Asymmetrical Information

Once long ago I had a conversation with a fundraiser for a liberal think-tank in D.C. It was a very short conversation, but the gist of it was that she couldn't raise any money because she basically believed that money was evil, and the people that made lots of it were evil too, and that made it really hard for her to talk to them in a civilized, let alone wheedling, manner.

I extrapolate thusly: there are lots and lots of smart people in the world. The ones that loosely conform to libertarian thought get themselves busy and create companies and produce things, because they believe that the market is a good thing and participating in it is better than sex. Or at least fairly comparably terrific.

The ones that tend to the opposite side of the spectrum quite literally CANNOT participate in the market, because to do so would lend it legitimacy. But hey, everyone has to eat. Where does one go, then, when one cannot stand to mingle with the unwashed in the piazza? One goes to the Ivory Tower, where one is rarely confronted either with the need to create tangible value or with people that think there ought to be such a need.

Academia is therefore dominated by liberals - nay, by socialists and communists - and the Fortune 500 is overwhelmingly dominated by capitalists and free-marketeers. Personally, I'm with Winterspeak. Academia is a really good place for these people. They can do less harm in interminable and obscure graduate programs at Berkeley than they could if they got out and learned to communicate with average people.

I like Chris's idea. Here's another.

Maybe academics aren't just selling a product. They're also selling advertising for their services, which is hard to discern because both product and advertising are information.

Assuming for a second that people really wanted a libertarian college then perhaps the whole setup is similar to a prisoner's diellema with punishment for non-compliance to enforce cooperation. An individual university could push libertarian values and increase the value of its education, but then it gets hammered by other universities who anti-log roll papers by that institution decreasing its prestige?

People bought dumb things before advertising, but advertising still influences people's decisions.

Oh, I love the simplistic self-righteous arguments that political extremists can come up with. Anyone who isn't libertarian enough for Chris isn't simply liberal, they are socialists or communists. Here's the converse one for you. Libertarians are by nature sociopaths who use their "political philosophy" as an excuse to justify a me-me-me-all-greed-all-the-time" attitude that says that anyone who can't cut it in their pure free market paradise is a lesser human being. Is it true? Probably not, but it's just as valid as Chris's post.

There is truth to the assertion that what comes out of the ivory towers in the world has an effect. Historicaly, of course, universities were not the only bastions of academics. Marx and Engels spent their time writing papers and books. The results of their philosophy were not waht I would call academic.

On the other side, the vast majority of academics are overspecialized, overpaid, and useless - and they know it. This lack of self esteem, and the fact that they are left without any interaction in the market while still getting the majority of the benefits, lead to a demonization of capitalist dogma about worth and production. It helps, of course, that they are insulated almost completely by tenure.

There was an interesting tangential discussion of this topic on Cato-Unbound a couple months ago, see here and here. There are some interesting points there about the misvaluation of education, and a retrospective on McCarthy's rants about Communist subversion of academia.

Where this theory of inconsequence probably breaks down is in law. There's good reason to believe that crackpot judges are swayed by crackpot legal theorists.

...by and large students just want to graduate, academics just want to be insulated from the real world, and the real world wants to be isolated from loonies who go on about how great Che Guevara was. In this light, the Academy is a very efficient mechanism, creating surplus for all.

Now THAT is quotable!

As markets go, the academic job market is pretty funky. You could just as easily look at liberal or conservative blog clusters and call those "markets."

Jim, sorry to have touched a nerve. I didn't - and don't - make any value judgments about socialists and communists, any more than I do about libertarians. I didn't say anything about their being "lesser human beings". I did say that they don't, generally, want to be around people that clamor for entrepreneurial creation of things of tangible value (some colleges are exceptions, naturally), but that is, in fact, not what universities are for, so that's hardly a condemnation.

Academia IS dominated by socialists and communists. Anyone that argues about this obviously hasn't spent any time in college, especially in the liberal-arts and political-science departments. Governments are dominated by rent-seeking bureaucrats. The NBA is dominated by tall, fast, and athletic men. The Fortune 500 is dominated by capitalists. You could make the contention easily enough that my post was uninformative, but I don't see where I ought to be accused of calling liberals a lesser species.

Most people aren't thoughtful enough to be either communists or libertarians. I'm not sure I am. It's really hard work. Takes a lot of contemplation and time to read. Academicians, not coincidentally, have those two things in abundance. Is it too forward of me to point out also that they are, and also not coincidentally, quite a bit different in political persuasion than the average Joe?

Cj

P.S. Many libertarians ARE sociopaths, but it is my experience that greedy sociopaths only get along well in state-driven economies, and likely would starve to death in a true free-market paradise, wherever such a thing could be found. You could make a living in a communist or socialist system as a sociopath, but not in a free-market system, because under socialism and communism you can use the state to prop up your inefficiencies (and sociopathy is a huge inefficiency); in a free-market paradise you need people to like you, because you need them to buy and to make your stuff. All the successful libertarians are the kind of people you desperately hope come to your parties.

Cheers.

Chris, I understand the correlation you are drawing between time to think and read and being liberal. That doesn't imply causation. In fact, it is much easier to explain it the other way - having liberal tendencies causes one to avoid nonacademic work.

