Friends accuse me of reading too much. likely correct. The following has nothing to do with my commercial janitorial work, other than we're looking for staff.
Just finished "Woke Racism", by linguist John McWhorter, whose work I follow. Couldn't help to post a short review on a small part of his conclusion, his policy prescriptions:
Refreshing to see policy recommendations limited to three, and simple ones at that (though much
entrenched opposition to them would arise).
1) "End the war on drugs" - I'm torn on this; many downsides, as I see it
2) "Make sure kids not from book-lined homes are taught to read with phonics" - reading is foundational to most all else in education
3) "Advocate vocational training for poor people and battle the idea that "real" people go to college"
Regards the latter. I'd go considerably farther. As a society, we belittle jobs that involve most anything physical, particularly if one emerges with dirt or grease under the fingernails. Mathew Crawford makes perhaps the most elegant case that, on balance, physical jobs a) benefit society more than do degreed, or "white collar" jobs; b) often involve more grey matter and engagement with the world around one; c) pay better; d) provide more sense of satisfaction, due to the creation of something physical that one can see at the end of the day.
That university degrees are superfluous for many corporate jobs is indicated by job postings that require a degree, but not a specific degree. The degree is used only as an indication that the candidate gritted his teeth and completed something. Firms used to confirm this ability to persevere by seeing if the applicant had made Eagle Scout.
Many positions that seem to require a specific degree could train folks better via apprenticeships (see Switzerland as a model). The apprentice earns while learning, without piling up student debt, and produces value for society. Ask any attorney if he learned more in law school, or in his first several years on the job. Apprenticeship could be supplemented by the modern version of night school, the online class.
Crawford recounts a story of a fellow and his son walking through a mall. They see a shop under renovation, and an electrician stringing wire. Pop says to son, "study real hard in school, so you don't end up....like him." We should reverse our values - Those capable of learning on the job should do so; only the less capable (or less ambitious) should be relegated to the university.
Finally, if, as Goodhart argues in "The Great Demographic Reversal", the underlying cause of systemic inflation and a deteriorating society is an aging workforce, replaced by too few babies, leading to too few workers, creating too few goods, with too many demanding consumers, a system that would get kids producing (albeit at a training level), instead of spending years in college, would be a game changer.
From a sociological perspective, David Hackett Fischer's "The Great Wave", explores something similar, with a bit of a twist. Fisher argues for a several hundred year cycle, in which, when "Life is good", and people have lots to eat and plenty of fuel, population grows. As population grows, folks run out of productive farmlands, and are forced to farm the rocky hillsides. Productivity thus declines; eventually, too little food and fuel can be produced. Inflation indicates too many consumers chasing too little stuff. Eventually, competition breaks down law and order, on both domestic and national levels. People rob and nations march, both to steal stuff or land. Same result that Goodhart envisions, with a different base cause. Fischer claims to be able to track commodity prices (food and fuel) to ancient Samaria (writing was first used to inventory grain and such that the ruler had collected in taxes); inflationary periods signal arrival of the Four Horsemen.
