{"id":25037,"date":"2020-05-24T21:50:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T01:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=25037"},"modified":"2020-05-24T21:50:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T01:50:38","slug":"mike-rowe-is-right-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-non-essential-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/05\/24\/mike-rowe-is-right-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-non-essential-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Rowe Is Right: There\u2019s \u201cNo Such Thing\u201d as a Non-Essential Worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Few people in history have seen more jobs up close than Mike Rowe, the longtime host of the Discovery Channel\u2019s hit TV show Dirty Jobs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now the blue-collar icon has a message for those who say \u201cnon-essential\u201d employees have no business working during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

In a recent TV appearance with Dana Perino on \u201cThe Daily Briefing,\u201d Rowe made it clear he\u2019s not a fan of the terms \u201cessential\u201d and \u201cnon-essential\u201d worker. The problem with such a view, Rowe said, is that such terms have little actual meaning and the economy makes no such distinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something tricky with the language going on here, because with regard to an economy, I don\u2019t think there is any such thing as a nonessential worker,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cThis is basically a quilt…and if you start pulling on jobs and tugging on careers over here and over there, the whole thing will bunch up in a weird way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowe\u2019s message is precisely what FEE president and economist Zilvinas Silenas was getting at in a recent article published at Townhall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing politicians to decide which businesses and products are \u2018essential\u2019 is an invitation for disaster,\u201d Silenas observed. \u201cIf we continue to deny these businesses the ability to do the one essential thing they are best at\u2014providing goods and services to millions of everyday Americans\u2014we risk more than unemployment or recession of stock price plunge. We deprive ourselves of the best resource\u2014our people\u2014during the time of need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truth is, all workers are essential.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, all too often what is deemed \u201cessential\u201d is simply what\u2019s convenient to state leaders making the decisions. Few would suggest that liquor store owners are inherently more essential than pizza parlor owners\u2014except perhaps state revenue collectors. No doubt this is the same reason Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer concluded that lottery tickets are essential<\/a>, but gardening seeds are not.<\/p>\n

Liquor stores and lottery tickets aren\u2019t especially \u201cessential\u201d to Americans, just state budgets. But as one Washington State sheriff noted <\/a>in April, this seems to be the criteria state leaders often use to determine what is \u201cessential\u201d and \u201cnon-essential\u201d: whether it helps the government\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n

When the state picks winners and losers it\u2019s not only unfair, however. It’s also destructive.<\/p>\n

As the great economist Leonard Read so artfully showed in the classic work “I, Pencil<\/a>,” the economy is vast and interconnected. Individuals can\u2019t make anything themselves, not even a simple pencil. Entrepreneurs and corporations rely on millions of others to provide the goods and services they require. No single central planner could possibly know all the materials that go into the countless life-sustaining products that propel our economy\u2014and continue to propel us through the current pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce politely pointed this out<\/a> in March when they warned that many of the \u201cnon-life-sustaining businesses\u201d closed by Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s orders were in fact crucial to the supply chain of other businesses.<\/p>\n

Nearly two months later, the consequences of shutting down \u201cnon-essential\u201d businesses is even more apparent. The US supply chain is creaking<\/a>, putting many sectors, small businesses, and American families at risk.<\/p>\n

Economist Antony Davies and political scientist James Harrigan recently explained why these food disruptions are happening<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot declare one business \u2018unnecessary\u2019 without, by extension, declaring unnecessary every other business that relies on it, and every business that relies on those businesses,\u201d Davies and Harrigan write. \u201cFood is necessary, and because of that delivery trucks are necessary, and because of that engine fuses and wiper blades are necessary, and because of that plastic packaging in which fuses and blades are sold is necessary, and on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrigan and Davies make a similar point as Rowe using a different metaphor.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur economy is not a series of individual supply chains. It is a single, unified supply web. Cut the web in any place and the whole structure weakens,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

Quilt or unified supply web, the point is the same.<\/p>\n

If state leaders wish to persist in these harmful lockdowns, they should consider using classifications that are at least more intellectually honest, such as \u201cpreferred\u201d workers and \u201cnon-preferred\u201d workers.<\/p>\n

Because Mike Rowe is correct: all workers are essential.<\/p>\n

\n

\nJon Miltimore
\n<\/a><\/h5>\n

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing\/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.<\/p>\n

Bylines: The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"