David, absolutely. I'm not positing causation. I'm offering rationales for correlation (which may be wrong). My original post made exactly your point, that liberals are to be found in academia precisely because that is a place where they are less likely to be faced with the nonacademic entrepreneurial drive. If there is a place on earth less conducive to market-driven entrepreneurialism than the K-12-PhD public education system in the US, I don't know where it is.

I'll go with Cuba, Alex, since Castro seems not to have died. But point taken.

The free market provides a solution, of course, and smart rich libertarians can be counted on to pursue it. Stipulate, as Mr. Jones asserts, that the institutional structure of the academy favors spontaneously leftist hiring and thought. The obvious response is to build a parallel tower of faux ivory, in a gilded cage with an Astroturf quad and steel cyclone wire around it. Cato has to pay higher salaries than Berkeley, and they can't allow their people tenure or editorial independence, but on the whole they turn out a competent product despite their structural handicap.

Michael Bérubé made this point very sharply while baiting David Horowitz a few years ago.

I think we’re finally getting to the real reason David hates professors so much. It has nothing to do with our salaries or our working hours: he hates our freedom. Horowitz knows perfectly well that I can criticize the Cockburns and Churchills to my left and the Beinarts and Elshtains to my right any old time I choose, and that at the end of the day I’ll still have a job – whereas he has to answer to all his many masters, fetching and rolling over whenever they blow that special wingnut whistle that only far-right lackeys can hear. It’s not a very dignified way to live, and surely it takes its toll on a person’s sense of self-respect.

With respect to the issue of self-respect, here’s the giveaway: think about how often Horowitz complains that the intellectual left doesn’t take him seriously, doesn’t read his books, and so on. What’s weird about this, you’ll probably have noticed by now, is that American left intellectuals are just about the only thinkers who pay any attention to Horowitz at all. Most of the country’s serious intellectual conservatives consider him either a useful rabble-rouser or a rank embarrassment, more akin to Michael Savage than to Michael Oakeshott. And with good reason.
(link)

(Would it be unkind to refer to the observed equilibrium as a state of Asymmetrical Information?)

Speaking as a Ph.D. who's not a professor, I think the extreme political skew of some university faculties is probably because leftists are more likely to be attracted to shaping “young skulls full of mush.” If you're going by “They say” instead of “It is,” it's of utmost importance to influence what “They say.” If you're going by “It is,” such influence is of secondary importance.

Higher ed as a market and the preponderence of commie pinko professors show that the consumer doesn't really have an impact, nor much choice.

The only way consumers have an effect is by choosing NOT to go to a particular institution, en masse. Then the college/university gets very concerned about recruitment and retention (from their side of the issue) and student development, satisfaction, and success (from the student's POV), because that's what gets the job of retention done. They'll pay fat consulting fees to Noel-Levitz to come and state the obvious, then when numbers stabilize, calm back down. This frenzy doesn't actually affect the commie pinko faculty much, more the administration of professional meeting attenders; the commie pinko faculty only start panicking when they realize their programs and jobs might be on the line (in spite of tenure; one can be terminated if one's department or program is discontinued).

Higher ed really doesn't care what its customers think as long as they keep showing up and paying.

Students/parents don't really have a heck of a lot of choice. A lot are choosing private religious colleges if they are offended by the binge drinking Ho culture of the big publics. Many are choosing the type of education that is the biggest part of growth in the job market and for technically skilled positions that pay better than Bachelor's degrees and academic Master's degrees: community/technical colleges. Commie pinko faculty are rare at CTC's and stand out wherever they are found. Mostly it's a faculty that is pragmatic, real-world oriented, and can teach ANYONE (not just the talented). Excellent return on investment.

The market for faculty is almost entirely disconnected from the customer market mechanism. Faculty lines are approved for hiring by the administration but hiring is done by the department, meaning the commie pinkoes pick more of their own kind. They retch at the thought that perhaps there should be some DIVERSITY of perspective in their department.

Can you tell I work in higher ed?

As has been said, Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Horowitz knows perfectly well that I can criticize the Cockburns and Churchills to my left and the Beinarts and Elshtains to my right any old time I choose

Yeah, right. Anyone who opposes any entrenched orthodoxy is any meaningful way often finds themselves in deep sheepdip, and fast. How many academics have actually come out against Churchill, or the 9/11 conspiracy nut at Wisconsin?

Sure, the Constitution gives you the right to speak out about anything you want, regardless of where you work....just don't expect to be too popular at the next Faculty Mixer.

The issue here is that humans intrinsically do dumb and violent things, and the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas cooked up by some guys sitting in an Ivory Tower, writing papers that no one else reads, is bogus.

Priceless and true!

Jim, sorry to have touched a nerve. I didn't - and don't - make any value judgments about socialists and communists, any more than I do about libertarians. I didn't say anything about their being "lesser human beings".

Relax, the underside of Jim S' computer desk had a large dent in the shape of his knee a long time before you came along. Most of his subsequent literary upset probably stems from the fact that every time he does that, he spills his coffee into the keyboard.

