Most likely for that reason, I pre-ordered The Global Auction when I received a notice of it from the Oxford University Press.  The authors are professors at universities in the United Kingdom (Brown is Professor of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Lauder is Professor of Education and Political Economy at University of Bath, and Ashton is Professor Emeritus of Labour Market Studies at University of Leicester) and their premise is that the American Dream that emphasizes higher education as the path for the lower class to become middle class and the middle class to become prosperous is deeply in trouble.

The authors discuss the fact that world economics have become more integrated and networked and that the market value of American workers is no longer compared to local citizens, but rather is part of a global auction for jobs.  According to the authors, economists who compare America, Britain, and Germany as head nations (brains) and China and India as body nations (brawn) have missed the point that the new global economy has allowed emerging economies to create a high-skill, low-wage workforce capable of competing for the hi-tech, high-value employment prized in the head nations. 

In the past, Americans with college degrees were sheltered from price competition as long as educated talent was either in limited supply or only available from equally expensive countries like Britain, Germany, and Japan.  There’s a price competition for expertise, state the authors, and it is stimulated by:  (1) a doubling of the supply of college educated workers in affluent and emerging countries over the past 10 years, (2) a quality and cost revolution in the emerging economies that have adopted best practices and produced high skill, low wage workers, (3) the adoption of new technologies by companies that have increased the potential for standardizing an increasing number of technical, managerial, and professional jobs, and (4) the business community’s increasing trend of hiring the best and the brightest students from around the globe and treating them differently from people with the same credentials, experience, or levels of expertise.

The authors discuss the situation leading to an opportunity trap which occurs when everyone works toward the same strategy such as earning a bachelor’s degree or working longer hours to impress the boss.  In those cases, no one secures an advantage except the employer.  The authors acknowledge, though, that most people will view education as a defensive expenditure, necessary to have any chance at improving the middle class standard of living.

While the premise and evidence presented by the authors sound overwhelming and depressing, they present recommendations for creating a new opportunity in America.  Key among their suggestions are reforming education standards to increase the number of our citizens with a world class education in the science and engineering areas as well as working on equalizing the financial disparities between the far ends of the citizens’ income scale.  Political calls will be made for protectionist policies but the authors maintain that the global economy is too intertwined for a significant policy change to occur without drastic ramifications to America’s economy.  Their recommendation is to rebuild the economy in a manner designed to improve the quality of people’s lives and part of that model should encourage senior managers of public companies to focus on the medium and long term performance of their companies, not just the short-term.  With the latter focus, the concept is that less would be outsourced as companies would work to find, train, and keep workers here versus looking outside our nation’s boundaries.

The Global Auction is hot off the press as evidenced by its 2011 copyright date. The authors, as befits their areas of expertise, have done an excellent job of portraying the economic and social issues at hand in analyzing the financial issues of the middle class.  I continue to weigh their recommendations for a new opportunity as economic and social changes are not politically easy decisions, particularly in a political environment as polarized as the last two U.S. elections.  Increasing the emphasis on science and technology at the K-12 level will require a major shift similar to the Sputnik and Race to the Moon initiatives of the late 1950’s and 1960’s.  Political policy changes do not occur overnight and not without considerable debate.  I recommend that you read this book regardless of your political perspective.  It is thoroughly thought-provoking.

One UNESCO report estimates that “only about 3 percent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa and 7 percent in Asia attend some form of postsecondary education.”  Compare these statistics to postsecondary education statistics in industrialized nations (approximately 58 percent of the population in industrialized nations pursue some form of postsecondary education)  and for the United States alone (60 percent) and it becomes clear that a large sector of the world’s population is not able to access the valuable skills gained through higher education.  In the United States, we have had 150-200+ years to develop our three tiered system embracing community colleges, four year colleges, and research universities.  The fixed costs of opening physical campuses, particularly in areas of large geographic expanse, often exceed the limited budgets of developing countries.  Even China’s successful and rapidly expanding economy cannot keep up with the infrastructure involved in building college campuses.

