Education and the Theory of Comparative Advantage

Sooner or later, every blogger worth his salt writes about the education system in Singapore. It makes sense; the topic is familiar to all in this country, giving an instant bloodthirsty audience, and (less cynically) it is worth reviewing how opinions are formed in youth, in the hope of affecting those opinions in the mature reader towards the goal of enhancing critical thinking in social and political matters. Notably it also provides a vehicle for people of limited life experience to rant and rave about their limitations.

Enough with the cynicism. I was reading KTM's reply comments to Piper in his article on social mobility recently, where he mentioned that there existed a deep-seated belief that hard work can confer greater material success i.e. lead to upward social mobility, and expressed his own sentiments that "hard work is a pre-requisite for success, but hard work doesn't guarantee success".

I agree with KTM in this. Here are my two cents' worth.

There is hard work, and then there is hard work. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage simply states: Work hard at what you naturally do better at than most other people. Right now I could probably do multivariate calculus and advanced physics, if I spent 10 years learning and practising it without any other activity. This would be hard work. Hard work brings success, no? No. This would also be profoundly stupid compared to those more naturally talented in physics who do their undergraduate courses in the normal 3-4 years and then come out to become investment bankers. Sure, if I master the stuff and thereafter become an investment banker (I hear the banks love these maths skills), I will have material success and social mobility. But it is simply very unlikely that any bank would hire an aged decrepit slow learner unless truly outstanding reasons were provided to offset the lack of "normal" ability.

I may, instead, spend some time in my youth exploring my interests to see if I have enough aptitude for a few of them to make those my career choice.
[Update: takchek: "I learnt more about China and Taiwan when I was trying to date girls from those countries, than from my 10 years in SAP schools"]

And, as always, your career choices do not dictate your present and future interests :) .

Okay that's the end of my obligatory post on education. No anecdotes, no apologies, simply a word.