It is naive to believe education alone will protect your job
I believe it is absolute stupidity to believe that you can make it in a techno-industrial society without education. Remember that education isn't just classroom. If you want to be a great welder, chances are, you will take some classes or do some serious apprenticeship. You will acquire certifications which will require education.
College is utterly worthless in most cases- except that I wouldn't have the job I have now without it, even though what I do neither requires a degree, nor is in my degree field. All I can say is that I make a lot more money now than when I first joined TFL in 1998 or '99. I am still taking classes in Access and working on certifications.
At one point I was naive and thought I could just join the Army and that would be the end of education, but lo and behold! I ended up in NCO professional development courses, machine gunner's courses, foriegn weapons, small engine mechanic's and many other courses. You can't escape education. You cannot disengage your brain and hope for a bright future by accident.
You mentioned my pet peeve as well and something I deal with a lot. People who view a job as beneath them will eventually work beneath me (for a short while anyway). Employers don't hire somebody or retain those who view an aspect of your job as beneath you. My employer hires me to get the job done. In the absence of staff, I do their jobs. If I didn't, it would mean that I am tired of working here.
Good comments about Ludwig Von Misses. That guy nailed it down tight and we still, after seeing it happen time and time again, don't take his discoveries seriously. The only Presidential candidate who appears to is Ron Paul, and still the American electorate seems to want to dismiss the laws of economics rather than learn to work with them.