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Malcolm Gladwell

Writer, The New Yorker magazine
New York, New York

Gladwell, 42, is author of the best-sellers The Tipping Point and Blink. His books and his articles in The New Yorker consistently offer fresh perspectives on issues businesspeople care about.
First appeared in Fast Company: January 2005

"Business has to find its national voice. It has to be engaged in the politics of this country in a way it's not accustomed to. Right now, executives are very good at saying, 'Cut our taxes, cut our regulations.' And they're really terrible at making far more important and substantive arguments about social policy. It's time they stopped banging this one-note drum and started saying that a lot of the things that have been relegated to ideology are, in fact, matters of fundamental international competitiveness for this country.

Take, for example, health care. We are ceding manufacturing jobs to the rest of the world because we can't get around to providing some kind of basic, uniform health insurance. Because of our strange ideological problem with nationalized health insurance, we're basically driving Detroit out of business--which strikes me as a very counterintuitive, nonsensical policy. The simple fact is that GM and Ford and Chrysler cannot compete in the world market if they're asked to bear the pension and health-care costs of their retirees. Can't be done. It's that simple.

I also think it's time that business stood up and joined the immigration debate. I think it has been--with the exception of some high-tech firms--shamefully silent on this, which should be one of its top competitiveness issues. Congress should not be shutting down the borders at a time when we're 10 or 15 years away from some very serious workplace shortages, skilled-labor shortages. We've shut the spigot off, and we're keeping out the very people who would drive our economy 10 years out when our workforce retires en masse.

We talk about these as equity issues, as cost issues, as ideological issues, but more than anything else, they're about competitiveness."
--Interview by Michael A. Prospero

Barbara Ehrenreich

Writer
Key West, Florida

Ehrenreich, 64, is a cultural critic and author whose book Nickel and Dimed exposed the dark side of the service economy. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, reveals the underbelly of white-collar work.
First appeared in Fast Company: October 2002

"There is a profound discounting of experience going on that we're going to have to reexamine if we're going to keep up with the rest of the world. During my research for Bait and Switch, I was told again and again that the basis of hiring is not your skills or experience, but how likable you are. The rationale is that you have to be a 'team player' and conform, in great detail, down to the shape of your lapel pin. In what kind of team does everyone have to be the same?