 
In recent years, many developing nations have made significant steps toward improving access to postsecondary education through the use of online education.  According to one estimate, 7 of the world’s largest distance education universities are located in developing countries.  A report published by the Task Force for Higher Education and Society, established by the World Bank in conjunction with UNESCO, found that “at the world’s 10 biggest distance institutions, the majority of them in the third world, the cost of education per student is on average about one third the cost at traditional institutions in the same country.”  In today’s “knowledge economy” it has become clear that if developing nations are to take advantage of globalization, they must reinforce their most valuable asset, their citizens, with the tools, namely education, required to compete.  The significantly lower costs associated with distance education have made that an attractive option to many developing nations.

In a report published by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an organization dedicated to “ensuring that millions of the world’s most vulnerable people have access to education, healthcare and a social safety net,” the group found that even in Africa, one of the most destitute places on earth, significant numbers of online education programs are popping up in even the most desolate regions.  The Virtual University of Pakistan is another institute of higher education utilizing the growing access of technology to reach students across the country.  Using the internet as well as a cable television network which can be accessed from anywhere in the country, Virtual University of Pakistan is making enormous strides in providing affordable access to degrees in higher education to thousands of Pakistanis living in-country and abroad.  The Chinese have jumped on the online education bandwagon in a big way: China Central Radio and Television University has 1.5 million students and caters to working adults.  In a 2001 article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Vice President of China Central, Yu Yunxiu, explained that the traditional universities were not able to meet the demand of drastic increases in enrollment numbers so China Central has picked up the slack.

Higher education in third world countries is one of the solutions for improving the quality of life for citizens of those nations.  Funding it and creating access to everyone is a problem with solutions still evolving.  Many obstacles to online education initiatives in developing nations remain.  There are functional obstacles including spotty internet access in remote regions of many developing nations and cultural issues including those related to gender and the role of women in conservative societies.  Critics are quick to point out that there is much work left to be done before the world of higher education can legitimately believe that it has made a significant impact on the educational futures of those in developing nations.   There is little doubt, however, that the rise of online universities in developing nations is a step in the right direction.

A Peace Corps volunteers works in South America. (Photo from www.peacecorps.gov)

In October 1960, Senator John Kennedy spoke to graduates of the University of Michigan and encouraged them to “live and work in developing countries around the world, thus dedicating themselves to the cause of peace and development.”  On September 22, 1961, the culmination of the efforts Kennedy discussed at the University of Michigan the previous year were realized when Congress authorized the passage of the Peace Corps Act officially establishing the Peace Corps. 

Since the official establishment of the Peace Corps, nearly 200,000 Americans have donated their time and efforts in 139 countries toward achieving the goals set forth by Senator Kennedy in 1960.  In its earliest years, the Peace Corps focused on fundamental and vital necessities, including access to clean drinking water and literacy, which would help promote development in “interested countries.”  Today’s Peace Corps performs many of the same functions its first volunteers experienced, but as the world and its problems have evolved, so too has the Peace Corps.

New challenges brought by complex political and economic situations have proven crucial for American volunteers wishing to make a difference in the lives of the world’s most needy.  Peace Corps volunteers today (there are more than 8,000 of them) may find themselves helping establish a computer learning center in the Caribbean or instructing young people in Asia on how to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.  With a budget of $330 million in fiscal year 2008, the Peace Corps has grown in size and ambition.

After the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, a group of returned Peace Corps volunteers established the Peace Corps Fund with its stated mission of “helping Americans understand the people and cultures of other countries.”  Former Peace Corps volunteers may apply for funding through the Peace Corps Fund to help achieve the third goal of the Peace Corps mission, to share their knowledge of other cultures with their fellow Americans. 

In today’s complex and ever-changing world, there can be little debate that cultural understanding is one of the cornerstones of a peaceful co-existence.  I have discussed in several articles posted on this blog the importance of cultural understanding and impact of globalization (see Creative Capitalism; Globalization and the Importance of Understanding Cultures; Economics, Ireland and Similarities to the U.S.; and Price of Gas).  For more than four decades, Peace Corps volunteers have devoted their time and energy to promoting such cultural understanding and cooperation while adjusting their activities to fit the most pressing needs of a changing world.

