A World In Flux

Last week I experienced something that rarely happens. I received several emails from different people that all contained the same URL. It pointed to an alarmist article about the number of manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the U.S. since the year 2000. And in one of the emails a friend asked, how will the U.S. maintain its national sovereignty if it doesn’t manufacture anything. Now I realize that there are many who will violently disagree with what I am about to say, but I feel it must be said anyway.

First of all, nations are an illusion created for the purpose of making it easier to herd people. Why are they an illusion? Because they are based on mythology, and a key part of this mythology is the illusion of independence.

We live in a world and a universe based on interconnections and interdependency. How then can any nation be independent? As to the myth of national sovereignty, disease and weather are just two examples of significant phenomena that have no respect for the imaginary lines called borders.

When Lech Walesa was asked by a reporter what toppled the Communist government in Poland he did not say a word. Instead, he pointed to a corner of the room. In that corner was a TV. He then explained that when the people of his Solidarity movement saw that their struggle was being broadcast around the world, they knew they would be victorious. Television and radio signals have no respect for petty attempts to separate the human family.

Not even North Korea, one of the most reclusive societies in the world, can control its designated national boundaries. If it could, there would not be of a quarter of a million North Koreans living illegally in China. And it is well known that for centuries there have been people in many societies who have engaged in activities that proved so called borders were not even an inconvenience.

It is obvious that at the center of all this alarmism is the fact that change is hard for most people to deal with. And this is especially true when a myth dies, because myths die hard.

The people of the U.S.S.R. woke up one day to the sobering reality that all the promises that had been made by the Communist party would never be fulfilled. The Chinese used to talk about the "iron rice bowl"; the promise that the government would make sure that they were taken care of no matter how little they worked. The bowl has been snatched away from them. The Japanese have seen their hallowed promise of lifetime employment shattered into a million pieces through downsizing at some companies and the complete collapse of others. And so it goes.

U.S. Steel used to be the largest steel producer. Then it was Nippon Steel (Japan). Then the experts thought Pohang Steel (South Korea) would be next. They were wrong. Out of nowhere came Mittal steel which basically belongs to no country because its operations are so global in nature. And what company will be next at the top of the world of steel? Who knows? In fact, a true student of change might ask if there will be a steel industry at all ten, fifteen or twenty years from now.

As to the matter of jobs, the U.S. is awash in them. However, there are no longer as many jobs around that pay well without formal schooling as there used to be. Forty years ago it was possible for a man who had never finished elementary school to go into the steel industry and find a job that would feed his family, buy a house, send his kids to college and provide a pension. Today, they won't even consider anyone without a high school diploma. And if you spent most of your high school days cutting class or taking easy, non-essential courses, you won't be able to keep a job long and other jobs will be beyond your reach.

At this moment, many jobs are going begging. There are reports of a shortage of mining engineers because young people will not go into this field, leading many colleges to shut down their programs. There are thousands of pharmacist jobs which remain unfilled. There have never been enough nurses and now many of the Baby Boom generation nurses are retiring making the shortage worse. And the same situation is happening in the teaching profession.

In light of what has happened in just the past few decades, we should all be suspicious of any individual or organization that promises us a guarantee of a smooth, comfortable, predictable path to the future. Not because they do not have the best of intentions, but because the ability of humans to predict the future is so limited.

Like it or not, we all have to learn to live in a world where there will be change, change and more change. Where interdependence is acknowledged and where we learn to listen to the better angels of our nature instead of the selfish inner voice that tells us life and economics are zero sum games. It will not be easy. But it will offer us the best chance to build the best future and a better world.