The way I would put it is that it is difficult and unnatural to be an entrepreneur, or to work under someone’s direction in a management hierarchy. An efficient economy requires both kinds of people, and it’s arguable that our current educational system overemphasizes the latter at the expense of the former. But rather than conspiracy, I think a more reasonable explanation for this is inertia: rapid technological change means we need more entrepreneurs than we used to, but the educational system hasn’t kept up.
For those wondering about viable alternatives to being a wage slave, here’s something that worked for me. About ten years ago, I took a one-year break from my regular job, and used the time to write a piece of software that I saw a market niche for. While I went back to work, I found a partner to continue its development and to sell it over the Internet. It hasn’t made me rich, but eventually I got enough income from it to to quit my job and spend most of my time working on whatever interests me.
I suppose you could start a non-profit organization, but that’s just another form of entrepreneurship. You could leech off society or friends and relatives, but presumably we don’t want to encourage that. So, I don’t know… You seem to be implying here and in other comments that you have more ideas. Why not share them?
Well, if it turns out to be so hard to extend the list of “ways people make a living” beyond the two items {entrepreneur, worker under management hierarchy} that would constitute support for the “brainwashing” hypothesis (overstated as the term may seem).
When I was younger I wanted to become a novelist and make a living that way. That seems different enough from entrepreneurship; it’s one of the passive income categories. (My parents discouraged that—“you need a real job”.) Another classic one is to be a landlord. Silas mentioned investment income earlier, that could be considered a separate category. You could also consider as a different category someone whose intellectual or artistic output doesn’t generate royalties but who is supported by patronage.
To maintain that “the educational system hasn’t kept up” we would have to believe in the first place that it was at one point designed to turn out a then-optimal balance of people trained in one or another way of supporting themselves. I’m not sure we have good reason to think that.
While I went back to work, I found a partner to continue its development and to sell it over the Internet. It hasn’t made me rich, but eventually I got enough income from it to to quit my job and spend most of my time working on whatever interests me.
It may not be LW material exactly, but I would be interested to read about this in an Open Thread (or see a link to a recountal).
The way I would put it is that it is difficult and unnatural to be an entrepreneur, or to work under someone’s direction in a management hierarchy. An efficient economy requires both kinds of people, and it’s arguable that our current educational system overemphasizes the latter at the expense of the former. But rather than conspiracy, I think a more reasonable explanation for this is inertia: rapid technological change means we need more entrepreneurs than we used to, but the educational system hasn’t kept up.
For those wondering about viable alternatives to being a wage slave, here’s something that worked for me. About ten years ago, I took a one-year break from my regular job, and used the time to write a piece of software that I saw a market niche for. While I went back to work, I found a partner to continue its development and to sell it over the Internet. It hasn’t made me rich, but eventually I got enough income from it to to quit my job and spend most of my time working on whatever interests me.
What other kinds besides these two could we think of?
I suppose you could start a non-profit organization, but that’s just another form of entrepreneurship. You could leech off society or friends and relatives, but presumably we don’t want to encourage that. So, I don’t know… You seem to be implying here and in other comments that you have more ideas. Why not share them?
Well, if it turns out to be so hard to extend the list of “ways people make a living” beyond the two items {entrepreneur, worker under management hierarchy} that would constitute support for the “brainwashing” hypothesis (overstated as the term may seem).
When I was younger I wanted to become a novelist and make a living that way. That seems different enough from entrepreneurship; it’s one of the passive income categories. (My parents discouraged that—“you need a real job”.) Another classic one is to be a landlord. Silas mentioned investment income earlier, that could be considered a separate category. You could also consider as a different category someone whose intellectual or artistic output doesn’t generate royalties but who is supported by patronage.
To maintain that “the educational system hasn’t kept up” we would have to believe in the first place that it was at one point designed to turn out a then-optimal balance of people trained in one or another way of supporting themselves. I’m not sure we have good reason to think that.
It may not be LW material exactly, but I would be interested to read about this in an Open Thread (or see a link to a recountal).