The Fallacy of Composition is not limited to economics, unfortunately. Examples are all around us, if we are alert enough to see them. Building one's house on beautiful pristine coastline is wonderful...unless too many do so, which ruins its beauty for all, even for those who just stop by to see it. Overbuilding is also a disaster to any area's indigenous wildlife, as the many groups attempting to save endangered species could attest. That high population density evokes aggressive behavior is no longer in doubt; many psychological studies have confirmed it. Who's running our urban planning departments? Are we completely nuts? Why is it that with so many needing affordable housing, developers much prefer to continue to build expensive homes? In a word, MONEY. There is much more profit in selling an expensive home than an economical one, for all involved... except, of course, for the buyer. The buyer thereby shackles himself or herself to "the system", dramatically increasing the strength of the chains binding him or her as an economic slave, bound by debt. The problem is exacerbated by another manifestation of The Fallacy: that we as individuals attempt to rise above our neighbors, socially and economically, and owning a NEW and expensive house will help us do this. Its a plain fact that not everyone can rise above everyone else (obvious), and the vain attempt to do so is extremely costly in terms of money, social well-being, our shared environment and ecology. Worse, the underlying values of this mindset are likely to be passed from generation to generation. By the way, this desire to sell you more than you want to pay for is by no means limited to housing. Detroit, for quite a few years, dragged its heals in bringing out "compact" automobiles, in the face of public desires for them, as expressed in the explosive growth of imported, smaller and less expensive cars of a few years back. USA manufacturers did all they could to avoid having to produce them, including having the government impose duties on imported cars. The reason was the same as the reason developers prefer to build expensive homes... profits. Domestic auto makers and politicians rephrase this to "jobs", but don't kid yourself. How long do you think you will hold your job, if your employer finds a less expensive way to get the work done? Hint: look across the Mexican border (or to India, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, or ...) Getting the picture? Sawtooth does not throw the blame on industry: it MUST do this to remain viable in the Global Economy. But something is dramatically wrong!
Another example of The Fallacy: A good education (note: I am not referring to vocational training, which I support) will ensure good employment. Nonsense! If Sawtooth were to go out and get some advanced degrees, surely *he* would have a better chance of finding a good job. BUT... this is true only because most others will not have such degrees. If all of us go out and get four years more schooling, this will not produce a single additional job, only a higher standard to meet to get the same jobs that were there before! Our emphasis on education as the "magic bullet" out of our socio-economic problems doesn't work, won't work, and can't work. My grandmother taught high-school all her working life. Her educational background? She graduated from high school, thats all. The fact of the matter is that getting ahead is very largely a demographic, not educational, issue. Please examine census data on the age distribution of the population. You will find a large "bulge" of persons born during the immediate post-World War II era, and a second bulge, when their children raised their own families. In the Fifties and Sixties, it was very easy to "climb the corporate ladder" (at least for men, sorry ladies, the women's movement in the jobplace was still embryonic at that time). Why? There were very few (men) around of sufficient experience to take over responsible positions. To be "of the right age", one had to have been born during the Great Depression or during WW II, and there were not many of those around. The "Baby Boom" generation simply had no such abundance of opportunity. There were and are too many of them for the number of positions available. Corporate mergers and acquisitions take a heavy toll on upper eschelon positions as well: the current trend toward consolidation has reduced the overall number of top positions, and this trend shows no sign of ending. If we need more and better employment opportunities, we need more and smaller companies. Education high enough to carry out the duties of such positions is needed of course (its preferable that our managers be able to read, write, do arithmetic, and maybe have some social skills and compassion too), but as a solution, education is NOT the answer!
More to come...