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Your Unemployment Is Your Fault
At first I thought Bernard Avishai's post here was just provocative with a couple of over the top lines but the more I think about it and read the criticisms of my fellow commenters here, the more I realize that Avishai is really at odds with what most of us progressives want out of our government and our economy.
The first thing that has to be addressed is Avishia's condescending tone. He talks about people with "not-quite-enough schooling, too much beer, too much TV," and the case study is really the charming tale of a mechanic who surprises Avishai by figuring out the inner workings of his super-sophisticated BMW. Everyone who knows me here knows that I have a sense of humor and that I'm not above picking on country bumpkins but that's only when they try to impose their morality on me. Here, Avishai is trying to impose on others.
His conclusion is that we need a "mentor state," an idea that he promises to detail in a future post. I'm going to hope for the best on that but I have to wonder to what this mentor state is going to teach.
Avishai emphasizes flexibility and networking. In the end, this will really mean constant work for everyone. Avishai describes what his mechanic did as a clever use of a communications network to solve a problem. But what I see is a guy hustling for a job. He goes to a network, gets 18 opinions about how to fix Avishai's car, shows Avishai the data and even offers to let him go to another mechanic or the dealer. Presumably, whenever our hero mechanic isn't fixing cars he's talking shop with other mechanics all over the world or taking training courses in new car design. He doesn't have to worry about too much beer and TV because he's pretty much always working (whether he's getting paid or not).
Now it used to be that if your employer needed you to learn a new skill you employer would teach it to you. But now you're much more on your own. Your studying after hours, going to seminars at your own expense and you're not even getting a sure pay-off. At work, you're giving 100% and then when you're not at work you're spending your energies trying to improve yourself as a worker.
How will the government mentor state work? Thus far government job retraining programs haven't been all that successful. The job seeking lessons that people on unemployment must endure seem more like ways to punish people for collecting the unemployment assurance payments from the system they paid into while they were working. Presumably this government mentor state will have to teach people about technology and entrepreneurship. But really, that's not going to do the trick. You can teach entrepreneurship all you want, what usually stifles people isn't a lack of guts or intelligence but a lack of access to capital.
So what it's really going to teach is the new work ethic. Or how to kiss Bernard Avishai's ass so he'll let you fix his luxury car.
What's most dangerous about this line of thinking is that it holds the victims of this economy responsible for their circumstances. Too much beer and TV when you should have been taking night school classes after work! At that point we're blaming the poor for their own problems even as we let 20% of the country hoard 80% of its wealth.
None of this is to say that the economy isn't changing or that there aren't new challenges ahead or that hard work is necessarily a bad thing. We're a democracy, not an economy. I don't think Avishai quite gets that.
The first thing that has to be addressed is Avishia's condescending tone. He talks about people with "not-quite-enough schooling, too much beer, too much TV," and the case study is really the charming tale of a mechanic who surprises Avishai by figuring out the inner workings of his super-sophisticated BMW. Everyone who knows me here knows that I have a sense of humor and that I'm not above picking on country bumpkins but that's only when they try to impose their morality on me. Here, Avishai is trying to impose on others.
His conclusion is that we need a "mentor state," an idea that he promises to detail in a future post. I'm going to hope for the best on that but I have to wonder to what this mentor state is going to teach.
Avishai emphasizes flexibility and networking. In the end, this will really mean constant work for everyone. Avishai describes what his mechanic did as a clever use of a communications network to solve a problem. But what I see is a guy hustling for a job. He goes to a network, gets 18 opinions about how to fix Avishai's car, shows Avishai the data and even offers to let him go to another mechanic or the dealer. Presumably, whenever our hero mechanic isn't fixing cars he's talking shop with other mechanics all over the world or taking training courses in new car design. He doesn't have to worry about too much beer and TV because he's pretty much always working (whether he's getting paid or not).
Now it used to be that if your employer needed you to learn a new skill you employer would teach it to you. But now you're much more on your own. Your studying after hours, going to seminars at your own expense and you're not even getting a sure pay-off. At work, you're giving 100% and then when you're not at work you're spending your energies trying to improve yourself as a worker.