Gates passionately believes that technology provides solutions to many of the world’s key problems.  He also believes that life changes due to technology can only occur where people can afford the technology.  In a speech that he delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2008, Gates spoke about Creative Capitalism. In that speech, he defined it as “creative capitalism – an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequalities.”  Some examples of companies engaging in creative capitalism include:  (1) Microsoft – provides low cost or free technology to those who do not have access; (2) Crucell, a Dutch company that holds the patents on a cholera vaccine in the developed world but shares those rights with drug manufacturers in developing countries so that the drug can be manufactured and delivered at very low costs ($1/dose in Vietnam); (3) Iscar, an Israeli metalworking company, that locates its plants in areas where it can employ minorities such as Israeli Arabs; and (4) other companies such as Converse, Gap, Armani, Dell, and Apple that participate in the RED Campaign started by Bono.

Gates’ remarks to the 2008 graduating class of Harvard include a sobering remark: “Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who are dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country…We asked: ‘How could the world let these children die?’  The answer is simple, and harsh.  The market did not reward saving the lives of these children and the governments did not subsidize it.  So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.”

Gates has left Microsoft to become Co-Chair of his Foundation.  With the more than $50 billion in assets and the similarly-sized pledge to his foundation by Warren Buffett, I hope that his beliefs and financial clout will help governments and corporations partner in efforts similar to those cited in his recent speeches.

Illegal substances or “doping” may appear to be a recent issue, but have actually been around since the 1960 Olympics in Rome when Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died during his event after injecting a doping agent.  At the same Olympics, American and Soviet weightlifters acknowledged taking anabolic steroids.

Politics dominated the agenda before 1960 when China and Taiwan competed in the international arena over who had the right to represent China in the Olympics.  German officials at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, often remembered as “Hitler’s Olympics,” snubbed Jesse Owens and other black athletes.  I imagine that there are very few who can forget the Israeli team hostage situation in Munich in 1972.  In 1980, the U.S. and sixty other countries boycotted the Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  In 1984, the Soviets and several other Eastern-bloc countries boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics as retribution.  This year, we have the concerns regarding Tibet as well as the revocation of speedskater Joey Cheek’s visa presumably (though the Chinese have not yet and are not required to give any reason for this action) for his involvement in Team Darfur, a group of seventy athletes whose goal it is to raise awareness of human rights violations in the Darfur region of Sudan. 

With the diversity of world politics and the seeming desire of the media to cover any potential controversy, it’s difficult to think of a time when no political agendas would be on the table.  That said, the pageantry of the opening ceremonies is splendid and there seems to be an event for just about everyone’s liking (although the more popular ones are broadcast in primetime).  When the games kick off, the politics usually go away.  Let’s hope for world-class performances by all the athletes.  Good luck to every athlete.

As our curriculum advanced from the study of warfare and military history to the study of strategic and military intelligence, our faculty pointed out the importance of having an area studies program available to students in multiple degree programs.  For the active duty military student, an area studies program could provide an edge in understanding an area of the world where he/she was being deployed.  Our area studies programs consisted of a course on the history of the country/area, its geography, and an introduction to its language.  At one point in time, we had courses in the history and geography of over 20 countries.

More recently, our faculty decided to examine the area studies programs and align them with the “strategic” positioning of the U.S. State Department.  We have 5 minors that focus on specific geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.  Each requires a course which compares the political structures of the various nations within the region as well as a course that examines the broader political system impacting the region as a whole.  In addition, each minor offers courses on the geography, foreign policy, economy and history of the region.  Through courses that examine the philosophy, religion and popular culture of each region, students are able to gather a more thorough understanding of the region’s people.  By providing the student with a solid background combined with a modern-day perspective on each region, I believe we are contributing to a more fundamental cultural understanding and combating the notion of the “ugly American.”

Colin Powell said, “The more we know about each other, the more we learn about each other, the more we engage on differences that we have between our societies and between our social systems and between our political points of view, the better off we are.  The more dialogue we have at every level, and especially at the academic level, where opinion-makers are located…the better off we are.”  Secretary Powell was correct.  The internet is globalizing the world and America and collectively, we must begin to understand other cultures and languages for our continued standing in the society of nations.