Tom Junod, at Esquire‘s Politics Blog, picks on “Tom Friedman and the Fattening of the American Center“:
… So why is the idea of the center so seductive, when the actuality of the center is so negligible? Well, it’s simple: There is status in the center. There is the opportunity to look down at people of both political extremes, while having one’s own smarts — one’s own reasonability, which has become the calling card of the new center — affirmed. Friedman, in particular, makes use of class insecurities to make his sale; he is a skilled politician, in that he knows how to make people feel better about themselves, and he is at the same time a skilled motivational speaker, in that he knows how to make them feel worse… which is to say that he knows how to make them worry about China. […] __
But then, that’s one of the attractions of attending a Friedman lecture. It’s
not that he reads from his books, so that you don’t have to; it’s that he doesn’t read from his books, because his books aren’t meant to be read. I was going to say that the books are lectures, rather than books, but that’s not quite right; they’re PowerPoint presentations, rather than lectures. Their arguments are numbered and bullet-pointed, in the manner of the instructions and exhortations typically found in books about how to respond to one’s cheese being moved or how to avoid eating too much of it. Friedman’s book even sounds like a diet book; tinker with the pronoun, and That Used to Be Us becomes That Used to Be Me, and can be used to sell grapefruit, tomato juice, and colonic irrigation. It’s billed as an optimistic book about national renewal — and it’s supposed to be pretty good — but really it’s a diet book for the national soul, and, as in all such books, it’s underlying message is that we had better worry about getting fat.
__
“When I got out of college, I was able to find a job,” Friedman said in his lecture. “Now I’d have to invent one.” That was his “optimistic” message: that what he calls the “flattening” of the world due to globalization means that nothing is safe, that everything is in play, and that no one can be comfortable with where they are or what they’ve got. We can’t just go to to work anymore; we have to be able to create our work. He repeated this bromide, pretty much word for word, in his column on Sunday: a promise of economic slavery, done up in the trappings of personal — or technological — freedom, to the point where he actually seems to be rooting for the robot. Now, this message should have sent audiences and readers rushing to join their nearest labor union; Friedman is guaranteeing roughly 80 percent unemployment, after all. But labor unions aren’t part of the American center that Friedman and his ilk are promoting; they’re part of the past, and they’re beholden to party as much as party is beholden to them. No, the American center that Friedman conjures likes to think that it is self-sufficient, intellectually and otherwise, and so the people who listen to his lectures and read his columns like to think that they’ll be the ones who will be able to invent their jobs. They don’t like to think of themselves as the working stiffs who will inevitably get left behind — as the fatties whom Friedman’s fad diet is really addressing.
In that column, Friedman quotes the owner of Freelancer.com: “Barrie says he describes this rising global army of freelancers the way he describes his own team: ‘They all have Ph.D.’s. They are poor, hungry and driven: P.H.D.’” And yet the prevalence of well-educated, debt-burdened people at Occupy Wall Street is treated as a marvel or an anomaly by the media courtiers…
Baud
I just don’t get why the unemployed just don’t write books like Friedman does. Problem solved.
Svensker
Between this guy and Pierce…I should start reading Esquire again.
NobodySpecial
@Baud: Don’t forget the billionaire trophy wife. Everyone should have one like Friedman, right?
Big Baby DougJ
That’s a smart piece by Junod. I think I may add him and Pierce to my RSS reader.
Villago Delenda Est
@NobodySpecial:
Not sure the trophy wife is still a billionaire. The family (who own a bunch of malls) took a real bath in the real estate collapse, and on the commercial side, it is by no means over.
Still, Friedman’s absolute blindness to the advantages he has that he so blithely imagines that anyone else should be able to parlay into a six to eight figure income makes him, along with just about everyone else on the NYT OpEd roster, imminently tumbrel worthy.
marginalized for stating documented facts
What is wrong with this picture?
