Monday, August 20, 2007

Fear Itself

One thing that irks me a bit about The World Is Flat is the way the author uses fear to motivate. He keeps saying: there are brilliant Indians and Chinese who want your job, so you need to be smarter and more educated - or you won't have your job anymore.

If this were true, there would be a lot more unemployed Americans.

At other times, when talking at a macro-economic level, he knows that jobs are not a zero-sum game. But when it comes down to addressing the individual reader, he seems to forget it.

It's good to encourage people to be well-educated. On average, it seems to get you a better job. But the less-educated also find work. Our economy has provided jobs for millions of poorly-educated laborers from Latin America.

He says: listen buddy
Better hurry up and study
Or they'll rob
You of your job!

But somehow, mostly, people here avoid
Being unemployed.

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