Look, there's a simple reason why academia is "liberal:" Liberal people like to teach more thann they like to make money, while Conservative people like to make money more than they like to teach - and yes, the two are mutually exclusive. Artistic, imaginative, creative, altrusistic = liberal. Greedy, unimaginative, self-absorbed, destructive = conservtaive (Libertarianism is just conservatism for spoiled children).

So that's it in a nutshell. And it works for other occupations as well. Liberals like to make things, to write things, to play things, to create things, to inform of things, to teach things, to discuss things. Conservatives have no time for any of that.

JMJ

Artistic, imaginative, creative, altrusistic = liberal. Greedy, unimaginative, self-absorbed, destructive = conservtaive

Yawn. This one is no funnier or more insightful than the one which holds conservativism as the light and beacon of civilization against the barbarian liberals, although since that strain also tends to make an appearance in these discussions, I guess it is fair to keep the insanity balanced.

Fact is, some of the best and brightest scientists and engineers I know are very talented in either music, art, literature, or some combination of these. Often these share their talents in community or church activities and competitions. I won't include myself among the best and brightest of engineering talent, but my hobbies beyond the technical have included art with at least six media, creative writing, gourmet cooking, woodworking, and piano (although that last one has regrettably faded from my hands).

The difference is, people with multiple talents are less likely to specialize in just art because outside of the video game industry and graphic design fields, which are heavily competitive, it's not normally a great way to make a living. Being, e.g., an engineer allows a person to not be faced with such eviable choices as, say, whether to eat or pay rent this month, AND usually provides adequate disposable income to allow an indulgance in expensive tools for other hobbies.

As for altruism...an expressed desire to distribute the earnings of others is not altruism, it's envy. The meaningful measure of altruism -- giving out of one's own earnings, even unto personal sacrifice -- is a somewhat rarer talent that is not demarcated by petty political lines.

There's a reason people use the phrase, "It's academic" to mean it doesn't matter.

"The meaningful measure of altruism -- giving out of one's own earnings, even unto personal sacrifice -- is a somewhat rarer talent that is not demarcated by petty political lines."

An interesting real world test of this hypothesis has occured, although not with this stated intention.

First, a stipulation that Massachusetts be considered a liberal state with a liberal population. A few years ago, Massachusetts had a state income tax rate of 5.6%. It was rolled back, over the howling of the Democratic party, to 5.3%. However, as a sop to the Democrats the tax returns had an optional box to check if anyone wanted to pay the higher rate. So if you estimate the voting population of Massachusetts as around 3 million, say evenly divided between liberals and 'conservatives' (we're talking about MA here) that would mean 1.5 million liberals had the opportunity to tax themselves (and only themselves) at the higher rate.

What was the outcome? Only about 128 people chose the higher tax rate. And most of those were low income earners making less than 25K.

Not surprisingly, the liberal response to this embarassing example was that of course they didn't choose the higher rate, they 'knew' that conservatives wouldn't so it wasn't fair.

Naturally, being one of the few 'conservatives' in Massachusetts, I didn't choose to be taxed into oblivion.

It's not like humans weren't making dumb and violent decisions long before "ideology" was invented, or that humans will not make dumb and violent decisions if ideology was magically erased.

The claim to be "ideology free" is subject to serious question. Having an ideology means having a worldview, a conception of reality, a set of assumptions about the world. In its pejorative sense, "being ideological" or "being an ideologue" means having a narrow set of rules and forcing reality to fit them. However, lacking an ideology is possible by only two approaches of which I can think:

Trivial: complete insanity, inability to coalesce facts into concepts, waking up in a new world every day, having no understanding of cause and effect

Unlikely: Being free of evolutionary and cultural influences and personal experience

I've been reading this blog for a while now, and its one of my favorites. For some reason, though, whenever the subject strays too close to academia, discussion starts to get a bit wobbly. Some thoughts from a member of one of those commie pinko political science departments that Chris Jones mentioned...

1) Kentuckyliz repeats a cliche about higher educaiton, that it's biased against conservatives. Speaking as a white male conservative--exactly the person who should be discriminated against--claims of liberal bias in academic hiring/publication are generally nothing but hot air. If I were to have made a big deal of my political orientation at my interview, that might have annoyed some people, but they would reject me as someone who felt a need to be deliberatly annoying (remember, the academic job market is partly driven by the realization that we'll have to live with a new hire for the next 35 years) rather than because of my conservatism. I've published papers complimentary of some Bush administration strategies, and not once did I get any kind of push-back from the blind reviewers. The one area where political orientation matters is in the selection of "trendy topics"--in today's world, queer studies outranks diplomatic history. But that comes and goes.

