I make) and the entire Ideology of 'Free Trade' by Academics (including their sacrosanct theory of comparative advantage) see chapter five of my just released 534 pp. book, THE WAR AT HOME: THE CORPORATE OFFENSIVE FROM REAGAN TO BUSH, and the that chapter entitled 'Free Trade and the Collapse of Manufacturing in America'. It explains why we've lost 10 million jobs to free trade and why it's accelerating faster. see my website: http://kyklosproductions.com for book and published articles as well.