Slashdot Mirror
The Case For Working With Your Hands
theodp writes "At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."
Or maybe we could just up and admit that the people who do skilled work need decent wages and stop the outsourcing, stop the importation of illegal workers, and hire our own damn citizens to do skilled jobs for skilled-job wages!
The continuing drain of non-rock-star, non-creative jobs (ie: most of the truly necessary ones) into low-wage populations via crime and legal loopholes is not some natural force we're powerless to stop. It's a choice our society has made because it apparently values cheapness over both fairness and quality. And personally, it sickens me.