2) Repeated claims about how academics don't produce "tangible value" miss the point. Tangible value refers to something that is of value to others--something that someone, somewhere, would be willing to pay for. Those parts of academia that teach skills directly--accounting school, medical school, welding school--all of these produce "tangible value." Those of us in the liberal arts don't do this. Some political science classes do (statistics, polling methodology, and the like), but most of our (my) classes don't. If "tangible value" is all that matters, then Brian Despain's jibe about "it's all academic" is dead-on accurate. Like kentuckyliz says, most people should go to community colleges. Personally, though, I don't believe that my ability to produce "tangible value" the only thing in life--or even the most important thing in life. Fundamentally, the liberal arts are still about transforming the self, broadening people's horizons, helping them think about issues beyond that of the next paycheck. This may have no "tangible value" to society, perhaps even a negative one--but it's value to society isn't the point, it's value to the individual is. Surely the liberatarians here remember Heinlein's comment from his Starship Troopers where the main character's father says he joined the army because he wanted to be more than a "production-consumption machine." The liberal arts point people away from being such a machine. Questions of their "tangible value" are like Krugman's argument that we should cancel space exploration because it isn't currently profitable--straw man arguments.

3) Contary to what Chris Jones says, one thing common to academics is that we could have chosen other career paths--more "tangible value" and higher paying paths, but we didn't. Is it because we're commie pinkos and this is the only place we can safely be pinkos? Please tell me that no one actually believes that BS. Why are we here? Because we're liberals interested in brainwashing young people? Not particularly, though most of us enjoy teaching. We're here because we get paid to do what fascinates us every single day--we do research to satisfy our own curiousity, we teach what stimulates us, and we have no one to tell us what to do. (I suppose we're all very self-centered people, actually). :)

4) The original post was about whether or not academic ideas matter. I think Winterspeak was right, they usually have no direct impact. Some academics are involved directly, some important (like Henry Kissinger) some less so (like my colleague who briefs national guard units prepping for Iraq), but in the big picture, they're rare. Indirectly acadmics have more impact; in setting the terms and limits within which real world decisions take place, but that veers away from Winterspeak's point.

Still, there's a flip side to this. Conversations I've had with friends in government seem convinced that it's their personal work that keeps the Earth spinning properly on its axis. The same goes for people in business. Everyone is inordinately convinced of their own importance. It seems to me that there is place in the human experience for a range of "revelance." Some people should focus on the very narrow details of here and now. Some people should stay with the vague ideas that float in the depths of human consciousness and only bubble up to the surface from time to time. Society would be impoverished by the loss of either--impoverished in different ways, but impoverised nonetheless.

Hmmm...I seem to have gone on a little longer than I should have. Yet another academic characteristic. :)

Mouse,

Your multi-talent theory is usless. We are talking about teaching. Teaching is about one subject at a time. You don't teach a class of a zillion unrelated subjects.

Stay on point.

The point I was making was that the reason so many "liberals" are in that profession is because liberals feel a higher calling in life than just getting rich. After all, you ain't getting rich on a teacher's salary. You did not address that main point at all, but rather danced around the subject with innane points about multi-talentedness, which is found in all people.

"As for altruism...an expressed desire to distribute the earnings of others is not altruism, it's envy."

Nice, typical, sleazy con, bait n switch there. It's not about envy, genius. It's about maintaining a vital society with a true balance of opportunity and an understanding that you don't get rich in a vacuum. There's a civilization and it's laws and prosperity that gave you the opportunity to get rich. You don't choose to which country you are born to - or for that matter, what socio-economic class, race, wealth, etc. In other words, you have to understand that as successful as you are is as grateful to the nation that helped you become successful you must be - and as reciprical as you must be.

Also, to maintain the fiat, you have to understand that there can only be so much money out there at any given moment. If too much money settles at the top, that means, by definition, that there's not enough at the bottom. Now, you can't just redistribute willy nilly. But you can invest in the social and physical infrastructure of the nation, giving greater opportunity for those at the bottom to rise. Then we all rise. And this is not about "growth," yet another empty, insipid word, like "lower taxes" or "smaller government." How much lower? How much smaller? What kind of growth? These stupid con terms tell you nothing.

For example:

There are two men in a room. One has 1 million dollars and the other has 50 cents. Two men are looking into the room. One is an economist, the other, a regular schmuck. The economist would say that the average wealth in the room is $500,000.25 per capita. The regular schmuck would say, "Hey look at the rich guy and the poor guy!" Now, one year goes by. The millionaire makes another 500k and the poor guy makes nothing. The economist would say, "The economy of the room grew almost 50% last year." The regular schmuck would say, "Gee, I wonder when the poor guy's gonna kick that rich guy in the nuts and make off with his loot."

You have learned nothing from either of these perspectives.

Conservatives do not grasp this.

JMJ

So the "poor" guy with only 50 cents to his name, does nothing in a year, no job, not even at McDonald's, no educational advance, no attempt to improve his lot, and the only option is to assault the "rich" guy and steal his money? And this doesn't have anything to do with envy?

First, as a business major, I didn't encounter many liberal professors. Most of them were bankers, accountants, or small business owners, who tended to be conservatives.

Second, I enjoyed the liberal arts classes I had to take at least partially because the instructors often did lean to the left. Challenging them was fun. And I do not remember a single situation in which I felt my grade was in peril because of it. I got the impression they actually enjoyed reading papers that didn't just spew back their own ideas. Modern liberals have some strange ideas. But in my experience, they generally enjoy a challenge.

