I was asked the following question by another commenter.
the UAW work force is full of high school dropouts.
How many of these workers ever signed up to do a
community college class, let alone a BS at UM Detroit?
how many of the people in detroit said
"Hey, GM and Ford are dying, let's start encouraging new business?
let's clean up the riverfront, encourage new investment, new
business?"
and Bob Kearns? My dad knew him, he got fucked out of
millions by Ford and GM.
There are lots of other people who invented advanced auto
technology who got screwed by GM and Ford.
Why didn't Detroit attract software industries, aircraft industries,
materials industries, etc???
Now, I almost ignored the whole question. The exchange had gotten a little 'snarky', in local parlance, I don't know who Bob Kearns is (although the name does sound familiar), and I would have felt justified in just forgetting about it. But I decided not to.
Instead, I wrote the following reply - quite lengthy, and it's what I've been wanting to write for a while, so I made it into a diary. I realize it doesn't cite any real evidence, but I feel that it accurately portrays what my experiences have been growing up in the Detroit area.
It's a complicated question you ask, and I don't pretend to know the entire answer. But I'll do the best I can.
People generally respond to the incentives with which they are provided. In SE MI, this means:
- a local education system that is patchy at best. There are some bright spots - West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, Ann Arbor, and etc - but most of the area school districts are mediocre or below. You can work your ass off, get a little bit lucky, and get somewhere. This is what happened to me. But by and large most people don't. This also is part of a generational/parental motivation factor that I will explain in greater detail below.
- therefore: you're seventeen years old. You can drop out of your HS degree program and go get a job in an auto plant for at least ~$20 hourly and great benefits. If you work at it a little bit you might get to skilled trades - electrician, pipefitter, welder, etc - which means more money and more/better hours. Or you can stay in your HS degree program, not learn much, and forestall your chance to "seize your independence" and "strike out into the real world". (Remember, you're seventeen.)
- Up until (I would say) two years ago or so, there was no reason to think that the automakers would be facing total annihilation. Sure, unemployment was up a bit, the Big Three weren't doing as well as they had in the decades prior, Cerberus bought Chrysler. But this really wasn't anything new, and it didn't hurt much. People saw the same or worse in the late seventies and early eighties, and it wasn't much fun, but it passed. No biggie.
- Back to your seventeen-year-old Southfield-dwelling self: your parents mostly agree with your plans to quit high school and go get a job. After all, they might have done the same thing as what you're thinking about doing. And these people are what we euphemistically refer to around here in other contexts as 'low-information voters'. They are a product of the same underfunded school districts as you are. They don't pay much attention to the news. Long-range analytical thinking isn't on the plate when you're bolting in back seats for eight or twelve hours a day. No, you're thinking about a cold beer and your favorite sitcom. So: your parents push your seventeen-year old self in the same direction as they went. They don't see things changing in the local economy anytime soon. The auto industry goes in cycles, right? This is just the bottom of one cycle. Things will improve, and the nineties were awesome. So they push you towards the same career they chose. It worked out. And they want you out of the house.
(A side note: I saw this lack of parental involvement and resultant student apathy all through high school, and it nearly drove me insane. Mommy and Daddy and General Motors might not always be there to take care of you someday. But it was like the Wolf trying to huff and puff and blow the third Piglet's brick house down.)
- Median age in the auto industry is fairly high. Many of these people don't want to go back to school, they don't want to retrain. They want to build up their retirement, get their thirty-year pension, and live in Florida during the winter months. Because that's what the American dream is all about. I'm generalizing, but combine this plus the aforementioned lack of long-range thinking, and you can see how we ended up where we are today.
- the state has tried to attract new industries to Michigan, but most of these initiatives have fallen flat. That's because most of the best and brightest out of UM and Michigan State leave after graduation. And you can't blame them. Unless you're some sort of mechanical or electrical engineer, there's no job for you here. Much of this, in my opinion, has to do with the lack of any viable urban center, a condition furthered by shortsighted suburban voters who are afraid of Detroit and all it represents. The only really healthy city of any size is Ann Arbor, and it's too small to affect the rest of the state. (That, and we suck at football these days.) No one with any kind of company wants to move to Detroit. There's too much stigma against
the city and the state due to the aftermath of the 1968 riots and so on. It's seen as a dying Rust Belt place. The weather is nasty. The crime rates are high. There aren't any good restaurants. There aren't any smart people. Why would you want to move your shiny new high-tech company here?
So the companies keep staying away. And the reasonably well-educated Michigan natives keep leaving. (I probably will too.) The cycle self-perpetuates, only broken by exceptions such as Compuware (too small to affect anything, almost went bankrupt IIRC), Google (see Compuware, obviously without the bankruptcy bit) and Pfizer (cloistered in Ann Arbor, packed up and left a year or so ago). Most other states don't have the kind of problems that I've described, because they don't have the same degree of economic monoculture that exists in Michigan.
- So: back to your seventeen-year-old Southfield self: you have a decent job with great benefits and you don't read the papers.
Then gas goes up to $4.10 a gallon.
Then the credit crunch hits.
Then you don't have a job.
All of this happens in the space of a few months. And you weren't ready. Not because you were mentally deficient. Yes, watching the news would have been a very smart idea. There are a lot of now former autoworkers who did watch the news and got out while the Big 3 were still offering buyouts for retirees. They were paid very hefty sums usually in the five-digit range just to leave - while retaining full benefits and pension. They saw the writing on the wall and got out while the getting was good. I don't want to argue here that people don't make choices; determinism vs agency is a problem that presents itself throughout the study of history. But people also respond to the incentives they are given. And many of them saw no reason to respond any differently than they had in the past. They did this because they made a choice not to inform themselves. It was a choice based on past experience and education.
Does this mean that we should hang these millions of people out to dry? I don't think so. It's not going to solve any of the problems of the region - which are mainly related to an inability to attract significant outside brains and investment. If anything, it'll make it worse. It'll stigmatize the state even more, prolonging and deepening the problems that already exist.
I'm not going to argue that GM and the UAW haven't made poor and shortsighted choices. They have. But that's no reason to fling hundreds of thousands of people into poverty. I know it sounds ridiculous to outsiders, but it really will be that bad. There is no other economic base around here, and many people who never worked for any of the Big 3 in their lives will still be ground up in the ensuing economic mayhem. Hell, I'm not even advocating a bailout. Just - something, for God's sake. Anything. Nationalization. Conversion to production of light rail equipment and wind turbines. Whatever, as long as most of the people get to keep their jobs and maybe some of their benefits. Anything even to prove that the rest of the nation cares about Michigan. Because right now it's looking like they don't. It's looking as though we as a state will have to face this maelstrom alone. And that kind of approach won't fix any of the problems I've spent all this time and space describing. It'll just make them worse. Way worse.
It won't help.
So, please - let's get together and do something.