Not quite sure that the term "symbolic analyst" is well defined. If we look at it as a modified noun, it literally implies an analyst that is symbolic as opposed to....what real?
Discarding that interpretation by the Principle of Charity (see ,Herbert Paul Grice ) one might interpret the locution to mean an analyst that deals with symbols.

That does not get us too much further either down the road because: language is symbolic, analyst must use language(s) to do their work (indeed we all use symbols to think in general) and so the adjective seems redundant.

Far be it for me to suggest Dr Reich find a better expression for what he wants to say because I'm not quite sure what exactly it is.

So let me just give my two cents. What we need are people who show two characteristics 1) an ability to think both practically and abstractly and the ability to formulate abstract thought that has practical applications, and 2) these people need to be well grounded in moral principles so that they don't use their symbolic analysis for diabolical ends. The recent geniuses that devised clever schemes to defraud the public and the whole financial system, we can do without.

My recommendation is a mandatory course in logic for any AA or above candidate. You might want to add an introduction to philosophy and an introduction to ethics course taught BY REAL PHILOSOPHERS and not Humanities people who have enough graduate credits to teach the subject but who are invariably lousy at it. Philosophy is an excellent subject for the exercise of the mind's capacity for abstraction . And logic is essentially the study of the rules of right reasoning. That is general enough and can be applied by the student in whatever career she chooses to pursue.

Bob,

As one of those manufacturing boosting troglodytes, let me quickly clarify the position (or at least my position) on manufacturing and the dollar. The U.S. currently is running an enormous trade deficit (temporarily shrunk by the recession) because China and other exporters are effectively subsidizing their exports by buying up huge amounts of dollars. This raises the value of the dollar against their own currency, making their imports cheaper for people in the United States.

At some point, China and other major exporters will likely tire of subsidizing our consumption. They can pay anyone to buy their stuff, including their own populations, they don't have to pay Americans to buy it. When they stop paying us to buy their stuff, then the dollar will plunge.

In that case, our manufacturing sector is likely to prove more competitive than other sectors open to trade. Our wages are less out of line with the rest of the world in manufacturing than in areas like computer or financial services.

While the U.S. does currently enjoy modest trade surpluses in these areas, this is likely to be reversed in the near future as world class industries develop in places like India and China. On a per worker basis, the gap in pay in finance and software engineering swamps the gap in pay in manufacturing.

For this reason, when we get to a world where we actually have to pay for the goods we import, we are likely to end up both importing fewer manufactured goods and paying for some of these imports with manufactured goods.

I thought of another type of problem to consider.

I lived in Maine a few years ago, and one important issue facing the Mainers is that they have the fourth highest rate in the country for high school graduates, but are fourth from the bottom in the number of students entering postseconary education.

George Mitchell led with efforts to change those numbers. Nevertheless, Maine is one of the places that lost manufacturing jobs early. Now, huge numbers of college graduates are working as supermarket checkers and retail clerks.

Maine has a rich resource of progressive civil society leaders and a workforce that would be way above average in its willingness to strive. So, how come not much has changed in the past few decades?

I often think that Maine would be a good place to start testing the kind of ideas that you offer.

Bob Spencer

Oops!

In my first post, I should have said that in 2004, 2,191 students were enrolled in the NINTH grade.

There is no finite amount of symbolic-analytic work to be parceled out around the globe. There is no limit to the capacity of the human brain to discover new problems needing to be solved, or to create better solutions to old problems. And no limit to the number of problems needing solutions. Robert Reich

True; the "limit" is the money (income or capital) to pay for the solutions these symbolic-analysts come up with. And since symbolic-analysts only get paid for their brainstorms when someone buys their solutions, well . . . .

It seems to me that the analyst position itself has become devalued, due to industry pressure to make a quick buck. Henry Blodgett, anyone? Beyond the traditional analysts role, the demise of the Big Whatever Consulting firms would also seem to counter Reich's rosy scenario.

I particularly like the howler about how they can find out everything they need to know about manufacturing on the Internet--priceless! It's the classic divide between academic/generic 'manufacturing' and the real thing--kind of like the old truism that the symbol is not the thing it represents.

Although normally a huge fan of Robert Reich’s, I find this two-part series of his to be very disappointing. A tenth-grade writing teacher would send these essays back for revision.

How about some numbers or evidence to back up the claims and assertions?

Sure there will be plenty of demand for symbolic analysts or analytical symbolists or whatever we want to call these smart people. We probably can’t produce enough of them. So what? We’re creating ten jobs for waiters, bottlewashers and room cleaners for every engineer and economist our universities produce.

I’d like to think it’s true that the nation with the greatest analytical and advanced scientific capacities will prosper the most. But an economy that elicits admiration from economists and business leaders because it enriches a few while everyone else treads water (as was the case in the US for the last ten years), can only be considered a success if we ignore the welfare of most of the people trying to survive in it. If we’ve seen anything since 1972, it’s that income inequality can grow right alongside national economic growth. While the rich in the US got richer, the middle class melted away. Median US income today is just about where it was in 1972 in real terms.

It’s not good enough to say, as Reich argues, that we can encourage manufacturing innovation without manufacturing plants to experiment with. As Paul Craig Roberts (a Treasury official in the Reagan years) argues, innovation in manufacturing happens not in the lab but on the line.

And really, given the shocks this country has experienced in the last ten years, Reich does us a disservice to pretend that we can wish away the national security implications of outsourcing our manufacturing capacity and supply chains. The best evidence of that lies in Boeing, which in an effort to lower costs and build markets has suppliers from seven countries building major parts of its new 787 Dreamliner. The result? The Dreamliner is two years behind schedule (largely due to supply chain problems) and critical industrial capacity and manufacturing skill in the US are showing signs of rusting.

Is it too much to say that the US no longer manufactures airplanes, but simply assembles them? It probably is, but that’s the path we’re going down – and one of these days, we’ll find ourselves without the engineers and scientists needed to develop, manage and maintain a first rate aerospace industry. You just can't crank up this kind of capacity on the fly. The US was able to start turning ploughshares into swords in a matter of weeks during World War II because it already possessed the industrial capacity to make the ploughshares (automobiles) in the first place.

Do we need GM and manufacturing? Michael Moore, who began predicting what would happen to GM about twenty years ago with his brilliant little film “Roger and Me” (spoofing his efforts to interview the then-CEO of GM, Roger Smith), has earned the right to be heard on this. This is what he had to say just today on his blog:

“The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?”

As a great admirer of Robert Reich, I was hoping for much more. I wanted to be convinced that my anxieties about what's happened to the middle class in the United States and about the way we've outsourced manufacturing were overblown. I'm not convinced. I’m terribly disappointed with where he wound up.

I need to be convinced that an advanced economy in which everyone can prosper can be built on services. Mark Twain made the essential point long ago: A village, he said, can’t support itself if everyone is taking in the neighbors' washing. That is to say, an economy can’t prosper on services alone – no matter how many symbolic analysts it produces.