I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat, and rather enjoying it. He came a little late to the party, and his analysis isn’t anything significantly different from the mainstream, but the anectdotes and interviews make the book worth reading.
I do want to cite two things in particular, one in passing and the other with a long quote. I’m curious what a bunch of different folks out there think — Mom, LF, TI, sluggy?
The first thing I want to note is Friedman’s rather harsh treatment of both American education and American parenting. As he develops his position, he says (repeatedly, as is his style) that the United States should worry about one day losing its privileged position in the world economy. His reason for this concern is that we don’t educate our children well enough, particularly in science and technology; and that parents don’t drive their children to be successful. We have, he says, become too complacent with our offspring. The ideal of a “happy child” has replaced the ideal of a “prepared” child, one who is able, upon leaving the nest, to make their own way in the world.
It’s quite an indictment, but a perfectly justified one if my own experience (as a teacher, I mean) is anything like the norm. I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who pushed, constantly, for me to excel in everything that I did. A lot of my students didn’t have parents who saw academic (or intellectual) success as a goal worth pursuing. I’ll admit that a lot of factors may have been responsible; but I wonder whether some blame isn’t justified.
Second, I want to point out the most cogent argument I’ve yet heard for why outsourcing/offshoring/etc isn’t a cause for concern for an intelligent, flexible, and skilled American worker. As I don’t know that I could summarize it well, I’ll quote a couple of paragraphs, from pages 227-228:
The main argument of the anti-outsourcing school is that in a flat world, not only are goods tradable, but many services have become tradable as well. Because of this change, America and other developed countries could be headed for an absolute decline, not just a relative one, in their economic power and living standards unless they move to formally protect certain jobs from foreign competition. So many new players cannot enter the global economy — in service and knowledge fields now dominated by Americans, Europeans, and Japanese — without wages settling at a newer, lower equilibrium, this school argues.
The main counterargument from free-trade/outsourcing advocates is that while there may be a transition phase in certain fields, during which wages are dampened, there is no reason to believe that this dip will be permanent or across the board, as long as the global pie keeps growing. To suggest that it will be is to invoke the so-called lump of labor theory — the notion that there is a fixed lump of labor in the world and that once that lump is gobbled up, by either Americans or Indians or Japanese, there won’t be any more jobs to go around. If we have the biggest lump of labor now, and then Indians offer to do this same work for less, they will get a bigger piece of the lump, and we will have less, or so this argument goes.
The main reason the lump of labor theory is wrong is that it is based on the assumption that everything that is going to be invented has been invented, and that therefore economic competition is a zero-sum game, a fight over a fixed lump . [Emphasis mine] This assumption missed the fact that although jobs are often lost in bulk — to outsourcing or offshoring — by big individual companies, and this loss tends to make headlines, new jobs are also being created in fives, tens, and twenties by small companies that you can’t see. It often takes a leap of faith to believe that it is happening. But it is happening.
This is where I have to say that I find myself swinging back and forth between these two positions. I understand enough about economics to know that more people making more money is a good thing; it’s simple Pareto Efficiency (thank you, Econ 101) — demand goes up and thus supply will go up. It’s just that it is, bluntly, quite frightening. One of those times that I wish I had a crystal ball.
February 16th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Two responses. First, the “kids-aren’t-pushed-hard-enough” thing. I think some kids–white, privileged kids–are pushed way too hard. Just how many APs is it possible for one 17-year old to take at one time and still have time left to become a deep, thoughtful human being? Fewer than most in the “top schools” are taking now, I thinki. On the other hand, as Ian correctly points out, kids who aren’t white and privileged and who don’t go to “top schools” aren’t pushed nearly hard enough. From a macro level, they are “assets” who will become “liabilities” if we don’t invest more in them. That not only means being pushed by their parents–right now their parents can push but in crappy schools it won’t matter much–but being the focus of intense investment, such as Epiphany School and Codman Academy make.
Second, while economically Friedman is right that it is not a zero-sum game and that if some jobs gets outsourced overseas others will take their place–or at least that is the way it has always worked–at what rate and how those changes take place involves deciding whether or not to factor the micro (real, live human beings currently doing those jobs) in the equation. I think we have a moral obligation to do that. Furthermore, no one has ever proved to my satisfaction that the speed of economic change that may be slowed down that way costs more than the gain in social stability and human happiness.
February 16th, 2006 at 9:00 am
A few quick thoughts:
“I think some kids–white, privileged kids–are pushed way too hard.” Children of immigrants. More specifically (stereotypically?) Asians. But many kids are not pushed. And it’s not just parents, it’s society. Hello, rap culture, I’m looking at you. Smart is not cool. Math is something to fear. Spelling and grammar is for losers. Who wants to get learned when there’s street cred to be earned! Ok, that was poor. But people are proud to be ignorant. Look at the President. He’s made a career out of being a simple-minded fool. He beat Gore and Kerry in part because he attacked their intelligence and made them sound out-of-touch with the common man.
Outsourcing: Yeah, I like the idea of outsourcing. But how much do you outsource? Hypothetically, let’s say the US lifts all restrictions on agricultural goods and eliminates farm subsidies. Maybe all our food would get grown outside our country because that’s where the cheap labor is. What happens if/when we go to war? That’s one, specific case. But what if we have no more steel mills? Or Nike factories? HOW WILL I GET MY AIR JORDANS, DAMMIT?!
Ok, not-so-quick thoughts.
February 17th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
“….headed for an absolute decline…unless they move to formally protect certain jobs from foreign competition.” Subsidies and tariffs as “protection” from cheaper or better goods or services is the equivalent of issuing your citizens bullet-proof vests instead of taking an interest in who owns guns — it ignores/exacerbates the problem. If the problem is that someone else’s goods/services are cheaper or better, the solution is to improve, not adjust the prices. If the resulting problem is then that such a policy harms inflexible workers, the answer is social policy and education investment. Disguising social policy as economic policy is something we have had to resort to due to conservatism becoming increasingly in vogue for the last quarter century. Our one democratic president during the period was perhaps the most ruthless in this area, dismantling welfare. Optimally efficient production is an economic concern; unemployment, education that is not competitive and poverty are social concerns. They should be addressed with equal enthusiasm, individually. Protectionism, though, short-sighted, and accomplishes neither in the long run. American goods and services declining in relative value but not in price, combined with artificially uncompetitive import prices. That harms all americans, employed or not.
i know this is ham-fisted and doesn’t address things environmental or labor related.