Unlike some fellow conservative commentators, Michael Barone has no desire to poke fun at an Occupy Wall Street protester who quit his job as a public school drama teacher to spend $35,000 on a master’s degree in puppetry.
I think that in quitting a tenured job he was giving up security and taking a risk to achieve his dream. …
… In the America of our time, a lot of people make livings as actors, musicians and, yes, as puppeteers. I think it’s a safe assumption that they get more satisfaction and sense of accomplishment from their work than they would as file clerks or factory workers with significantly higher pay.
Joe Therrien bet $35,000 that he would be able to find work he loved, and I think well of him for it, even though he has at least for the moment lost his gamble.
What he probably doesn’t realize is that jobs in fields like puppetry aren’t generated by government but are the product of bounteous market capitalism, which enables people to buy luxury goods like puppet show tickets and subsidize puppet theaters through philanthropy.
Government is a poor and unreliable substitute, and a government that chokes private-sector growth inevitably hurts the puppetry business. Sorry, Joe.
