“What role do you see for uneducated, undisciplined people in such a manufacturing economy?”
One need look no further than the crap quality of the cars being built in Detroit in the 70’s and 80’s. I suspect the work force at that time was better educated and disciplined, what an unmitigated disaster it would be now.
Twenty years ago I saw gibsmedats at state college; they are simply moving funds from one agency to another. They often don’t have an eighth-grade education (we’ve had social promotion here in NJ for decades), and after wasting a couple of semesters in remedial classes (to bring affirmative action tokens up to their white peers’ high school level - they get no college credit for them) they simply drop out.
People looking for instant gratification aren’t going to invest four years of their time (and our money) in anything; they wouldn’t even do it for a week-long job training session. Our permanent underclass (not the newly-poor unemployed) have no role in the workplace; they haven’t “fit” in decades. They truly have no aspirations beyond breeding a bastard for the freebies.
“One need look no further than the crap quality of the cars being built in Detroit in the 70’s and 80’s. I suspect the work force at that time was better educated and disciplined, what an unmitigated disaster it would be now.”
No matter how hard the factory workers work and how carefully they assemble products, they can’t magically make a bad design “good”. I think there is plenty of blame to go around from the management down. Note the recent feeble attempt in GM leaking that the ignition switches involved in recent recalls were made in China. GM engineers designed them. GM QC people accepted them.