Convenient Social Virtue and the Supply of Engineers

John Kenneth Galbraith introduced the term "convenient social virtue" in his 1973 book Economics and the Public Purpose. In that book he defined the term as the willingness of society's less powerful members to let themselves be exploited by the more powerful in the name of social good.

Galbraith raised the concept for, among other purposes, consideration of how differently society tends to treat people in different jobs, doctors as against nurses, for example. The conventional think it entirely acceptable that doctors should drive a very hard bargain where their monetary compensation is concerned--but should nurses receiving much, much less ask for a cost-of-living increase this is seen as unseemly, the nurse expected to be fobbed off with praise for her "service to the community" instead.

Other areas where one sees this kind of combination of exploitation with shabby moralizing include, of course, the teaching profession (resistance to which exploitation has led to the unhinged degree of demonization of the teacher seen in contemporary America).

Conventionally we do not think of society as making such demands on members of the far more respected engineering profession. Yet consider the eternal whining about the number of engineering graduates the country produces. As it happens the economy, especially in its current deindustrialized, hollowed-out state, offers plenty of careers that seem far, far more likely to be lucrative to those who have the potential to be engineers--like finance (to say nothing of those old standards, law and medicine)--and indeed is always recommending those careers to them.

In overlooking this they seem to simply think that in spite of the material rewards appearing to lie elsewhere young people will flock to engineering simply because business wants them to, never mind whether it is prepared to compete with other sectors for able young graduates--expecting, instead, that young people will choose engineering out of "convenient social virtue."