How will the government mentor state work? Thus far government job retraining programs haven't been all that successful. The job seeking lessons that people on unemployment must endure seem more like ways to punish people for collecting the unemployment assurance payments from the system they paid into while they were working. Presumably this government mentor state will have to teach people about technology and entrepreneurship. But really, that's not going to do the trick. You can teach entrepreneurship all you want, what usually stifles people isn't a lack of guts or intelligence but a lack of access to capital.
So what it's really going to teach is the new work ethic. Or how to kiss Bernard Avishai's ass so he'll let you fix his luxury car.
What's most dangerous about this line of thinking is that it holds the victims of this economy responsible for their circumstances. Too much beer and TV when you should have been taking night school classes after work! At that point we're blaming the poor for their own problems even as we let 20% of the country hoard 80% of its wealth.
None of this is to say that the economy isn't changing or that there aren't new challenges ahead or that hard work is necessarily a bad thing. We're a democracy, not an economy. I don't think Avishai quite gets that.
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In his (limited) defense, Avishai does toss in one line about massive investment in infrastructure. Given the increasing productivity of the private sector through automation, it does seem that the government needs to provide millions of "make work" jobs for the foreseeable future, or else deal with the prospect of having those millions running around looking for something to do with their time.
And, thanks to the same folks that brought us the "government is the problem" philosophy that makes government intervention anathema in this country, many of these millions are also armed to the teeth. Could create some problems.
September 29, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can teach entrepreneurship all you want, what usually stifles people isn't a lack of guts or intelligence but a lack of access to capital.
And potential small businesses don't get that capital for a very good reasons- the pool of consumers who can afford their services are shrinking, and their is a lot of competition out there who will do it for cheaper. Mechanics are so far lucky but as technology continues to improve their will be less work (today's cars need less and less work). He also has to hope that the controller of the network he is currently using doesn't want a piece of the action and start to control the information his success depends on.
I wrote several long comments to his original post regarding my views on the shrinking middle class (I highly recommend Dan K's) and the lack of jobs (and I know a lot of smart hardworking people no longer working today), but I want to repeat one that I find particularly galling about Avishai.
At the risk of going personal- What's particularly grating I think is that Ashishai own experience of Israel's globalization success stories relies in a large part on a community and culture working together to insure shared success. Sure they have an educated workforce but most of the investment in Israel comes directly out of the diaspora- for personal and cultural reasons.
I am not begrudging that, on the contrary I laud it, but that is exactly the sort of community cooperation (like Unions, and protecting local jobs) that we in this country have torn down while fomenting uncertainty for our people by sending those jobs overseas (look at average hours worked since the late 1970's or the lack of growth in Real Wages, the only success story is productivity- more work from fewer workers). The fact that he disparages beer swelling unions yet both his own career and his adopted country's relative success have depended on similar principles of camaraderie and protection is offensive and hypocritical. But then again many of the jobs Israel has gained have come from white collar industries here that never unionized. So hey.
I am going to guess that you are right on about his solutions. Work harder with a 'mentor' government helping build a nudge world.
Never mind what the hell we are all supposed to do. Innovate, Network, work harder at what? The only one I can really see is more service jobs. Cook, Clean, wait tables. But don't worry the college educated will get those jobs first.
September 29, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not begrudging that, on the contrary I laud it, but that is exactly the sort of community cooperation (like Unions, and protecting local jobs) that we in this country have torn down while fomenting uncertainty for our people ...
Yes, that kind of cooperation is sometimes called "sticking together" and is usually contrasted with the anti-social, every-man-for-himself ethos of the "ownership society" - the ethos that is so attractive to the entrepreneurial class.
There are two fundamentally different pictures of social progress that we can associate with different kinds of "progressives". One view is that social progress is identical to material progress, and that such progress is and should be in the hands of a special, relatively small and clever class of cut-above "change agents". These overmen make all the decisions and innovations that really matter, and it is the lot of everyone else to sink or swim, as they struggle in these mighty titans' wake.
