Maine can be famous for a new kind of work ethic

Sunday, February 26, 2006

BOTTOM LINE: Charles Lawton

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of human capital in the economy of the 21st century, citing the example of Disney paying $7.4 billion for a company where most of its value - workers - walked out the door every night.

This offering produced a flood of approving nods about the importance of entrepreneurship and the need for policy makers to nourish it in Maine, usually by supporting whatever business or project the particular writer was promoting.

One writer, however, disapproved of the very term "human capital," saying it objectified people and raised the question, "Who owns human capital?"

These observations cut to the heart of the change in attitude that lies at the base of the economic transformation that Maine, and indeed the United States as a whole, must undergo if we are to thrive in the years ahead. They also help further define the idea of entrepreneurship, a concept that generally is treated like motherhood and apple pie - universally applauded but not widely understood.

One of the natural consequences of Maine's century and a half-dependence on manufacturing - particularly the production that occurred in the riverside mills that have so defined our history and geography - is the belief that jobs are what someone else (often from away) provides and work is what we do.

Maine's great "work ethic," the honest day's work for an honest day's pay, is both a cliché and a truth. It has served us well, but it has also brought us to a level of affluence that requires a redefinition of "work ethic."

How hard I work doesn't matter when the job can easily be moved to a location with an entirely different cost structure.

The old work ethic said, "Give me a job, and I'll do it well." Implicitly it meant, "I deserve a job." And, perhaps most importantly today, "If I lose it, someone has to do something to find me a new one."

The most important characteristic of the work ethic required for America in the coming century - and this returns us to a less exploitative understanding of the term "human capital" and its relationship to entrepreneurship - is that workers need to think about capital not as the property of others, something that provides them the opportunity to earn a paycheck, but as the fund of knowledge and inventory of skills and attitudes they possess that enable them to earn an income.

It's the difference between "Someone owes me a job" and "I need to have something to sell, so I can pay my bills." It's also the difference between "Inventory is the volume of other people's stuff that I tote up each January" and "Inventory is the current state of my ability to do what I want in my life."

I realize that this sounds a lot like George Bush's "ownership society" - personal responsibility, private retirement accounts, health savings accounts - and there is much in these concepts to admire. But the successful work ethic of the 21st century goes beyond mere possession to personal engagement, relationship and community.

Workers (and here I mean not just employees but public servants, community volunteers, parents, anyone engaged in getting a job done) manage their personal inventories of skills and attitudes not just to "possess" them like Scrooge counting his money but to use them.

Whatever may be the legal form of the organization that the worker/entrepreneur of the 21st century may be a part of, the motivating force driving that involvement will be the internal satisfaction that derives from the combination of three factors:

n Doing something I like, something that energizes my spirit.

n Being part of a winning team, a successful enterprise, a shared human experience of encountering a difficult situation and coming through it successfully (or even unsuccessfully).

n Earning enough money in the process to pay for the "stuff" I want in my life.

In this sense, the terms human capital, work ethic, business climate and entrepreneurship all merge into one not yet fully defined something. The future success of our economy lies largely in teasing out the meaning of that something and making it happen here in Maine.

Charles Lawton, a York resident, is a Ph.D. economist who is former director of the Economic Development Division of the Maine State Planning Office and works as senior economist for Planning Decisions, a public policy research firm in South Portland. He can be reached at:

clawton@maine.rr.com.

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