From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: US Empire (was: The British Lost!)
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:06:30 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.185139.16208@sdd.hp.com> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:
>fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Apr07.005316.19442@sdd.hp.com> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:
>
>>One is forced to wonder how an uneducated workforce could produce something
>>like the "smartest bombs I ever seen". On might also wonder why the US is
>>still considered to have the finest university system in the world.

>High tech is dependant on scientists and engineers. The people who actually
>build the items are all trained in-house. I didn't sat they were stupid,
>just ignorant. The US university system is the best in the world. 

Yet it must surely suffer from all these ignorant high school graduates
enrolled in its various curricula.

>Unfortunately, too many of the high-quality graduates have been sucked
>into the unproductive world of DoD R&D, draining the commercial sector.

And the people who build the roads, buildings, etc, that feed into these
companies (infrastructure), the people who raise the food, who man the
factories that build the parts, and so on, are they too beneficiaries of the 
"in-house" training that the defense department gives? And as for saying the 
people who build the items are ignorant, why are they more so than their 
foreign counterparts, especially the Germans who, as you point out later, are
given extensive training by their companies?

>>>partnership between capital and labor. In the case of Germany this dates 
>>>back to Bismarck, and was one of the primary reasons for her commercial
>>>advantage over Britain fin-de-siecle. Britains educational system was 
>>>clearly inferior to Germany's, making it very hard for GB to compete. The
>>>US analogy extends into this area as well.

As an aside, why is the US then, the world's largest and most diverse economy
and its largest exporter.

>>One merely has to look at the number of British Nobel prize winners to see
>>its "inferiority". BTW, the Japanese educational system was adopted from the
>>"inferior" British model.
>
>The image that comes to mind here is of a monarch wearing a glittering crown,
>jewels well polished, and a moth eaten ermine. Sure, Oxford and Cambridge
>are world class universities. The education they provide is superb. The 
>problem is at a more fundemental level, at primary and secondary schools,
>and in the class structure which restricts the options for students who
>lack the proper accent. British technical firms are crying out for competant

In many respects, this is the Japanese situation. A rigorous junior and 
senior high school program selects a group of students who are good at cram
memorization, but who forget things very quickly (ie, once the entrance
exams are over). Consider the crown jewel to be the high literacy rate and the
cape to be the lack of any other real impact of that education (try carrying
on a conversatoin, in English, with any Japanese high school graduate: after
their six years of intensive study of English, you will still find the
conversation a trifle one-sided).

>The same is true in the US. A minute fraction of High School graduates here
>have studied calculus or statistics. In Japan our competitors can hire 
>line workers who understand the fundemental mathematical principles behind
>a control chart. We have to teach our workers, which costs money and time.

A curious statement, considering that Japanese companies typically spend
MORE time teaching new employees the ropes of a job, not less. And I assure
you, if teaching is costly here, it is doubly so in Japan.

>Plus, US workers have never picked up a learning culture. They don't feel
>like it is their responsibility to incorporate new concepts into their
>Weltanschaung in order to improve their employers' competitive position,

Again, anything more than a cursory look at the Japanese situation will 
show that "the workers" have less incentive to take an iniciative than
their American counterparts. BTW, why is it that every study done on these
matters (including those done by the JAPANESE) show that Japanese workers
are LESS productive than their European counterparts, and far less so than
their American counterparts? 

I would suggest more than a cursory look at Japan before extolling its virtues.
Japanese companies spend time training their employees to do exactly the job
they were hired to do. Even in the case of white-collar jobs, the coveted 
graduates can expect to spend one or two years doing nothing more than 
"learning" about the company, curious in light of the fact that they have
supposedly "learned" so much more than the ignorant Americans, who are
expected to step in and be productive almost immediately.

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - These opiini^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w  :q  :wq  :wq! ^d  X ^?
exit X Q  ^C ^? :quitbye  CtrlAltDel   ~~q  :~q  logout  save/quit :!QUIT
^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H  man vi ^@  ^L  ^[c  ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help  helpquit ^D  ^d 
man help ^C ^c help exit ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel "Hey, what does this button d..."