David Brooks gets it:
[A] quality work force was the single biggest reason the U.S. emerged as the economic superpower of the 20th century. Generation after generation, American workers were better educated, more industrious and more innovative than the ones that came before.
That progress stopped about 30 years ago. The percentage of young Americans completing college has been stagnant for a generation. As well-educated boomers retire over the next decades, the quality of the American work force is likely to decline…
If I were advising the Republican nominee, this is one of the places I’d ask him to plant his flag. I’d ask him to call for a new human capital revolution, so that the U.S. could recapture the spirit of reforms like the Morrill Act of the 19th century, the high school movement of the early 20th century and the G.I. Bill after World War II.
Doing that would mean taking on the populists of the left and right, the ones who imagine the problem is globalization and unfair trade when in fact the real problem is that the talents of American workers are not keeping up with technological change.
Doing that would also mean stealing ideas from both the left and right. Liberals have spent more time thinking about human capital than conservatives, who have tended to imagine that if you build a free market, a quality labor force would magically appear.
Yes. As I wrote in a prior essay, the United States has the ability to take advantage of globalization and allow the irreversible process to benefit America in addition to the rest of the world. But doing so will require the United States to change its subpar educational system, its unprepared workforce, and its shaky finances.
This is one of the reasons that I support Barack Obama for U.S. president. Big changes require visionary leaders who can unite a country and inspire it to make drastic reforms. I cannot see this occuring in a divisive presidency under Hillary Clinton, and I’m not sure that John McCain understands the immense changes that need to occur for the United States to remain viable in a globalized world.
Most importantly, the United States will need a president who will blunt, honest and direct with the American people. The next several years will be scary because change is inherently unstable and rarely comforting. But Obama will have the ability to assure and inspire.
