PRINT-Shop Class As Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

Matthew Crawford is a political philosopher with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is also a motorcycle mechanic. He has worked on both sides of the white collar/blue collar divide. He has written a book called Shop Class As Soulcraft, and it is fantastic.

For generations, our society has venerated white collar work and denigrated blue collar work. Crawford challenges this. He questions why high schools have scrapped shop classes in favor of computer classes. He points out that he made more money as an electrician than he did with his master's degree writing abstracts as a "knowledge worker." Fixing a Honda is more mentally engaging than you might think. By the time you get to the end of the book, you are so stoked you want to go buy a set of tools and open up a shop.

I gleaned a lot of insights from this book:

-Skilled blue collar work is every bit as demanding and even more rewarding than white collar work.

-Knowledge work is easily outsourced even more so than manufacturing. Jobs like plumbing, carpentry, and auto repair can never be outsourced. They are location dependent.

-Blue collar work pays well.

-There is a growing number of college graduates turning to trade and technical schools to learn marketable skills in blue collar professions.

-The Honda Magna is a crap bike but still fun to work on.

I know in my own experience that most white collar jobs are bullshit jobs which is why they are so unsatisfying. The objectives are vague. It is more politics than work. At the end of the day, you feel like a failure. I have never felt this way with the blue collar work I have done.

It is one thing to be a blue collar worker. It is another thing to be a blue collar worker when you don't have to be one. Crawford doesn't have to work on motorcycles. He chooses to do this. He can speak authoritatively in a way few others can. I enjoyed the hell out of this book, and I think you will, too.



http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/
http://shockoemoto.com/

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