People are supposed to have to continually reinvent themselves in order to find work, they’re supposed to have to spend more and more time in college, more and more time re-learning new skills as they go through an estimated 3 different careers in their lifetime, they’re supposed to have more and more advanced degrees: once upon a time, merely a 4-year college degree, then a masters, then a doctorate, now a doctorate plus an MBA plus postdoc work, but that’s still not enough, because now they also need to intern in the narrow specialty they want to work in before they can even hope to get a job…
This is insane bullshit.
Let’s get back to reality, people. Out here on planet earth, only 27% of Americans ever get a 4-year college degree. Only 5% of Americans ever get an advanced degree (MBA, masters, PhD, medical degree, etc.).
When I walk down the street, I don’t see a bunch of signs advertising businesses run by people with PhDs and MBAs and postdocs. I see signs like NAIL SALON and HOUSE PAINTING and PLUMBER.
How the fuck much education and re-training and flexibility and “global agility” does it take to paint somebody’s fuckin’ nails, people?
How the fuck much advanced education and internship does it take to unclog somebody’s pipes?
How much goddamn unique agile-business intellectual mobility does it take to paint a fuckin’ house?
Friedman is either drunk or brain-damaged or on hard drugs.
All the available evidence converges on the overwhelming conclusion that America currently produces far too many highly educated people.
Source: “The Great College Degree Scam,” Richard Vedder, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 September 2010.
eemom
OMG.
Why did it have to be “fattening”?
Villago Delenda Est
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
I think that one of the absolutely huge problems is that there is a tremendous amount of “economic activity” that has nothing at all with producing actual wealth. That meets basic human needs. The entire advertising industry, for example, does nothing at all productive in any way but persuade people to buy shit that has nothing to do with sustaining human life.
arguingwithsignposts
@Villago Delenda Est:
There are not enough human needs to employ the entire US working aged population at the level most people are comfortable at. I agree, that’s a huge problem.
Jenny
I’m offended by all the discrimination and bigotry against mustaches.
Scott P.
I think history demonstrates that humans have an infinite to generate new “needs” as time goes on.
The issue is not productivity growth (productivity grew faster from 1945-1970 than from 1970-2011), although productivity growth is probably too low. The issue is not free trade. The issue is an economic policy that is skewed towards the wealthy and which does not benefit the lower and middle classes.
El Cid
@marginalized for stating documented facts: People like Friedman don’t give a shit about reality; in a beloved, privileged world, what exists is analogy.
It turns out that when it comes to having a job, it’s never about an economy; it’s all about you.
But when it comes to investments and trade and Friedmanite love for ‘national greatness,’ well, then, oddly enough, an economy matters.
And whether or not Friedman’s still a billionaire, he’s doing pretty alright, and he wouldn’t need his billionaire wife in order to be one of the favored griots of the actual dominant upper classes.
El Cid
@Jenny: Wait until the next census shows the increased electoral impact of Mustache-Americans. Then they won’t be laughing at the crumbs in our facial hair.
marginalized for stating documented facts
Tom Friedman’s hopeless stupidity makes itself glaringly evident in the concluding sentence of his idiotic column:
If average performance won’t get you a job, common sense as well as the Law of Large Numbers tells you that at least 50% of the American population is now unemployable.
Hello? Anyone take basic Statistics 101? In a population with a normal (Gaussian) distribution, 50% of the population will be below average. That’s basic. That’s elementary. That’s required by fundamental mathematics.
But Airhead Friedman goes further, and imperiously informs us that “even good might not be enough” nowadays. Let’s define good as one standard deviation above the mean.
Do the basic math, people. Only 15.8% of the population is more than 1 standard deviation above the mean in a Gaussian distribution. If we go farther and define “good” as two standard deviations above the mean, hoo boy! Watch out! Because only 2.2% of the population is more than 2 standard deviations above the mean in a Gaussian distribution.
