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The points the article raises are completely moot. >Meanwhile, traditionally upper-middle class professions such as law, medicine and academia are threatened b

The points the article raises are completely moot. >Meanwhile, traditionally upper-middle class professions such as law, medicine and academia are threatened by automation, precarisation and increased competition in globalised labour markets. Apart from this being the entire point of globalization, the attitude that an academic degree alone is a guarantee to a good income is one of insane privilege and entitlement. This is a take from someone that doesn't like that his humanities degree is worthless in a globalized Meritocracy. The New Zurich Newspaper had a very sobering article on how academia is loosing it's last edge, that of gatekeeping higher paid jobs in a globalized economy. A degree used to be an effective showstopper for upwards mobility, because not many could afford one. This might be europe specific, but conditions for undergrads from the middle class were abhorrent up until the mid 80s here in europe. The truth is that I don't need an electrical engineer or a compsci graduate from some no name university to obtain someone with a specialized skill, if some kid from Shenzen can do it for a fraction of the price. That's overstating it, but the comparison holds imo. > The children of high earners will increasingly see their position depend on, as Maren Toft and Sam Friedman put it, the “bank of mum and dad”, and on what they inherit, rather than only on their professional status. Because of the environment created by their parent generation. They're the ones pushing for ever more "professionalization" your honor! Where my parent's could have gone into the field I want to get into without a degree at my age, I have to graduate in order to attain any respect.

nerdchum 3y ago
Theres a billion kids from Shenzen though. They could literally do all the work in America. Then theres 1.5 billion people in India on top of that. Meanwhile, Western countries birth rates are declining. I dont know what the solution is but this is the argument for the destruction of western civilization. And maybe that would make a lot of people happy but I would not want to live in a world without things/ideas that Western civilization has created.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Theres a billion kids from Shenzen though Shenzen =/= all of China
- cvwright 3y ago
  It’s like the book “Why Nations Fail”. The elites wind up wrecking things as soon as they can consolidate all the power. They (stupidly) would rather have all of a small, shrinking pie, rather than sticking with a smaller slice of a much, much larger pie. Even if they themselves would have been better off taking the smaller proportion.
- kmos17 3y ago
  China has the same issue if not worse, they are also very fast heading to a be a nation of majority senior citizens. Meanwhile the US has one thing saving it, immigration, to keep it’s demographic pie more in balance.
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    Immigration to replace the native population who originally made the country desirable to immigrate to. I don't know if that's the win you think it is.
pydry 3y ago
>The points the article raises are completely moot. >Apart from this being the entire point of globalization >The truth is that I don't need an electrical engineer or a compsci graduate from some no name university to obtain someone with a specialized skill, if some kid from Shenzen can do it for a fraction of the price. That's overstating it, but the comparison holds imo. This is a rather old fashioned attitude. The United States has been furiously decoupling from China ever since Trump and that process has only accelerated since. Russia has successfully decoupled from the entire western world. Mexico just became a larger trade partner for the US than China. We aren't globalizing, we are de-globalizing. The jobs that fled to China will come back. The idea that they'll be returned to a robot is nothing more than investor copium - an uneducated presumption from people who have little to no understanding of what actually goes on in a Shenzhen factory.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  TIL that attitudes from 2016 are “old-fashioned”.
- awesomeMilou 3y ago
  This isn't just about China, the Shenzen example was exaggerated. What I meant was: Where I live I'm there's an insane dissonance where companies are on the one hand trying to only hire academics for jobs that they think require an academic skill, yet happily pay Hays/Accenture/$TEMP_AGENCY to procure workers for them when those academics can't be found or don't perform. They're not willing to give me a permanent job with competitive pay because of my lack of degree, but are happy to pay Hays 70-100€/h so they get me as a temp.. doing the exact same shit, pretty much in perpetuance. In addition, Startups hire you as long as you have experience. We will see more of this in areas that don't require specific certifications. >Russia has successfully decoupled from the entire western world. Lol ask the Russian gov on where they plan on procuring chips after the war. Same for China. You need to be US allied to be allowed top notch silicon. In China this drives innovation at least, but Russia still hasn't been able to mass produce competitive silicon. Modern manufacturing processes are driven by automation, give it a decade and their industry will be lagging behind by a margin that's impossible to catch up.
lapcat 3y ago
> Apart from this being the entire point of globalization, the attitude that an academic degree alone is a guarantee to a good income is one of insane privilege and entitlement. This is a take from someone that doesn't like that his humanities degree is worthless in a globalized Meritocracy. I think you completely missed the point that the authors were trying to make, which is that being in the top 10% of earners isn't as "secure" as you might think, you could easily fall out of that position, and almost everyone would benefit from a strong social safety net. This is as true in China as it is in the UK or the US.

