The Search for Employment in America

There is a constant theme in America today: We need more jobs, find us more jobs, the stimulus was supposed to create jobs, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

Well, here's an observation from my little corner of the world: People don't want to work!

I know of a company that pays reasonably well for its area, has a great local reputation and the job is relatively prestigious for a service industry position. The number of viable candidates for this position: 0! That's right, zero. Most of the applicants have terrible work histories, no experience or a very unreliable background.

What people really want is to continue to collect their unemployment checks until their old job in their old field comes back. Newsflash: That ain't gonna happen! Buggy whip makers had to find something else to do and so should you.

A lot is made of the fact that America has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas. So what! First it was the Japanese, then the robots and computers, now it's the Chinese and the Indians. Let 'em have the manufacturing jobs. Go back to school, learn computer design or entrepreneurship or alternative energy science or anything with a future.

I hear you saying it: But this is what my daddy did and his daddy before him. This is what I want to do?

Really? And what about his daddy or his daddy... chances are somewhere along the line one of your ancestors decided to stop scraping a bare existence out of someone else's soil and went and found a new skill.

America has the opportunity to be the world leader... not by going backward to the industries that made the 20th Century- "the American Century,"  but forward into  the 21st Century. We don't need to do the building, other people will do it for us. What we need to do is tell them what to build. No one in the world is better than Americans at innovation and invention.

What are the keys to a Great American Future?

1) Education. If we can get back to educating our students, we will be better able to dominate world business. This includes making college more affordable and more worthwhile. (See my blog posting on philosophy in school.)

2) Reasonable, Restricted Accountability in Business: Government in the US should make sure that the businesses that are perceived by the world to be American companies are leading the world in human rights, environmental responsibility and fiscal transparency.

3) Industry Oversight Organizations: Groups assembled by different industries to oversee the conduct of companies in their industry. A little bit of self-control would be wonderful.

4) Taxation with a Purpose: The endless cry that taxes are too high misses the point. Americans are willing to pay for what they get, but governments (local, state & federal) need to show people in a clear and simple way, where their money is going. Justify what you take and we will care less that you take it.

5) Predictable Policies Toward Business: Every time a new party takes over they begin to dismantle the stuff that the previous governments put in, regardless of whether they are working or not. Kill the things that don't work and try new things. Stagnation is worse than confusion, but not much.

These are just the beginning of ideas to move America into the 21st century.

The Greatest Failing of American Education

A very good friend of mine, with very different political views, got me to thinking about something that I have believed since college.

The lack of philosophical education has destroyed critical thinking. Lack of critical thinking causes us to choose leaders who are 'pretty,' not leaders who are wise.

Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer by Rembrandt

If one does not know history, one is doomed to repeat it. Everyone know this axiom, but know actually does anything about it.

Witness the small minded ideas of people who use the public school system to enforce their point of view. Text books that minimized slave trade, ones that don't mention the excesses of union, one that emphasize the contributions of one group or another.

This evening on NBC Nightly News they interviewed the head of Intel who said that our lack of investment in education will be our downfall (I'm paraphrasing). He was speaking specifically of math and science, but I would argue that philosophy and literature are the subjects that give reason to the former.

How many of our students leave high school or even college understanding the centuries long exploration of human rights, political systems, economics, and our relationship to the universe? How many understand the Copernican Revolution, let alone the Kantian Revolution?

In short, the best way to keep America at the top of world, strong and wealthy, we must educate our children in every subject, not just the ones that will earn them a great starting salary. In the end, the salary is just the start, life comes sometime after that.