So what Airhead Friedman is telling us is that, in the absolute best case, 50% of the American population is going to be permanently unemployed. But more than that: he’s telling us that most likely at least 84.2% of the American population is destined to be permanently unemployed, and, if we’re stringent about defining “good” economic performance, as much as 97.8% of the American population is destined to wind up permanently unemployed.
Anyone want to tell me how America is supposed to maintain a functioning economy with an 84.2% unemployment rate (the “optimistic” case) or a 97.8% unemployment rate (the “realistic” case)?
Friedman simply hasn’t thought this through. And neither have any of the alleged masterminds touting this latest “global agile competitiveness” scam.
Capitalism ain’t workin’, folks. The machine has broken down. The equations have gone beyond their boundary conditions and now we’ve reached a divide-by-zero blowup. Time to jettison capitalism and try Plan B.
El Cid
@Scott P.: Productivity growth mattered for workers’ quality of life when there was a politico-economic force strong enough to make the resulting profits shared with the workers.
I heard this economic axiom about how when productivity rises workers’ pay and benefits rise. It is and was always bullshit as an axiom; it only held as an empirical statement as long as it was true by fact.
There’s no power for any increase in worker productivity — no matter how many additional billions of hours have been worked by household members over the last decades — to be forced to be shared with said workers.
Until there is, productivity could zoom through the roof, and owners and investors wouldn’t owe squat to their workers.
After all, the owners and investors are the job creators; by lowering and lowering individual pay and benefits compared to overall hours worked, they’ve helped families move from 1 adult 1 job time to 2 or 3 or 4 adults working 2 or 3 job times.
Johnny Coelacanth
OT but fuck freelancer.com. If you want to compete with guys from Bangalore who will write 6000 words on any topic for 50 cents, that’s the place to sign up. (Of course, you get what you pay for, but if all you need is quasi-literate search engine bait …)
El Cid
@marginalized for stating documented facts: Friedman would be happy to write for some new audience someday that it was okay years ago for you to be among the top 1% most desirable workers, but now (whenever now is) you can’t rest on those laurels and today’s bold new economy is for those who are better and more competitive than 99.99% of the work force. If the total number of jobs remaining in the entire nation numbers in the dozens, well, what matters is how many people can buy Tom Friedman’s books or invite him to prestigious conferences.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Damn it all to Hell, that is some good stuff. I’ve just thought of a new job: Following Friedman around and reading this aloud at his public appearances until he runs off to the toilet and cries.
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
Want to know how I know the punditocracy has been co-opted by the big corporate guns? Look at how many of them show up at Davos and Aspen for those fucking conferences.
beltane
Speak of the devil. Tom Friedman is going to be on the Daily Show tonight and the comments on FB were appropriately scornful. Maybe we will be lucky and get to hear the Moustache of Understanding’s take on Occupy Wall Street.
Spaghetti Lee
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
I don’t think he’d cry. I think he’d furrow his brow, stroke the mustache…and consider it.
Svensker
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
Your conclusion may be correct. But basing that conclusion on Tommy Friedman’s ridiculous numbers is like basing the rain forecast on whether or not the water’s on in the shower.
Spaghetti Lee
This sort of Friedmanian bullshit is particularly hard to strike down, because by themselves and in the abstract, competitiveness and innovation and the like aren’t bad things. To continue the metaphor, going on a diet isn’t a bad thing. But what Friedman wants is to set up the food industry so that the only way it works is that 98% of the population is on a diet, all the time. And if they fall off pace, they die. Do I have the metaphor right? It’s just not realistic by any fucking standard.
And when you point this out to the free-market high priests, they get all concern-trolly and pouty-faced and say “What’s the matter? Don’t you have faith in human ingenuity? I do! Why can’t you?” The Tinkerbell Strategy writ large. And this stuff is all of a piece. To stop the attacks on unions, social benefit spending, public land, etc., an important and crucial first step is to learn that everyone is not the fucking ubermensch, and we need to account for that if we want a society that has a prayer of working.
clayton
Did you know that October is White History Month?
