On the Scarcity of Scientists - Redux

Here are some first impressions after reading Chapter 1 'A Disturbing Mosaic' of Rising Above the Gathering Storm.

There is in my opinion quite a serious flaw in argument. In fact, I believe Chapter 1 is a large non sequitur. The analysis is based on Thomas L. Friedman’s view that in the twentieth century, due to the forces of globalization, the world will be 'flat'. What this means is that the forces of outsourcing and offshoring, coupled with ubiquitous networking, can distribute business processes over the world. The economic upshot of this scenario is one of increased competition but also cheaper production and services, as well as supporting political change. Overall, Friedman is positive about the forces of globalisation and believes that they will lead to a new era of prosperity.

The report states that the US is badly prepared for such a situation. The key passage of the first survey chapter reads:

"Friedman asks rhetorically whether his own country is proving its readiness by “investing in our future and preparing our children the way we need to for the race ahead”. The answer, not surprisingly, is no.

This report addresses the possibility that our lack of preparation will reduce the ability of the United States to compete in such a world." (page 1-3)

There is actually little more in the way of analysis to be found in the first chapter, the mosaic merely analyses a 'quiet crisis' in three related clusters. I might have more to say about these later, but think several comments can be made at this stage. My main comment is that in brief, the report selects the wrong metaphor to build the argument--it attempts to build the argument on a flat world, whereas it would have been more fruitful to build the argument on a spiked world.

The first comment is that in a flat world such as Friedman describes, national boundaries do not matter all that much; neither do concepts such as national security, or national competitive advantage. So it would seem that the use of Friedman’s view of globalisation discredits to a large extent the very point the report tries to make—that the US is simply not raising the talent it needs to compete in the brave new global world.

One might well argue that the forces of globalisation shift the nexus between rich and poor from a perspective of nations to--dare we say it--a perspective of class. It is somewhat surprising that the report fails to mention the key economic and social impact of globalisation (discussed for instance in the work of Zygmunt Bauman): geographically mobile capital and a geographically localized workforce (by and large). A macro trend might well be that we are moving from a world of national differences to a global world of class differences.

While this could lead to quite an interesting discussion of its own, I think the upshot for the report is the following. Were Friedmans picture the correct one, then as long as the world is not running of of scientists and engineers, it hardly matters whether one nation does.

The second comment is that the work of Friedman is hardly uncontroversial. I personally think that Friedman counts as one of the more naive writers on globalisation, and personally subscribe to the view that the world is becoming a place that is neither flat nor tilted, but spiked. What this means is that there will increasingly be clusters of specialisation in the world, and that the wealth of nations very much depends on the presence of the more lucrative clusters inside the national boundaries. There were some interesting graphs in the October issue of the Atlantic Monthly illustrating this concept quite well (but unfortunately not available on the web).

Of course, on the 'spiky' picture it is crucially important whether a nation has enough scientists and engineers inside the national boundaries, and indeed whether it has the capability to develop and sustain these clusters. This brings us back to a failed political experiment of the eighties, when it was quite popular to apply Michael Porter 's 'competitive advantage' theory to nations, and then 'pick winners' among its research programmes. That failed experiment is at least in large part responsible for the current misery.

But even on that picture, it is hardly a foregone conclusion that the Western world is running out of scientists and engineers. I personally would more believe an institution like the Rand corporation to get some of this right than the scientists themselves (The latter have too obvious an axe to grind). And the most recent reports (here and here) of the Rand corporation on the same issue form a much less convincing argument for the notion that we need to educate more scientists and engineers.

A fruitful area of research, provided the 'spiked' picture of the world is correct, is what creates and sustains specific spikes. The contention would be that this is a combination of the presence of specific skill sets, education, clever marketing and a lot of dumb luck.