I finished Robert Reich's I'll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society.
Reich had a profound chapter on feminism, as he talked about his wife
being denied tenure, how women are not always listened to in
male-dominated sayings, ways that he believes that men and women
approach issues differently, and the financial struggles of many women
in America today. I especially appreciated how Reich presented himself
as growing in his sensitivity to women's issues.
What I'd like to highlight, however, is something that Reich says on page 114:
"Every
city or town, every state, every region----indeed, every
nation----really has two choices about how to attract global capital.
One choice is to become so inexpensive that global capital is lured by
the low cost of doing business: Wages are rock bottom. Workers get no
health or retirement benefits. Safety regulations don't exist or are
barely enforced. Companies are free to pollute. Taxes are waived.
This low-cost strategy may indeed attract global capital and create a
lot of jobs. But they'll be lousy jobs. Families will be condemned to a
low standard of living. The environment will be degraded. And the
entire economy will be precarious because there will always be somewhere
else on the globe where the costs are even lower...The other choice is
to lure global capital by becoming so productive that even though wages
may be high, benefits generous, and regulations costly, capital is eager
to come because workers are able to produce more and better products.
They can identify and solve new problems, create ever more efficient
ways of doing things, and respond to customer needs more quickly and
deftly."
In essence, I agree with Reich on this. Granted, there
may be more than these two options. For example, there may be other
ways to get a cleaner environment than costly and onerous regulations.
And yet, in my opinion, Reich is right that there is a push to
dramatically limit wages and benefits for a number of workers because of
a belief that doing so would make businesses more competitive. Yes, it
could make them more competitive, but at what price? A lower standard
of living for many American families? I can see Reich's point that
there has to be another way to make our country competitive, and
education may be the way to go.
But what does that entail? That
everyone has to major in science or business rather than the
humanities? That may be good for the economy, but it's not good for our
soul----since we should know about history and literature. Perhaps
there could be classes that would help humanities majors to apply the
same critical-thinking and reasoning skills that they use in their own
areas of study to other fields, such as business.