Workers Of The Real World

Jonathan Tasini
July 20, 2005

Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.

For the past 20 years, we’ve been barraged by a relentless mantra: Education is the magic bullet to survive in the global economy. Virtually every politician, armed with rhetoric from academics, tells American workers that, essentially, they are too dumb to make it in the “New Economy.” Save yourself, they exhort—go back to school. Prepare yourself—get an advanced degree. But this is utter nonsense.

Let’s talk about the real world. Today’s global economy is about one thing: labor costs. If a company can move to China to employ workers making 35 cents an hour—whoosh, they are gone from America. High-tech jobs have been moving offshore for years, first to places like Ireland, and now to India. The world is awash in highly skilled, highly educated and cheap workers.