Omnes Omnibus
@clayton: Oh for fuck’s sake, all months are white history month – even black history month.
marginalized for stating documented facts
@Omnes Omnibus:
Post of the Day!
Spaghetti Lee
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
Lake Friedbegon, where all the kids are above average!
ppcli
This guy is actually quite inspirational. When I hear him say this, it makes me want to invent a whole new life for myself. That of a professional assassin. So I could do this guy Pro Bono.
clayton
@Omnes Omnibus: Switzerland is the whitest nation on earth and they have given us many great thinkers and heroes.
It figures that no one in the U.S. can do anything important anymore, given that our educational system hasn’t be completely privatized.
marginalized for stating documented facts
Incidentally, if you want a look at how the American economy really works today, take a look at this:
Source: DesMoines Register, 1 October, 2011.
Welcome to your marvelous new Friedmanesque world. Take poison now and cut your losses.
Woodrowfan
deleted because somebody might take me seriously.
Spaghetti Lee
@ppcli:
“Think of it like this, Mr. Barrie, I’m going to put a B.U.L.L.E.T. in your head. A “Bi-lateral Unitary Lesson in Leading Energy Technology!”
gnomedad
@clayton:
Do straight white men have to share it with wimmen and teh gayz?
beltane
@Woodrowfan: But who were their great thinkers and heroes? William Tell? And no, you can’t include Albert Einstein.
Woodrowfan
@beltane:
whoever invented chocolate! And William Tell did write that one great piece of music for the Lone Ranger! (yes, I’m kidding)
Omnes Omnibus
.@beltane: Calvin.
Scott P.
It’s not always true, no. But that doesn’t make rising productivity the enemy.
Ken
I’m rooting for the robots too. I want the economy of Frederik Pohl’s Midas World stories, where robots produce everything, and so much of everything that people envy those few members of society who get to do actual work. I just don’t think we’re going to get there from here.
Woodrowfan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Calvin was French.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: John Calvin was from the Picardy region in northern France. He moved to Geneva to escape the persecution of himself, and enjoy to enjoy the pleasure of persecuting others.
Mark S.
Or the cheapest.
That is the stupidest title to a book I’ve ever seen. I’m sure Tommy thought is was brilliant.
No one believes me, but 15-20 years ago, Friedman was a decent foreign affairs writer. Now he just sucks corporate dick and thinks anyone with a CEO attached to their name is a genius. I think I’d rather read David Brook’s Social Animal than whatever this shitty new book by Mustache is called.
ppcli
@Spaghetti Lee: And then I’m going to dissolve your body in a Progressive-Inventive Task of Less-Institutional Method-Energy.
But setting snark aside for a moment:
This is the sort of remark that sounds dumber the more you think about it. Young people often pass through the “poor/driven” phase. When I was a graduate student, I was poor, hungry (metaphorically speaking – never sort of food) and driven. But one of the things I was striving for was to reach a position where I *would no longer be* poor, hungry and driven. What this doofus, and trophy-husband Friedman are putting forward as desirable, is a situation where there is no reaching this goal: that you are driven toward – continuing to be poor, hungry and driven. Otherwise you’re out on your ass.
This is a good thing????
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Well, then, I guess he doesn’t count.
Ken
@Omnes Omnibus: Calvin only became notorious in Switzerland. He was French.
(Edit: Unsurprisingly I wasn’t the only one to notice that someone on the Internet was wrong.)
beltane
I’ve been told that Switzerland is the most boring country on earth. Because I like mountains and hiking I never believed that this was the case but maybe it is true after all. Who are Switzerland’s great thinkers and heroes?
Come to think of it, European culture would have been kind of ‘meh’ if not for the contributions of us swarthy Mediterranean types who might not count as white for the purposes of White History Month.