Another view of progress is more democratic: that we should all move forward together, taking account of the needs, preferences and interests of our slowest members. The major structural changes in the way we live and work, the ones wrought by technological innovation, should be determined by well-deliberated community decisions, not by some hustler with his own private Big Idea and the capital to market it and hawk it. The chief role of intellectuals on this alternative picture is not to stride titanically over the landscape, but to serve their community by applying their brain power to the accomplishment of tasks the community has chosen.
The first, entrepreneurial mindset contains a deep hostility to unions, and other similar associations. They see them as the force for economic stability and permanence, which in their minds is equivalent to "stagnation", and runs counter to the ceaseless entrepreneurial turmoil they prefer. The entrepreneurial spirit was perhaps best captured by the Italian futurists, for whom only movement, aggression and violence were healthy.
Bernard has been associated in the past with the Monitor Group, which apparently believes the entrepreneurial model of human existence is applicable to everything, even social activism. They co-sponsor the Fast Company Social Capitalist Awards, whose name alone tells you something about their attitude toward social change. They pride themselves on the elite nature of their employees and clientele .
September 29, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Avahai isn't saying anything new. Except he's saying it with his nose pinched shut to keep out the smell wafting from the great unwashed.
September 29, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I kind of figured it was my fault but at least this guy was forthright about his views.
I heard on Senator last year complain that if you give people more welfare monies they will just spend it on booze, tobacco and lottery tickets.
Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.
September 29, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
September 29, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
His vision of America is the same as conservatives and neo-liberals (aka centrists). Which is the only people who should truly benefit are the ones who can properly exploit the work of others. If you are not talented, or smart enough, not to be exploited you should not enjoy the fruits of labor. It is a very elitist, not intellectually elitist but oligarchic elitist, position to take. You are either part of the ruling class or you are poor...
September 29, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
@all commentators above:
Thanks for the smart and witty replies.
I think we can all see what's right about Avishai's commentary -- the economy has changed -- but that doesn't mean that we give up our sense of justice or that we give up our priorities.
And Avishai's tone isn't just condescending, it's dangerous. I remember when I was a kid that Ronald Reagan said that people who were starving in America just "don't know where the food is." This is the 2009 equivalent.
September 29, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"don't know where the food is" is answered by corporations when is needs to be answered by small farms locally producing jobs and food. Food will be more expensive, but the nutritional bebefits should not be ignored.
September 30, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Brooks laid out a variation of this theme in yesterday's column. Essentially he notes that while personal debt and consumption numbers were stable during the 1950-1980 period, both drastically increased in the 1980-2008 period. His explanation for these increases somehow relate to the culture warriors going off their economic messages of personal financial restraint in favor of prayer in schools, sex, evolution and other non-economic factors in our society.
So Brooks advocates a return to our economic values of the past, where we work hard and practice self-denial. Back to when [g]overnment was limited and did not protect people from the consequences of their actions, thus enforcing discipline and restraint. I'm sure you get the picture.
Not one word from Brooks about the change of economic thinking that coincides with the same periods of economic change that went from stability to increased debt. The same thinking that went from a Keynesian to a Friedman direction in economic governing, which relied on trickle down voodoo hopefulness and promised the middle and lower income classes higher wages from tax cuts on the wealthy.
So Brooks sees the people, who supposedly have all lost their economic values of restraint, as the reasons for today economic malaise rather than the government that entirely changed its focus on who it economically values. Just another way of blaming the victim as far as I can tell.
September 29, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Brooks has no idea what he's talking about, an observation I'm sure doesn't surprise you.
Ask a strategist at a major investment bank. Is consumer spending between 66 and 70% of our economy? Yes. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Most of that consumer spending comes from people at the tippity top. For people making closer to the average income, increased spending has gone towards health care.
The typical American worker has not become some sort of greedy hoarder of goods... the typical American has had to spend credit on the occasional luxury because the cost of necessities like food, energy and health care have all gone up while wages haven't.
Our current economic situation is not a moral failure on the part of most Americans. Most Americans are working too much for too little reward and have too few luxuries, not too many.
September 29, 2009 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our current economic situation is not a moral failure on the part of most Americans. Most Americans are working too much for too little reward and have too few luxuries, not too many.
I couldn't agree more. It's just that I have this ongoing sinking feeling that we are in a minority with this attitude.
