• I'm disenchanted at just how entrenched the "liberal/conservative" distinction has become in the United States, as if it's a distinction that comes from nature, such as "man/woman" or "day/night." It isn't. It's just a nearly useless distinction that inhibits creative thinking, impedes our ability to communicate, and oversimplifies everything. It reduces options at a time when we need flexibility, and divides us when we need cooperation. Thanks to win-at-all-cost blowhards on the right who have propagated this distinction for the past two decades, thus coarsening the nation's political dialogue for a generation, maybe more.
• I'm tired of hearing about "job creation" as the aim of government policy, as if the direct purpose of government is to create jobs. It isn't. Business creates jobs. Government oversees business to protect the people. Thinking that government itself can create jobs is like thinking that straw can be spun into gold. It can't. And thinking this shows a lack of understanding of how economic wealth is created. It is created by adding value. Government does not do this.
Talk of government "creating jobs" sounds especially silly coming from politicians who seek to reduce the role of government in the lives of citizens. Okay, I know such people actually mean they want government to get out of the way so businesses can grow and prosper. These days, however, businesses often seek growth not by hiring people, but by being more efficient, which means using fewer people, or outsourcing work to places where labor is cheaper. But I digress.
Back to the idea that government can create jobs. This reminds me of when my brother travelled to Norway in the 1980s as part of U.S. Army cold weather survival exercises with the Norwegian military. He and his squadron flew commercially, and had to change planes at London's Heathrow Airport. While there, he was amazed to see women standing at the bottom of escalators whose job was to stand in place and urge people to use caution when mounting the moving staircase.
Absurd, right? Even after a decade of Thatcherism (including, by then, privatization of British Airways), what my brother thought of as "the post World War II British welfare state" was still alive and kicking. However you feel about it, that's the result when government creates jobs.
So let's stop talking about government as if it can create jobs. We're giving it way more credit that it deserves. Businesses create jobs. And people create businesses. And government, ideally, has as much to do with the process as the referee in a hockey game.
• P.S. In reading new coverage about politics, I've noticed a verb that's suddenly being used everywhere. It's "to pivot," as in a candidate pivoting during a campaign. It's used like this, seen on www.politico.com last week: "The pivot to attacking Paul marks the first time Gingrich has launched an unprovoked broadside against another Republican candidate."
The implication, I guess, is that a candidate keeps his or her positions and efforts and overall operation intact, but now swings them in some new direction without the use of much additional energy or groundwork, rather like one of those machine guns mounted on the back of a pick-up truck often seen in ungoverned regions. Well, that's not the most encouraging illustration, but that's what comes to mind when I hear the word.
I suppose it's a useful expression, but I'm suspicious of any sudden increase in the use of any word or phrase in a new context. If it was that useful, it would have been out there more often all long, right? So to me, a sudden new buzzword smells of flavor-of-the-month intellectual laziness, a kind of mental shorthand that does not enhance our ability to communicate with precision. It's just one more brick in the wall of thoughtless thinking, another step on the road to the city where we don't have the ability to think for ourselves.
I hope civilization never pivots that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment