Smart Guy

Robert Reich talks about labor and economics at Freakonomics. My favorite bits:

Q: Overwork was one of the central themes of your 2001 book, The Future of Success. I wonder if you could comment on the extent to which economists have contributed to overwork by misinformed policy prescriptions?

A: Economists tend to believe that economic efficiency and economic growth are the two most important values. Therefore, any policies that reduce the incentive to work hard are suspect. (Economists worry, for example, that a higher Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers may discourage them from working harder, since wage increases would lead to correspondingly larger declines in the E.I.T.C. wage subsidy.)

This strikes me as wrong-headed. The economy exists to make our lives better; we do not exist to make the economy better.

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Q: As an educator, what skills/courses do you recommend to your students to ensure their job security? What if you’re too old to be an auto mechanic, but loathe the thought of getting an M.B.A.?

A: I tell my students there’s no job security in the economy they’re entering, but if they want employability security — a good chance of maintaining a fairly good paycheck — they need to master a domain of knowledge during their undergraduate years adequately enough to enable them to continue to learn on and off the job from then onward. The old domain will become obsolete, but their learning skills won’t.

Auto mechanics, for example, can become automotive technicians who install, fix, and upgrade all the electronics that now comprise a significant part of the modern automobile.

But don’t get an M.B.A.! We have too many M.B.A.’s as it is, and they’re killing the economy!