Keith, You didn't answer the significant question.
"If every person in the US were a PhD, would there be no unemployment?" I would hazard a guess that there would be more unemployment. If there are jobs available, people will fit into them. If that is too difficult, the job will be changed to fit the available labor. People with advanced degrees have a certain difficulty in taking available jobs. With a PhD, would you be happy to take a janitor's job? Well, you might have to - if one is available. At the moment, we live in economies in which every effort is made to prevent people from working so there will be enough jobs left for those of working age. We force retirement on older workers (or make it so attractive it's an offer that can't be refused). We keep young people in school until staying a student becomes almost a career of its own. We fill with people mighty bureaucracies in which inefficiency reigns supreme. Then we draw into the labor market women who work cheaper and it seems to me often work harder. And still there is unemployment, poverty, deprivation, and people without a place to live. All I would suggest is (rather like the AIDS fiasco) that we go back to the drawing boards, and plot another direction. But, these mighty projects (I would include Global Warming) have a life of there own, tumbling along, dragging everyone and everything with them. Harry ---------------------------------------------- Keith wrote: >Hi Harry, > >Extracting from yours: > >At 16:18 05/08/02 -0700, you wrote: ><<<< >(HP) >That requires a different process. About the only thing offered by the >neo-Classicals is helping the poor by taking from the rich. Classical >Political Economy asks the question "Why are they poor". > >Education, or the lack of education, is not an issue. If every person in >the US were a PhD, would there be no unemployment? On the other hand, in a >full employment economy, if there is a lack of skills the jobs are broken >down and fitted to the available labor. Rosie the Riveter didn't suddenly >become an aeronautical engineer. She did the job she could do. > >A full employment economy? Well, assuming that the first assumption >(unlimited desires) is true - there cannot really be any involuntary >unemployment. > >>>> > >Your second paragraph above. I can't agree with you here, Harry. Education >is very much an issue. If every person in the US were educated fully up to >their potential then we would have a densely graded skill structure from >top to bottom. For every level of skill there would be enough competition >from those slightly more skilled, similarly skilled and slightly less >skilled to overcome job protectionism. If there were unemployment in any >skill level then the pressure to share the jobs of those in the slightly >less skilled area would be very high. This effect of job-sharing would then >tend to ripple downwards. At every level of skill, there would be a >pulsation of job sharing according to the level of demand and being in-work >and out-of-work would tend to disappear. > >However, such has been the pace of innovation since the industrial >revolution that increasing numbers of high-skill people are required to >service the economy. This, in turn, has meant that the education systems >generally of advanced countries have tended to be selective (with a strong >emphasis on verbal and mathematical ability) so that individuals with >average and low levels of ability are neglected. Thus in England (and I >suspect in America and Germany also) we have the phenomenon that many >middle-level skills are in short supply (desperately so in England) and >those at the bottom of the skill heap (usually cast off by the schools as >being uneducable at a very young age) remain trapped with skill, >socialisation and confidence levels so low as to be unemployable even in >times of high employment. > >The longer our present sort of advanced economy continues, the less likely >it is that the "Rosie the Riveter" phenomenon, which you often quote (and >valid enough in times past), will be possible, and the more likely it is >that income differentials and job protectionism will grow. > >That's the basic tragedy of our present sort of education system. (I've >changed my mind in recent months about the private versus state school >debate. The problem is deeper than that. It's much more to do with the >increasingly narrow skill-band of teachers generally. We need a much >broader mix of skills within the teaching profession in order to match the >ability potentials of the population as a whole. What is happening now is >that ability stratification is becoming increasingly rigid --in >evolutionary terms this is called speciation.) > >Keith ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.380 / Virus Database: 213 - Release Date: 7/24/2002
