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.
True...very few people can write integrated circuits by hand. Few can write an operating system, much less the microcode they run on top of. I don't even know anyone that writes in assembly anymore...they used to be falling out of the Windows [sic].
Hmph. The fact is all this technological change simply reduces the amount of humans needed to do useful work...we don't need a human to do most stuff anymore. That's why we don't need more than the pittance of microcoders that exists.
Okay, maybe he doesn't take the high-altitude view of things. Let's look at something he should have known better than to say.
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.
My first thought was, "What ideas does the right have? You just admitted the got nothing."
Mr. Brooks can only be suggesting they graft Republican symbolism onto progressive ideas. That will be as recognizable as the DLC's grafting Democratic (not even liberal, mind you) symbolism onto Republican ideas...and should draw the same response: "Why vote for a fake Democrat?"
Doing that would also mean transcending economic policy categories. If there is one thing we have learned over the bitter experience of the past 30 years, it is that per-pupil expenditures and days in the classroom are not sufficient to produce superb information-economy workers. They emerge from intact families, quality neighborhoods and healthy moral cultures.
You going to make sure one person's salary can support the whole family? You going to provide all neighborhoods with respectful and effective policing regardless of the social capital of the inhabitants?
Will your politicians stop lying?
Finally, doing that would mean laying down lifelong policies. Human capital development is like nutrition — you have to do it every day.
You can't get the libertarian wing of your own party to do that.
Other than that, it's fine.
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