September 29, 2009 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I figured you did agree, seashell. But what perplexes me is... how did we wind up in the minority on this? I mean, it's the majority that's working too hard for too little. How does the majority get so duped and what can we do about it?
September 30, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep repeating this message. Eventually it will sink in and we'll raise the tax rate on that upper 10%, (back to where it was 12 years ago anyway).
September 30, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
How does the majority get so duped and what can we do about it?
It is evident that the MSM perpetuates the stories they wish to be perceived as truth. The masses are too preoccupied in these times with work to be able to maintain their attention to the news, and so while the masses did manage to get involved with electing Obama and removing the GOP, they then returned to eeking out a living. Our only recourse is to understand that if the people lead, the leaders will follow. Obama was following the people until he rose to power. Now he is not so good at that and following the traditional DC leadership which has been accurately described as out of touch, The result of living in the bubble of DC.
September 30, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure I agree with either side, here. My view of the truth lies somewhere in-between. The changes underway in our economy will provide fewer opportunities for those with limited skills in technology -- just as previous changes led to fewer opportunities for blacksmiths, cowboys, textile workers, and many other professions. Lamenting this fact doesn't change it.
So, what to do? The hard question is where does one draw the line between personal responsibility and societal responsibility? Let's be honest -- we all know people who make bad decisions, try to coast through life and are unwilling to work hard. What are societies responsibilities to those people?
On the other hand, there are many, many people who work hard, play by the rules and either through bad luck, bad timing, or a bad environment they are unable to realize the American Dream. How do we support these folks, provide a safety net, a way to have a second (or third) chance while still expecting some sense of accountability for the first group?
Different people will draw the line in different places between these two groups -- Avashai in one place, Destor in another. If the answer were easy or obvious, I guess we wouldn't have these types of discussions!
September 29, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's be honest -- we all know people who make bad decisions, try to coast through life and are unwilling to work hard. What are societies responsibilities to those people?
If people are unwilling to work hard, then they aren't owed much. Even the communists said, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". They didn't say "from each according to his inclination, to each according to his wants."
But as I understand Avishai's world, each person should not just be responsible for working hard and pulling his weight. He has to be responsible for figuring out on his own the puzzle of how to live and thrive in a restless, bloody pool of very clever entrepreneurial sharks, and for charting his own unique career path through the wilderness. And if he can't figure it out, or stops for a beer or two on the way home from his body-draining job, well its his own damn fault for being too dumb or too inclined to relax. He should be out there hustling and changing!
September 29, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
*This note responds to both John and Dan K*
Yeah, I think that's it. I really appreciate John's level-headed reply but I'm not saying that people have no responsibilities or that we can or even should turn back the clock to revive obsolete industries. I'm more saying that we need to realize that if life is ever-changing that we should have a strong, non-judgmental safety net in place for everyone.
It's very easy for me as an information professional to roll my eyes at the manufacturers of buggy whips and to demand that they adapt when their market dissolves. As if it couldn't happen to me. *Laughing* As if it isn't! I write for a living... and here I am, writing for free so that another person (who I like) can sell ads against my content! So it might be easy for me to roll my eyes at the buggy whip guy but in doing so here I'm contributing to the commoditization of my own product. And so it goes. And so it will go.
But if that's the way it's going to be, we need a much more compassionate system.
September 29, 2009 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah but what new industries are springing up to replace the buggy whip industry in the US that required semi-skilled/skilled manual labor? All those jobs are being shipped overseas to keep labor costs down and profits up. I don't see anything coming out of this 'creative destruction'.
September 29, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know. One part of me just says that the death of American manufacturing has been an oversold story. Yes, our labor is rightly more expensive so the laborers can live decently here but we also have all this super technology tat brings costs down, right? So maybe we can manufacture and export after all.
And, we have all these knowledge fields. And maybe we have to do something to make sure that the vast majority of people realize that working in them is NOT beyond them because... well... it's not. It is information work but it's not asking anyone to be Einstein. I think we overstate the need for qualifications for a LOT of jobs. Seriously, how many job ads demand that the applicant has a college degree just to be considered? I doubt that some one who took that job would actually need a college degree to not only fulfill the position but to do well at it. Our credential system isn't putting the best talent in the best places. I bet that if hiring execs were put in a blind study and made to judge applicants with degrees and without that they'd pick more people without degrees than we'd all think.