El Cid
@Mark S.:
He was, particularly given that he used to be an actual journalist, a longtime reporter in the Middle East and in particular Lebanon during the Israeli invasion and the destruction of the Southern part of that nation.
You see, Friedman gets to rest on his laurels and lazily draw upon his years of having done actual work.
The rest of us need to lose our jobs and hope that we telekinetically create a job via innovation, determination, and will.
Suffern ACE
@beltane: I’ll go with Rousseau and Ursula Andress. Or maybe Jung. But there is a step down between 1 and 2.
clayton
@gnomedad: No.
@beltane: Wrong. He lived in and was a citizen of Switzerland when he came up with e=mc2.
@Woodrowfan: Why are you making light of a sincere pitch?
And where is the football thread? I want to talk about Hank’s song and the Texans.
Linnaeus
@Ken:
I think we’d be more likely to get the society of Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano.
clayton
Can a white brother get a football thread around here?
Linnaeus
Jean Piaget was Swiss.
Corner Stone
@Scott P.:
I find your rejoinder intriguing. It has intrigued me.
jl
Friedman is so lame. ‘Made in the world’? That is so over.
On my intergalactic hypernet ‘for bright idea winners only’ slave labor auction blog, I got Marvin the Martian offering to kiss my ass for three dead rats and a lump of stale Xenonian protein gunk (and I’m not even sure its carbon based).
Every since those fast and nimble Uranian PhD entrepooonyooors stole Mars’ stodgy Unobtaniam monopoly, those critters have had to scramble.
clayton
@Corner Stone: Can you get me a Monday nite Football thread or not?
Corner Stone
@clayton: You should address Kay. She seems to be the only FP’er here who gives a darn about football O/Ts anymore.
clayton
This is the right thread to get a football thread, right?
clayton
Johnson just got hit, I hope it wasn’t a hammy. Can I get a football thread here or not?
clayton
@Corner Stone: It’s White History Month, so I don’t think you are helping.
MikeJ
@clayton: There was one earlier.
clayton
@MikeJ: Do you really think so? Maybe it was just an “open” thread.
jl
Henny’s one liners were funnier.
http://youtu.be/X8ZKIm0DrKY
Citizen_X
@Woodrowfan:
That would be the Mexicans.
Short Bus Bully
The Friedman vitriol on this thread warms my bitter and cynical heart.
Thanks for that, it was kind of a shitty day.
marginalized for stating documented facts
@Linnaeus: Wow, what an optimist.
More likely we’d get the world of The Terminator. Or possibly that Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man.”
marginalized for stating documented facts
@Corner StoneYeah, his reasoning is…interesting, isn’t it?
Hey there, Scott P., let’s try your logic in another situation:
Hey! I like your logic!
Now we’re cookin’!
Seanly
My favorite part of the Friedman article (talking about Freelancer quotes):
Ummm, $168 does not buy you a lot of design time. I hope the someone looking is not planning on getting plans other than some scribbles on a napkin.
kdaug
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
The the first TARP was announced, I looked at my wife and said “Capitalism is dead.”
Nothing’s happened since to make me change my mind.
d0n camillo
@ppcli:
Friedman looks so poor, hungry and driven doesn’t he? If Friedman actually had to live in the world that he envisions he’d end up in a fetal position pissing himself into a coma. He thinks he’s still that top notch foreign correspondent of yesteryear. The last 20 years spent as a trophy husband being absurdly overpaid to churn out poorly thought out tributes to the geniuses who brought us the Great Recession have left him soft. I’d like to see him trying to survive by writing for freelancer.com after his wife’s fortune has finally disappeared and his overlords discover just how cheaply someone else can produce “Friedmanesque” output.
Lydgate
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
Indeed. That last sentence was a real corker. The man shows zero ability to take an idea to its logical conclusion. And the logical conclusion is that capitalism is predicated on the fact that there must be winners and losers.