“Hey, you’re really trying to be accurate. Is it getting hot in here? Wait a minute! What’s happening to my special purpose?” – The Jerk
You could say a generalization made by a farmer is an overall statement.
The economy has been really stable for a long, long time. Certainly, there have been dips here and there, but for the most part, we have seen amazing amounts of . . . stable. Even the Great Recession (after a liberal application of amazing amounts of money) was made as smooth as leather – I’ll never be suede in that.
In many ways, the solution for the economy for the last twenty years has been exactly what a college freshman would ask at a party at 2 AM: “Dude, I’ve got a $20. Can we get more beer?” The Fed® has a fake I.D. and decided to add more money. Keep the party going.
Of course, everyone loves a party. And everyone loves stability.
But what does stability bring?
Specialization.
In a stable environment, every ecological niche gets filled with very specialized variations. Look at the Arctic. It may be cold, but it’s stable because the climate varies only a little. There are very specialized variations of bears and foxes and birds that exploit the ecosystem. Likewise, the equator with its constant miserable heat produces the same thing: amazing amounts of specialization including a zillion things in the Amazon jungle that will kill you just for a picture that they can post of Facebook®. The anteater comes to mind: a creature so specialized that it eats only ants and has a tongue specialized just for that.
Anteaters can’t catch COVID. They’re filled with anty-bodies.
In the economy, this flourishes as credentialization©. Microsoft® doesn’t recognize that word, so I put a little © next to it so now I own it. Ha! Take that! I’d make a “Bill Gates is getting divorced joke” here, but he’s had a hard enough time already. I’ve already been rejecting his updates since 2017.
We live, however, in an economy built on amazing levels of specialization. How does one prove their ability to work? A credential. The number of credentials has flourished, even in my lifetime. There was even one where all I had to do to get the credential was apply for it, as it was brand new.
I didn’t apply. I still look upon that particular credential with disdain – as Groucho noted, why would I want to be in a club that would accept me as a member? This particular credential is entirely built upon the idea that if I know a specific set of terms that they agree on, I can put a few letters after my name.
Pfffft. Nope. Though I did speak at one of their meetings for a few beers. I may have standards, but they’re low.
Let’s get in a time machine so we can have some fun.
If I wanted to be a doctor in 1821, how did I do that? I called myself one. If my patients lived, I’d get more of them. If they died? I’d have to move to another town and give bad advice there. Or run for Congress.
I might not save patients, but I’d be a popular doctor.
One of my personal heroes is Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Why?
Isambard built stuff and set the stage for the entire twentieth century. What kind of stuff? Docks. Boats. Railroads. Bridges. The first transatlantic steamship. The first tunnel under a real river. He even built a hospital that was prefabricated and shipped to the Crimea for all of those Light Brigade guys that rode half a league, half a league onward.
One ship he built, the Great Eastern, could travel from London to Sydney, Australia (it’s somewhere south of Kentucky) and back. Without refueling. The second Transatlantic Cable, the one that worked? It was put down with one of Brunel’s ships.
Did Isambard Kingdom Brunel have to take a test to prove he was an engineer? No.
If there is a mountain worthy of the name mountain, it’s Everest. If there is a man who is worthy of the name engineer, it’s Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Credentials? Isambard don’t need no stinking credentials.
His work speaks for itself.
What do engineers use as birth control? Personality.
But now we live in a credentialed world. Landscape architect? You have to take a test to call yourself that. Trim nails and put polish on them? In many places, you have to have a credential for that. Cut hair? Yup. Have to pass a barber test in many places.
But nails and hair grow back. If you have bad landscaping, there’s no worry because chainsaws are a thing that exists.
The number of jobs you can’t do without formal credentials keeps expanding. Do some make sense? Well, probably. But I’d suggest that 90% of credentials that exist do so only to prevent competition. Need a teaching certificate to teach children?
Why? I can’t think of a single reason other than to eliminate competition. Laura Ingalls Wilder (from whom I stole the Wilder moniker) graduate grade eight and then . . . was a teacher.
The sea of credentials that we find ourselves surrounded by is also an attempt to avoid liability. In an attempt to avoid responsibility, lawyers and lawsuits require more and more credentials in jobs where credentials are mostly meaningless. Oh, and the lawyers were some of the first to pull the ladder up. Let’s be real: 90% of being a lawyer is reading comprehension.
That’s what comes when you live in a stable economy. Specialization increases, even to ludicrous levels. People have jobs where they are so remote from any activity that produces actual value that they don’t even know what their company does that produces value. HR, I’m looking at you. Oh, wait, there are at least 12 types of credentials that you can get for HR.
See?
Oh, and I’ve probably made 99% of my readers mad at this point.
But what happens in an unstable economy? The real winner is the generalist. I’ll turn to a Robert Anson Heinlein quote I’ve used before:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
See, I come screaming out with all of the new themes. This one is sooooo fresh.
I’ve done almost every one of the things that Heinlein talks about. I’m hoping to save the “die gallantly” until it’s useful, since it seems it would be wasted if I were to use it in negotiating with DirecTV® over my monthly bill.
In a stable economy, specialization (and the dreaded credentialization©) is valued. In an economy where things are unstable?
Generalization wins.
The Mrs. bought me a suture practice kit for Christmas. I was thrilled. It had a scalpel, needle, and thread. I can now sew up a wound in plastic. I would not try to sew up a wound unless you were going to die if I didn’t give it a go. That’s the definition of unstable.
I’ve taken first aid courses throughout the country. The second best one was in Alaska. They spent time teaching skills. In the lower 48, most of it was, “dial 911 and keep the patient comfortable until the EMTs arrive.” So, my job, when a human life was on the line? Make a phone call.
This is Specialization at its peak.
Understand, as long as the economy persists in being stable, specialization will increase.
But when Winter hits?
Or was that generalizations about broads?
Generalization wins.
Personally, I am not very good at supporting increased specialization.
We’re humans.
We can do more. And if the economy goes where I think it will?
We will need to do more.