Rambling, I know but... You're right, I don't have an industry to replace those lost. But I also don't think that a lot of our vaunted new industries demand the credentials we pretend they do. Indeed, most industries outside of the executive suite have realized this, hence outsourcing. Too bad we don't outsource CEOS. I bet there's a recent business school graduate in Bangalore who can run Citigroup better than Vikram Pandit can and will do it for $100K.
September 30, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense our labor is expensive because our currency is held strong. Our 'super technology'? have you been to Germany or even China lately? Their factories are just as suped up as ours.
Have you seen the current news in your own industry:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004014096
And education? Ha. Check out what we pay post doc's and that is in science.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Postdoc-Salary-SRCH_KO0,7.htm
Okay fair enough half of them will get better jobs with a pharamicidical or tech company. But companies like Intel pay PHDs an average of 100k a year, for doing the equivalent of rocket science. That isn't really that good when you are drowning in student loans and living in the expensive coastal cities. Guess what the CEOS make.
The real story is that our economy is failing both sides of the bell curve. The bastards in the middle with the networking skills, and greed (and I concede work ethic) for it are taking it all.
September 30, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree with you. When I say "super technology" I'm being ironic in one sense and in another pointing out that our technology isn't doing what it's supposed to do -- it isn't brining prosperity to everyone.
September 30, 2009 12:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a friend who really is doing rocket science and he doesn't make that much. Close, but not that much.
September 30, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well there could be opportunities in the infrastructure field. Wiring the whole country for internet access, building a new power grid, fixing all of our bridges, revamping our mass transit system (including reviving the street car lines), green energy projects, etc. It could be the answer for the next couple of decades but I don't see any of these ideas being discussed and even if they were undertaken eventually I see us right back where we are at. So I don't know either...but who knows maybe it'll only take a couple of decades for the next big thing to be developed. But it all gets back to the looming resource problem, finite resources with surging global population means many people under or unemployed.
September 30, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, there is the potential - hell, there is a pressing, vital need for a total reworking of our infrastructure. This is generational work. It will take 20 or more years to complete and will employ an entire generation. And the need is worldwide, not just here in America.
So the country that begins to do this work first, who makes the greatest investment in it, not only gets the work done sooner, but also gets the contracts for the work that still needs to be done in countries who haven't developed the expertise yet.
If we don't start doing this job, which the future will demand be done, it won't be American companies doing it. It will be French and Chinese and German companies. They will get the contracts to rebuild and retool American infrastructure - and we will be left with nothing to do but sell them hotdogs and back rubs.
September 30, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are absolutely right about educational requirements. We need a different predictor of competency, one that doesn't cost so much or consume so much of a person's time. How many people spend four or six or eight years getting a degree only to find out the only thing they are qualified to do is teach the courses they took to get their degree? The world changes too quickly. Someone beginning an electrical engineering degree four years ago graduates and finds he has made a poor choice - a choice that cost him thousands of dollars and four years of his life and now he can't get a job without going back to school and spending more money and wasting more time on what is basically a crap shoot.
September 30, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
And where is that graduate to get MORE money to go back to school anyway?!?
September 30, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
From his connections he makes networking, I guess. Or maybe his blog.
September 30, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The death of American manufacturing has absolutely been oversold. America is still a major global player in manufactured exports. The oft heard refrain of "we don't make anything anymore" just isn't true.
September 30, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The way I see it, we are so damn worried about the welfare mother getting one damn dime more than she is entitled to that we ignore the people in your second group. How does it make sense that the many are chucked aside because a wayward few might not be accountable for what amounts to a few dollars more than they should?
September 29, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. I think if we have a more generous society for everybody (no "poor programs" but rather, our society provides some basic necessities for everyone) then we can get past this. I hope.
September 30, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The unspoken issue here is that some people simply lack the intelligence to do highly technical work. They aren't lazy, unconscientious, or moochers, they just have limited ability to do tech work. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist.