Jersey,

Re; "...you have to understand that there can only be so much money out there at any given moment. If too much money settles at the top, that means, by definition, that there's not enough at the bottom."

Wrong. Way wrong. Wealth doesn't "settle" at the top - it is created at the top. And if you stop creating wealth at the top, all you do is stop creating wealth.

We live in a luxury society. I would estimate that nearly 90% of the existing goods, services, and jobs are in luxuries. This is possible because we have gotten so good at creating the necessities that a very few people can create enough for us all at a very low cost. So what do the rest of us do? We expand the range and depth of luxuries. I see all that wealth at the top and see that it was created. This is a very good thing - both for the creators and for the rest of us. You see all that wealth at the top and think it must have been stolen. But again, you are wrong.

Wealth may not be created in a vaccuum, but what your suggesting would prevent wealth from accumulating in the first place, as people like you clearly do not grasp. The world did not start with people being born into a room with wealth. Someone created it. But the question is, would they have created it if a nice government would just take it and distribute it to other people? Would that man in the room have worked hard for his 1million if he knew once he got past, say, 100,000 the government would start taking a larger and larger share? Maybe he didn't earn it. Maybe his parents did. Would his parents have worked that extra bit, invested that extra bit of money, started that new company that created 100 jobs, if they knew they really couldn't expect to make more than X amount before the government starts taking it and passing it out?

I grasp what you're saying. You're talking about being kind and helping everyone out. No problem. If its voluntary. The problem is once that becomes forced policy it brings in a whole new set of economic distortions that people like you fail to grasp or admit. You're trying to help, but in the end you may be doing more harm than good. I'm glad that I have a job that lets me live comfortably because some other guy who owns a company wanted to achieve success. (rarely are people who own companys motivated by "getting rich" it's building a successful "empire" is what they're after)

P.S. Jersey,

The idea that a society has a right to redistribute wealth because the existance of the society contributed to the creation of that wealth, neglects the fact that free markets and property rights are themselves the primary methods by which the society contributes to the creation of wealth.

Phase 1: Everyone fights over everything.
Phase 2: Institute free markets and property rights under the rule of law to ensure efficient utilization and peaceful exchange.
Phase 3: Allow free markets and property rights to diminish in the pursuit of some other goal.
Phase 4: Everyone fights over everything.

This may be just my experience, but I think the popular image of the far left-wing/communist/pinko academia is slightly overblown. For one, it is applied largely to all academic departments. Judging from my experience, literature and humanities departments are very far left, relative to society as a whole and the rest of academia. However, this does not apply to economics departments. My economics professors were fairly balanced between right and left -yet I have seen surveys which show that, on average, economics professors lean to the left, but private economists lean to the right.

I am currently in a grad program in History, and my experience is that History professors are so committed to evidence and archival sources that any influence of ideology is constantly in check.

That being said, most professors are part of the left, but the good ones teach without much bias, while the bad ones try and indoctrinate.

Winterspeak,

To your "ideology doesn't matter" points:

"... academics are broadly ignored (ask any academic) so it does not matter what they say at all."

Absolutely wrong. Many academics are broadly published, quoted, and regularly celebrated. Many are ignored, of course, but a rather large and influential chunk clearly are not. Thousands of acamemics are quoted as authorities, millions do research, give lectures, write books and articles, and have serious intellectual influence over their students (even undergraduates). I'd challenge you to point out who sets the intellectual agenda of our culture *more* than academics.

"I don't know why people like to ascribe the ills of the world to ... any kind of ideology at all."

Oh, probably because "ideologies", while they may not have much impact on primitive Amazonian tribes, had a reasonably large effect on those who slaughtered of tens of millions across the planet (in the last century alone). Ask the victims of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, even bin Laden or any of the other recent thugs whether "ideology" matters. Oh, but you can't -- they're dead.

On a more positive note, I'm rather glad a bunch of smarties in the late 18th century read "ideologies" by Locke, Montesquieu, Hobbes, and others and cobbled our country together. OK, they weren't academics -- but even Jefferson thought it wise enough to *build* a university.

" ... the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas ... is bogus."

So, humans "intrinsically do dumb and violent things" because ... they just can't help it?

C'mon. Ideas, "ideology", and yes, academics *matter*. This comment section is far too short to give a full defense, but I hope I've at least stoked the issue.

In short, I found your nihilistic hand-waving utterly unconvincing.

Jersey,

The point I was making was that the reason so many "liberals" are in that profession is because liberals feel a higher calling in life than just getting rich.

It's really, really silly to respond to this, but all the same . . .

This is a load of hooey. I know academia pretty well. Teaching and research are both demanding work, and most academics would likely now be earning more if they'd long ago decided to do something else. But I'm damned if I'm going to believe that anyone thinks of a secure job — one in which one's surrounded by intelligent people in a congenial setting, and one consisting entirely of reading and writing and talking about one's favorite subject — a sort of noble sacrifice. People go into academia because they like it and are good at it, not because they have loftier visions than does the dude two doors down.

Now, I'm willing to believe that K-12 teachers really do feel some sense of mission, because teaching younger students is harder, pays less, and has zero prestige attached. But the idea of the academic as suffering martyr to the Higher Calling is really too ridiculous. Cut it out.