nerdchum 3y ago

Theres a billion kids from Shenzen though. They could literally do all the work in America. Then theres 1.5 billion people in India on top of that. Meanwhile, Western countries birth rates are declining. I dont know what the solution is but this is the argument for the destruction of western civilization. And maybe that would make a lot of people happy but I would not want to live in a world without things/ideas that Western civilization has created.

gruez 3y ago
>Theres a billion kids from Shenzen though Shenzen =/= all of China
cvwright 3y ago
It’s like the book “Why Nations Fail”. The elites wind up wrecking things as soon as they can consolidate all the power. They (stupidly) would rather have all of a small, shrinking pie, rather than sticking with a smaller slice of a much, much larger pie. Even if they themselves would have been better off taking the smaller proportion.
kmos17 3y ago
China has the same issue if not worse, they are also very fast heading to a be a nation of majority senior citizens. Meanwhile the US has one thing saving it, immigration, to keep it’s demographic pie more in balance.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  Immigration to replace the native population who originally made the country desirable to immigrate to. I don't know if that's the win you think it is.

pydry 3y ago

>The points the article raises are completely moot. >Apart from this being the entire point of globalization >The truth is that I don't need an electrical engineer or a compsci graduate from some no name university to obtain someone with a specialized skill, if some kid from Shenzen can do it for a fraction of the price. That's overstating it, but the comparison holds imo. This is a rather old fashioned attitude. The United States has been furiously decoupling from China ever since Trump and that process has only accelerated since. Russia has successfully decoupled from the entire western world. Mexico just became a larger trade partner for the US than China. We aren't globalizing, we are de-globalizing. The jobs that fled to China will come back. The idea that they'll be returned to a robot is nothing more than investor copium - an uneducated presumption from people who have little to no understanding of what actually goes on in a Shenzhen factory.

sokoloff 3y ago
TIL that attitudes from 2016 are “old-fashioned”.
awesomeMilou 3y ago
This isn't just about China, the Shenzen example was exaggerated. What I meant was: Where I live I'm there's an insane dissonance where companies are on the one hand trying to only hire academics for jobs that they think require an academic skill, yet happily pay Hays/Accenture/$TEMP_AGENCY to procure workers for them when those academics can't be found or don't perform. They're not willing to give me a permanent job with competitive pay because of my lack of degree, but are happy to pay Hays 70-100€/h so they get me as a temp.. doing the exact same shit, pretty much in perpetuance. In addition, Startups hire you as long as you have experience. We will see more of this in areas that don't require specific certifications. >Russia has successfully decoupled from the entire western world. Lol ask the Russian gov on where they plan on procuring chips after the war. Same for China. You need to be US allied to be allowed top notch silicon. In China this drives innovation at least, but Russia still hasn't been able to mass produce competitive silicon. Modern manufacturing processes are driven by automation, give it a decade and their industry will be lagging behind by a margin that's impossible to catch up.

lapcat 3y ago

> Apart from this being the entire point of globalization, the attitude that an academic degree alone is a guarantee to a good income is one of insane privilege and entitlement. This is a take from someone that doesn't like that his humanities degree is worthless in a globalized Meritocracy. I think you completely missed the point that the authors were trying to make, which is that being in the top 10% of earners isn't as "secure" as you might think, you could easily fall out of that position, and almost everyone would benefit from a strong social safety net. This is as true in China as it is in the UK or the US.