The preferred ideology in the current world is that such people just need to be educated sufficiently, and any such deficiencies will disappear. If they don't either we are nto educationg enough or they must be lazy and we don't need to care about them.
The real question for the future is, how can we find some way to productively employ those on the left side of the bell curve?
September 30, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And, geez, not everyone SHOULD be a rocket scientist, or even be interested in technology! Our needs are greater than that and our system should be able to compensate some other pursuits.
I love technology but it sometimes seems we're surrounded by tech triumphalists who believe it's up to us to adapt to technology's demands when really, tech is just a tool meant to serve our interests.
September 30, 2009 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you there.
I'm not certain whether your comment was agreeing with mine or whether you think of me as a "tech triumphalist." If the latter, then I am afraid I wasn't being too clear.
In any case, though, I agree with your assessment. We need to have a society where the non-technically inclined have productive work to do, rather than trying to force everyone to be white collar.
September 30, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
God damn, Destor! I hate you for pointing to me to this article, because what we have in Bernard Avishai is classic academic garbage. And now I'm riled.
I'm so very, very tired of people writing about things they haven't a clue. But the amateurs you tend to forgive - they are too limited to know what they don't know. But a professional blog?
I checked Avishai's background. Couldn't find a single honest thing he did to turn a buck. He's a "big brain" guy - meaning he advises policy and has "big brain" ideas. But never tried to do anything real. Like start a real business. In a fast moving field that involves technology.
How useful are these people? Let's put it this way: Take away the academic circles and I doubt anyone would want Avishai's knowledge in a database!
Avishai has it all backwards.
We are told that job churn will become a normal part of life. This means that you will take away incentives to learn specialized skills and demotive people to spend more time training because the payoff from the extra training is severely reduced.
Besides, this guy in Avishai's story isn't a small business -- he's a freelancer. He's clever and all, but the business isn't going to grow and the barrier to entry isn't especially big. In other words, this guy has no security at all for a steady income flow; despite his cleverness. Is this good for society? Hardly. Secure people are what create a stable environment. That's what's important.
Further: jobs are leaving the United States in significant numbers. These aren't just the low end jobs, but high paying ones as well. Record numbers of Electrical Engineers out of work? Methinks Avishai hasn't a clue.
This also adds to society's instabilities because of the concerns about trojan horses in high-tech equipment. That microchip in the high-performance jet? Made in Taiwan. That IT system protecting the Pentagon? Made in Israel. Feel secure? The DOD has been warning people about this for several years now.
When you outsource everything you are left with only the nothing jobs that no one truly needs and no one finds valuable. You know the ones. They are taken by the Avishais of the world.
Destor: great blog. I hope you link this site into Avishai's comment section.
September 30, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to see you here, Clear. Sorry to draw you into the mud. But, rest assured, this post started with his and it started in the comments. Ironically, it started with me trying to comment in the politest way possible and then Dan K wrote an epic response that Avishai was glib about and... here we are (and thanks for joining).
At first I thought Avishai just expressed himself badly. But when I saw his flip and offensive response to Dan K. I realized that Avishai sees us as serfs. That won't fly.
September 30, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your comments. I left a special package for Avishai on his blog.
And I was kidding about your bringing this up. I'm glad you did. There are multiple dimensions to it and people should think about those as well as the obvious ones.
September 30, 2009 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Avishai sees us as serfs.
That is it in a nutshell, Destor. His "intellectuals shall guide the masses" propositoin is complete BS. Ruling out who can play based on their educational achievements is completely un-American. It's talent that has led many of our best and brightest to achieve, not certification.
Motivation and creativity lead to success, not groveling before the arrogant minds of academia.
September 30, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hold on a minute. I too deplore the condescending tone that Avashai used, but he was hardly "ruling out who can play based on their educational achievements!" How did you get that from his article? Instead, he was describing the problems increasingly faced by those with limited educational achievements, a very different thing.
September 30, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post Destor! I was appalled at Avashai's blogpost for all the reasons mentioned and more.
September 30, 2009 3:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
If everyone is an entrepreneur who will do the work?
September 30, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink