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Investors.com...
The Notion Of
“Meaningful Work” Is A Disservice To Society
By Thomas Sowell
‘Education” is a word that covers a lot of very different things, from
vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses to absolutely
counterproductive courses that fill people with a sense of grievance
and entitlement, without giving them either the skills to earn a living
or a realistic understanding of the world required for a citizen in a
free society.
The lack of realism among many highly educated people has been
demonstrated in many ways.
When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors not to
get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a warning that no
illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have needed.
No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge animal that
literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30 miles an hour.
No one would have had to tell that illiterate farmer’s daughter not to
stand by the side of a highway, trying to hitch a ride with strangers,
as too many college girls have done, sometimes with results that ranged
all the way up to their death.
The dangers that a lack of realism can bring to many educated people
are completely overshadowed by the dangers to a whole society created
by the unrealistic views of the world promoted in many educational
institutions.
It was painful, for example, to see an internationally renowned scholar
say that what low-income young people needed was “meaningful work.”
But this is a notion common among educated elites, regardless of how
counterproductive its consequences may be for society at large, and for
low-income youngsters especially.
What is “meaningful work”?
The underlying notion seems to be that it is work whose performance is
satisfying or enjoyable in itself.
But if that is the only kind of work that people should have to do, how
is garbage to be collected, bed pans emptied in hospitals or jobs with
life-threatening dangers to be performed?
Does anyone imagine that firemen enjoy going into burning homes and
buildings to rescue people trapped by the flames? That soldiers going
into combat think it is fun?
In the real world, many things are done simply because they have to be
done, not because doing them brings immediate pleasure to those who do
them.
Some people take justifiable pride in working to take care of their
families, whether or not the work itself is great.
Some of our more Utopian intellectuals lament that many people work
“just for the money.”
They do not like a society where A produces what B wants, simply in
order that B will produce what A wants, with money being an
intermediary device facilitating such exchanges.
Some would apparently prefer a society where all-wise elites would
decide what each of us “needs” or “deserves.”
The actual history of societies formed on that principle — histories
often stained, or even drenched, in blood — is of little interest to
those who mistake wishful thinking for idealism.
At the very least, many intellectuals do not want the poor or the young
to have to take “menial” jobs.
But people who are paying their own money, as distinguished from the
taxpayers’ money, for someone to do a job are unlikely to part with
hard cash unless that job actually needs doing, whether or not that job
is called “menial” by others.
People who lack the skills to take on more prestigious jobs can either
remain idle and live as parasites on others or take the jobs for which
they are currently qualified, and then move up the ladder as they
acquire more experience.
People who are flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s on New Year’s Day are
seldom flipping hamburgers there when Christmas time comes.
Those relatively few statistics that follow actual flesh-and-blood
individuals over time show them moving massively from one income
bracket to another over time, starting at the bottom and moving up as
they acquire skills and experience.
Telling young people that some jobs are “menial” is a huge disservice
to them and to the whole society.
Subsidizing them in idleness while they wait for “meaningful work” is
just asking for trouble, both for them and for all those around them.
Read this and other articles at Investors.com
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