"A Service Economy - What About Serving America?"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“A Service Economy - What About Serving America?”

November 14, 2011

We live in a country in which services dominate the economy. According to the CIA Fact Book, 76.6% of 2010 U.S. GDP was represented by services; yet we live in a society in which the concept of service is increasingly alien.

The sectors of the service economy that seem the most customer friendly are those where there is no interaction with people. Reading a review in the New York Times on Friday of Peter Englund’s new book, The Beauty and the Sorrow, I logged onto Amazon, bought the book knowing that it will be at my home on Monday. In contrast, on Saturday I had to have blood work done in preparation for a doctor’s appointment next Friday. I called Yale New Haven’s Guilford number. After waiting ten minutes, curiosity overcame frustration. So I put my phone on speaker, read the papers, ran some errands – having to explain to people what I was doing, as music was coming from my pocket – and only hung up when I needed the phone for other calls, disconnecting after one hour fifty-one minutes and thirty-eight seconds on hold. There is no excuse for such poor service; unfortunately it is all too common, as anyone knows who has had to deal with the myriad numbers one must press on one’s phone, in response to a mechanical voice, while trying to reach a real person.

Far worse was the experience of a few hundred people at Hartford’s Bradley Airport a couple of weeks ago. In the midst of that October 29th freak storm that dumped twenty inches of snow on Hartford, the FAA, in their wisdom, diverted twenty-eight flights to Bradley Airport. Passengers on four of those flights, including an American Airlines flight from Paris, were forced to remain on the tarmac for seven hours. With babies screaming, whatever liquor on board already consumed, and with backed up toilets, they would have had to take me off in a straight jacket! Don’t airports still have rolling staircases? They do have emergency chutes. Wouldn’t you have rather have been shepherded across the airport, through the snow, than be confined to your 36 cubic feet of space for seven hours? Is that service?

I detect the heavy hand of inflexible government regulation, designed to protect us, but instead fated, at times, to place us in deplorable conditions.

Websites, as good as they may be, are no substitute to a human voice. Government is the worst violator of all. Hours spent on hold, or in lines at departments of motor vehicles or at social security offices, provide a preview as to what seeking answers to questions about healthcare will be like, if Obamacare is not expunged.

There are, of course, businesses within the service sector where personal attention is key and where attention to detail is critical to the success of the enterprise. High-end hotels and restaurants, which depend on repeat visits, are noted for making customers welcome and comfortable. There is, as a result, a direct link between the manner in which one is treated and the amount of compensation to the one providing the service.

However, the problem is societal. It is revelatory of our culture and can be seen in the lack of respect that too many people have for one another. The concept of service, of doing something for others, of paying back society is common among many who have done far better financially than they ever expected. It is a habit that should be taught at an early age.

One way would be to reinstate the draft, if not in the form we once had, at least in a fashion that requires every able bodied young person to perform some service for their country, either in the military or in some form of a domestic version of the Peace Corps. Unemployment is high, especially among the young. This would address that issue. Skills and training would be taught, helping young people as they enter the workforce. It could be seen as a form of stimulus, but its most important lesson would for the young to learn selflessness. It would give people a sense of the satisfaction that service to one’s nation provides. It would help them understand that nothing is free, especially freedom. And, it would give the youth of America a sense of responsibility.

We have had freedom in this country for so long that it is taken for granted. The history of the United States’ founding is subsumed by classes on “relevant”, politically correct subjects like women’s rights, or the experience of minorities in America, or the misdeeds of a small number of soldiers in places like Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. This is not to dismiss the importance of those subjects. They should be studied. However, it is a question of priorities. The National Assessment of Educational Process, in a June 2011 study, found that nearly half of Americans were unable to identify the three branches of Government, suggesting that the basic lessons of civics and history have been ignored, either through laziness on the part of teachers or, more likely, because of a warped sense of priorities in the educational system.

A month or two ago the left attempted to adopt the Occupiers of Wall Street to their cause. The President said the “Occupiers” express “the frustration that the American people feel.” However, increasingly people see a “rampant creepiness”, as Peggy Noonan recently put it, when they watch the physical destruction of private property, the openly blatant use of drugs, clashes with the police, a disregard for basic standards of cleanliness, and the destruction of the businesses of many small merchants. Would not these occupiers have been better off having first provided some service to the country that has allowed them to protest?

Much has been written and spoken about our divided nation. Less than one percent of young people today serve in the armed forces. We have created what we call a voluntary army, but in fact it is a professional army. Many of the few soldiers we have in uniform have had to serve multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. That never used to happen. A professional army is not healthy for a democracy. Just as I believe in citizen legislators, I also feel we should have a citizen army. Every year, around Veteran’s Day, the Old Lyme Country Club hosts a singing group from the nearby Coast Guard Academy. The program ends with the singing of the United States Armed Forces Medley, a four minute song comprised of words and music from the theme songs of the five branches of the military. Anybody who has served, in whatever capacity, is asked to stand during the few moments the words representing their branch are being sung. Not surprisingly, most of those who stand are old. At 70, I am one of the youngest. It is sad to think that this tradition may disappear.

The concept of service needs to be re-learned. Competition is the way in which the private sector learns the rewards of service. But as more of our economy comes under the auspices of government – a monopoly by definition – that concept risks disappearing. Bringing back the draft may serve to make more of our youth knowledgeable and respectful for the nation in which we live and, at the same time instill in them the importance of serving their country. We will all be better served.