Only a few of us really work for a living. At least, according to day laborer and U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings, of South Carolina. Senator Hollings says we don’t make anything anymore. He says that, “At the end of World War II we had 40 percent of our work force in manufacturing, and now we’re down to 10 percent. We’ve got 10 percent of the country working and producing, and the other 90 percent talking and eating.” So says the senator, as he announces he won’t run again for reelection after seven six-year terms in office. You do the math. Kind of proves you don’t have to be a candidate to say things that make no sense. Never mind this guy’s contempt for non-thing-makers.
Let’s agree that manufacturing is indeed a smaller part of the economy than it used to be. Couldn’t manufacturing be getting more productive? A long time ago, 90 percent or more of American adults worked on a farm. Is it really a disaster that this percentage has shrunk? What it means is that today you can plant, gather and sell wheat a lot more productively than you could in the days when it was just one guy and a horse and a plow. B
efore we farmed the fields, humans were hunters and gatherers. We got our meals by plucking berries and killing game. Then the agricultural sector came along and put the hunter-gatherers out of business. A tragedy … or an advance? There’s nothing sacred about how we do things now if we can find a way that’s even better.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.