In economics, students are taught about the idea of specialization of labor, probably in their first few weeks. It is a concept that in principle, makes sense to us as people, and seems true on its face, but as we have advanced in our modern world, hardly applies on the micro or macro scale. In fact, the “resource curse” that economists use to describe countries’ economies that rely on a single, or handful of industries seem to fly in the face of the virtue of labor specialization that Adam Smith touts in The Wealth of Nations.
We are taught that it is better for countries to focus on the specialized production of a resource or product, and to trade that product with other countries than to have a diverse economy that produces many goods, and should then rely on trade with other countries to produce the most good for both countries. Similarly, on a micro-scale, Smith uses the production of a number of goods to illustrate the productive power of specialized labor in assembly-line type production of goods, comparing the ability for a single person to produce all stages of a pin, and the ability for a person who only completes part of the pin to perform those tasks on hundreds or thousands of pins per day, increasing their individual productivity.
In our modern era though, we have seen enough specialization that many people have become overly-specialized for their specific work, and that we expect too much specialization from people in their fields. This is in contrast to people who do multi-disciplinary work, which has become more important, but which is still severely lacking in attention. An example of multi-disciplinary work that might be useful would be technology ethicists. To create such a job, you would not only need to focus on classes related to engineering and technology, but also to philosophy and ethics. Computer science is another field which would be a good candidate for broad multi-disciplinary study. As advances in the field of programming make it easier for people to learn how to program, and to easily create more and more powerful neural networks, the ability for those to be applied to other fields depends on someone’s knowledge of both of those fields. A text analyzer for certain literary works would be undoubtedly useful, but would require someone who is also familiar with the type of analysis that the project requires. Both to help determine what exactly it is that they are searching for, but also to verify the results of the study.
On the scale of regional economies, what we have learned is that while some areas produce more or higher quality resources than others, or may be more beneficial for a particular industry, that an economy that wholly relies on a single industry is particularly vulnerable to even small disruptions in economic conditions. Things may of course be good while the going is good for their resource, but once the global winds shift (and they always do eventually), then the course that the country goes down can quickly fall apart (see Venezuela). Of course the solution is to diversify economies, and to, while the going is good, to be fiscally responsible, and to be good stewards of the bountiful harvest, so that when the price of oil plummets because there was a spill, or bad trade conditions, that those most affected can be spared the worst of those effects, and that the country can maintain stable rule over its citizenry.
Now, how would we do that, and where do we do that? First we have to reckon with automation. As automation continues to rapidly get more advanced, we’ll need to realize that many jobs that involve physical labor, or certain types of intellectual labor will eventually disappear. As this occurs, more of the uneducated workforce sector will be pushed into service industries and entertainment. This can be dealt with by encouraging those industries, or also by facilitating more higher-level education for their citizens. High-level intellectual work is also one of the fields that at least for now, that seems to have the ability to provide large returns on investment to an economy.
Even on the scale of the individual, however, we no longer want people who specialize in a single task, since automation could easily put the single task out of commission. Instead, our modern workforce needs to specialize in learning new skills, and a large variety of skills, so that when single skills or tasks are automated out, the worker can adapt to the new work, and not be displaced by becoming obsolete. A person who specializes in a single task is now seen as not being flexible enough in a modern environment which prizes flexibility. Now, increasing access to education would also alleviate this problem, as currently, people who are already behind on the skills necessary to function will continue to otherwise fall further behind. Also changing the types of things that we teach, teaching students to think flexibly, and to put more focus on creativity by fostering cultural and artistic expressions in the public. This would also feed more potential talent into the entertainment segment of the economy, helping us move towards that goal.
To do all of this though, requires a recognition that our education system in the US is not what it needs to be, and that fixing it will require a lot of money, and real effort to overhaul our workforce pipeline. We must recognize that if we do not do this, we risk foreign powers overtaking us in the long run, severe labor mismatches for various fields, and difficulty sustaining growth and innovation.
/rant 