Incidentally, I am not convinced by this idea of "conservatives" wanting only to get rich. If that's what I've been trying to do with my life, I'm obviously a complete failure at it, possibly because the bits of my time I haven't spent in academia have been mostly occupied reading books, writing articles, and performing classical music.

What this has to do with what I think about, oh, Roe v. Wade or affirmative action or Iraq or Samuel Alito or anything else, I don't know. It's your theory, not mine. But I'll offer any enterprising sociologist a ready-made research project: Go through Marin County, CA (where I live) and tabulate make and year of vehicle and median income of city of residence against presence or absence of a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker. They are pretty rare up here in the north of the county, which contains what Marin has of a blue-collar population. In the tonier parts south, not so much. There's a political affiliation/income correlation, all right, but perhaps not the one you were implying.

I tend to agree with Valjean. It may well be that the ordinary citizen does not really care what some professor has to say about this or that, but the people in positions of power certainly do listen to them. Remember John Maynard Keynes? His ideas certainly had a vast impact on the US economy. And even though the ideas of Karl Marx have pretty well been discredited Marxism-lite has trickled down into the attitudes of a lot of people, as is illustrated by the comments of Jersey McJones above.

JerseyJones:
You try to stipulate that there's a fixed amount of wealth to distribute, and then you try to lecture us about what we do or do not grasp?

Also, I'll accept part of your point that a person's wealth is certainly enabled somewhat by living in a wonderful country like the US.

But then I'd like to hear you concede that the non-wealthy also gain advantages by living in such a wonderful country. After all, they'd get less wealth redistributed to them if they lived anywhere else.

In fact, I'd say that they benefit even more than the rich person, since he'd probably succeed no matter where he went.
This actually happened in the socialist paradise I grew up in (1970's England). Envious redistributionist socialist politicians merely succeeded in driving people offshore.

""... academics are broadly ignored (ask any academic) so it does not matter what they say at all."

Absolutely wrong. Many academics are broadly published, quoted, and regularly celebrated. Many are ignored, of course, but a rather large and influential chunk clearly are not. Thousands of acamemics are quoted as authorities, millions do research, give lectures, write books and articles, and have serious intellectual influence over their students (even undergraduates). I'd challenge you to point out who sets the intellectual agenda of our culture *more* than academics.

"I don't know why people like to ascribe the ills of the world to ... any kind of ideology at all."

Oh, probably because "ideologies", while they may not have much impact on primitive Amazonian tribes, had a reasonably large effect on those who slaughtered of tens of millions across the planet (in the last century alone). Ask the victims of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, even bin Laden or any of the other recent thugs whether "ideology" matters. Oh, but you can't -- they're dead.

On a more positive note, I'm rather glad a bunch of smarties in the late 18th century read "ideologies" by Locke, Montesquieu, Hobbes, and others and cobbled our country together. OK, they weren't academics -- but even Jefferson thought it wise enough to *build* a university.

" ... the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas ... is bogus."

So, humans "intrinsically do dumb and violent things" because ... they just can't help it?

C'mon. Ideas, "ideology", and yes, academics *matter*. This comment section is far too short to give a full defense, but I hope I've at least stoked the issue.

In short, I found your nihilistic hand-waving utterly unconvincing.

Posted by Valjean at August 8, 2006 04:39 PM"

In the true Spirit of Underwriting.

A lot of academia's left-wing bias (at least in the humanities) can be traced back to the 1930s. During that decade, a lot of people who'd have otherwise gone out into the Real World and gotten jobs decided to stay on in graduate school. At that time, the overwhelming majority of "intellectuals" were left-to-hard-left; the "future-that-works" was all the rage.

After WWII, there was a huge expansion of colleges and universities, thanks to the GI Bill, and many of these former grad students were able to get teaching positions. Thanks to tenure, they were able to hold on to their jobs during the 50s, and their influence can be seen on the "New Left"---a lot of the New Leftists' rhetoric has the fingerprints of the fossil radicals of the 1930s all over it.

By that time, the fossil radicals were, themselves, the academic establishment---do the math sometime, and figure out how many senior professors and college administrators during the 60s would have been in grad school or beginning academic careers during the 30s---and left-wing orthodoxy had become a tradition. This was considerably less prevalent in fields like engineering or the hard sciences, but the liberal arts were overwhelmingly dominated by the ex-1930s radicals, or those who had been themselves taught by them.

As for what to do about it---don't ask me.

JMJ:

I see a lot of air has already rushed in to fill the complete vacuum created by your counter-reply, so I'll add only this: based on the tone and timbre of that post's contents, I hope you're not including yourself in the ranks of the Nice People that you think you know so much about.

"In the true Spirit of Underwriting."

I'm just a poor French peasant, M. Hoffer. Peut-etre, you could explain what in blazes you mean?

I might note that there are strong signs that a correction in the value of Ivy League diplomas has already begun. If this is true, we should see within a few years the effect of the market on academia.

What's with the underpaid teacher meme? Teachers are quite well paid. Not rich, but certainly not poor. Faculty salary surveys run periodically in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and salary information for any public employee is public information...so you can check it out for yourself.

