The Merit of Work
Back at the end of the Seventies, a vocal campaign was started to "Buy American." It was particularly aimed at Americans who were looking to get a new car. True blue patriots wouldn’t choose a "rice burner," as was the appellation for Japanese vehicles. They would support their country and American workers by getting a GM, Ford or Chrysler.
Of course patriotism is a grand concept, but it has its limits, and the obvious one then and now is buying American when the product is inferior. As regards Japanese cars, they had long been a joke when it came to quality, but that had all changed and by the time the commercial jingoism got strident it was the American cars that had a quality issue. A big one.
The problem was that buying cars made in this country meant that the Big Three would avoid dealing with their incompetence and dig themselves, and the nation, into an ever deeper hole. They sold badly-made cars to undiscerning Americans trying to do right by their country. The results was that the U.S. automakers got a free ride...off the edge of the cliff.
Aside from the automakers getting themselves into trouble, there have been other problems. One is out-sourcing of jobs overseas where the quality is perceived to be better, or at least the cost lower. Another is American companies bringing in foreign workers to replace Americans in mostly high-tech jobs. Leading producers are warning that America is not properly educating the next generation of scientists.
Back-backlash is heating up. Organizations are pushing Congress to force businesses to hire Americans. You’d think most American companies wouldn’t need either a carrot or a stick, at least when their fellow citizens were at least as competent as the competition.
Let us not, however, go toward affirmative action and hire less competent people. The costs of such would be enormous and long term. And that would be very unpatriotic, at best.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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