Persistence, ambition, and ability to cooperate and conform

It’s not hard to see why the Great Depression had such an enduring impact. It’s here that Jane Jacobs finds the seeds of consensus in this country to do all to avoid mass unemployment. She claims that during the 1960s, universities picked up the task of credentialing, rather than education

People with the task of selecting successful job applicants want them to have desirable qualities such as persistence, ambition, and ability to cooperate and conform, to be a “team player.” At a minimum, achieving a four-year university or college degree, no matter in what subject, seems to promise these traits. “Credentialing versus educating,” Dark Age Ahead (p44-45).

The university as a screening process - the institution a growth industry, the students buying a service they hope will help them in the job market - not so great, long term.

I love education. I went through two land grant universities. I studied next to plenty of students simply biding their time. The university was happy for their tuition payments.

I still learned plenty, and had access to amazing resources and professors. Yet, still, as my resume marches out there my credentials don’t look all that different. My young career holds little pudding in which to find proof.

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Jacobs records her own stories of the Great Depression that held much less import than the image of the bread line. She was in her late teens and early twenties. Struggles and frugality we great fodder for stories to share with friends. Those who saw their way of life change after so much investment in a business or career did not share her joy.

I’m trying to decide where I might fall. My career has barely begun. I’m not alone. Something significant is changing, even in my own field.

I have Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” on my mind as I’m finishing Kevin Baker’s article on “Barack Hoover Obama” in the July Harper’s. It’s a great lesson about the Great Depression, if nothing else. Let’s see if it makes for a good post tomorrow.