In my state, K-12 teachers make more than about half of college faculty...so you can't even really say public schoolteachers are underpaid. Of course, they are pointing to higher salaries in surrounding states and clamoring for higher salary schedules to prevent the teacher drain (working out of state). After all, it's for the children.

So...for an academic, given his or her own personal constellation of talents and interests, college teaching often seems the best fit and use for their talents. Two English faculty I'm friendly with at work were midcareer changers. One used to work in pest control and the other worked for an insurance company. They weren't satisfied, and went to grad school and got PhD's and became GREAT college teachers. Very effective at teaching people to write, no matter what their starting skills are (barely literate, deep holler accents), and also very engaging as literature teachers. They have kind of a fan club and even former students come back for the monthly book club meetings. Neither one is a commie pinko.

Agree with previous commenters that only certain departments in humanities and social sciences tend to have commie pinko self perpetuating tendencies. And not everywhere, either. Didn't mean to paint with such a broad brush.

I think the wacko, crawling-out-on-a-limb-and-sawing types get attention because they're espousing something unusual.

Me personally...I have a BA in English because I studied what I wanted to. So I had to go to grad school to get my "tangible value." Cool with me, I love what I do and am good at it and keep the customers and bosses happy!!!

People Who Agree With Us: Nice, decent, hardworking, handsome, good dancers.

People Who Don't Agree With Us: Nasty, greedy, cruel, worse than Hitler.

Carry on.

Valjean,

4.
a. To write under or at the end of something.
b. To subscribe to, especially to sign or endorse (a document).
5. To support or agree to (a decision, for example).

from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underwrites

I was merely implying that I was in full agreement with your thoughts.

M. Hoffer,

Merci bien.

Nobody Important,

"So the "poor" guy with only 50 cents to his name, does nothing in a year, no job, not even at McDonald's, no educational advance, no attempt to improve his lot, and the only option is to assault the "rich" guy and steal his money? And this doesn't have anything to do with envy?"

Just too deep a point for you, huh? The point of the little parabell was that "growth" in and of itself tells you very little about the dynamics of an economy.

Randy,

"First, as a business major, I didn't encounter many liberal professors. Most of them were bankers, accountants, or small business owners, who tended to be conservatives."

Of course, some subjects, and some schools, tend to attrack more conservative teachers.

Vacuum,

"Re; "...you have to understand that there can only be so much money out there at any given moment. If too much money settles at the top, that means, by definition, that there's not enough at the bottom."

Wrong. Way wrong. Wealth doesn't "settle" at the top - it is created at the top. And if you stop creating wealth at the top, all you do is stop creating wealth."

Show me proof of that. I have substantial proof that wealth DOES often settle at the top.

Randy,

"The idea that a society has a right to redistribute wealth because the existance of the society contributed to the creation of that wealth, neglects the fact that free markets and property rights are themselves the primary methods by which the society contributes to the creation of wealth."

You can't have any of that without law, order, and civil, social and physical infrastructure.

Gazzer,

"You try to stipulate that there's a fixed amount of wealth to distribute, and then you try to lecture us about what we do or do not grasp?"

You are a liar. I did not say "fixed" anything. I said "at any given time."

JMJ

Jersey,

Re; "Show me proof of that. I have substantial proof that wealth DOES often settle at the top."

No, you have proof that wealth exists at the top, not that it settles at the top. You are assuming that it is created at the bottom.

A simple example, if Sam Walton had not created Walmart, how would the cashiers be able to create the wealth they create through their labor? You would be correct to say that Walmart benefits from the labor of its workers - but you would be missing that the workers benefit from the existence of Walmart, as do Walmart's customers. The individual cashiers create some small amount of wealth in the transactions they participate in, but Walmart creates far greater wealth by its very existance. The creators of Walmart possess considerable wealth, because they created considerable wealth. Had they not done so, the wealth would simply not exist.

Re; "You can't have any of that without law, order, and civil, social and physical infrastructure."

In early history (and much of recent history), law and order was a matter of the strong exploiting the weak. Only those societies which developed free markets and private property rights were able to create the wealth necessary to establish social orders more liberal than feudalism. To pursue other goals, such as "social justice", at the expense of the very methods which made the degree of social justice which we currently enjoy possible, is to risk a significant value in pursuit of a questionable value. To degrade free markets and private property rights is to risk a return to feudalism. You've seen it happen in the Soviet Union. What was the Soviet state in reality but a return to feudalism? A state created in the pursuit of social justice, at the expense of free markets and private property, which resulted in a return to feudalism.

Bottom line; you've got the cart before the horse.

Libertarians, Republicans and Objectivists are lazy. They don't want to have to work toward or even think about the well-being of society as a whole, so they've adopted a "philosophy" which claims that if the wealthy and prvileged do whatever they want to without regard for others, by some magical process society will benefit. Neat how that works out, isn't it?

Randy,

"Re; "Show me proof of that. I have substantial proof that wealth DOES often settle at the top."

No, you have proof that wealth exists at the top, not that it settles at the top. You are assuming that it is created at the bottom."

Wealth is created at all levels of the economy - not just at the top or bottom or middle or whatever. Of course it's settling at the top - the top 1% hold more wealth than since 1929. Recall THAT year???

Read this: http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=A237D5B5-2B35-221B-6044904F1DD1E9A3

Or this: http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=F058007A-A369-4C07-B7CC-214B83ED769

"Re; "You can't have any of that without law, order, and civil, social and physical infrastructure."

Bottom line; you've got the cart before the horse."

That's just stupid, man. Libertine economics came AFTER the law and order and infrastructure. They have to, period. It's just plain insanely stupid to say otherwise.

JMJ

Purple,

Re; "...so they've adopted a "philosophy" which claims that if the wealthy and prvileged do whatever they want to without regard for others, by some magical process society will benefit."

Yes, that's actually pretty close. Except that it isn't really a "philosophy" - and it certainly isn't magic. Its just an exercise in pragmatism - taking advantage of human nature.

Its kind of like riding a horse. To those who are unfamiliar with them, a horse looks pretty scary. But those who know them understand that a horse can be harnessed to very great benefit. We've harnessed human nature to our benefit. Its nothing to be afraid of.

Holding my posts???

JMJ

Why was my previous post not posted???

JMJ

JMJ:

Show me proof of that. I have substantial proof that wealth DOES often settle at the top.

Can you link to the info that provides your proof? Or if it isn't available on the web, perhaps you could mention the books or articles that you're thinking of?

purple:

Libertarians, Republicans and Objectivists are lazy. They don't want to have to work toward or even think about the well-being of society as a whole

Different people often come to different conclusions when thinking about the well-being of society as a whole; that doesn't automatically mean the ones who think differently from you are lazy, dishonest, or evil. Yes, I have met lazy Republicans. But I've also met intolerant Democrats, and I'm not going to generalize about the entire Democratic party because of them.

To show that wealth "settles" at the top, you would have to demonstrate that (1) wealthy people are less likely to change downward in wealth than others, and (2) that the effective amount of wealth at the top was increasing while the effective amount of wealth at the middle and bottom was decreasing.

I believe that these are both false premises, especially if you hold the effective meaning of "wealth" and "poor" stable in terms of goods and services. The poor in America are richer today than poor were 40 years ago, or than kings were 400 years ago, in terms of how they live.

Therefore, wealth is not "settling" at the top, it is settling all throughout American society, with a concentration of gigantic arbitrary accounting figures at the top, and cars and baby buggies and cell phones at the bottom.

Nice, typical, sleazy con, bait n switch there. It's not about envy, genius. It's about maintaining a vital society with a true balance of opportunity and an understanding that you don't get rich in a vacuum. There's a civilization and it's laws and prosperity that gave you the opportunity to get rich.
...
In other words, you have to understand that as successful as you are is as grateful to the nation that helped you become successful you must be - and as reciprical as you must be.

You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.

You assert that government-sponsored redistribution is when people with money repay out of gratitude the benefits they have recieved from people who are recipients of government-sponsored redistribution.

For your theory to be true, this implies a market failure where redistribution recipients are creating value that is not properly renumerated. Therefore, an economy that rewards redistribution recipients should be more efficient and thus have higher growth.

In short, if you are right, we are underpaying our redistribution recipients and they will go elsewhere where their talents are more appreciated, thus causing economic growth elsewhere and economic stagnation here.

Let's compare the United States and Canada, or 1970's Britain with today's Britain.

It's empirically true that the less redistribution you have, the more economic growth you get. This makes it pretty obvious that your theory is empirically false.

Or, you could test it in real life - advocate strongly redistributionist policies in a polity that has open borders. See what happens.

You don't choose to which country you are born to - or for that matter, what socio-economic class, race, wealth, etc.

Funny, I know plenty of immigrants who grew up dirt-broke and are doing very well here. If your theory was correct, they'd be better of somewhere else where the redistribution is higher - yet the economic success of immigrants in America is unmatched anywhere on Earth.

Which means that you're dead wrong, empirically.

You may continue to keep your silly opinions - but hard facts show them to be false.

Jersey,

Re; "Libertine economics came AFTER the law and order and infrastructure."

What is "law and order"? Certainly the early kings of Mesopotamia had law and order - as did the Mongol Khans and the Soviet party bosses. But a liberal social structure comes only with great wealth - and great wealth comes only with free markets and property rights. I'd be happy to consider any historical examples you care to give of this not being the case.

To repeat my original point, The idea that a society has a right to redistribute wealth because the existance of the society contributed to the creation of that wealth, neglects the fact that free markets and property rights are themselves the primary methods by which the society contributes to the creation of wealth.

Twill00 - well said.

if you watch these
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/archives/cat_911.html
you will understand that is another reasons for unhuman wars

and you can imagine how much these wars take costs and injure usa commercial and the only beneficiary their oil and weapons companies which stood by decision makers

Ayman,

Its not as complicated as you would have it. There have always been, and still are today, many Americans who love a good war. Not calling this good or bad, just presenting a fact. 9/11 gave us an excuse. Do you really believe that the middle east contains all the hot heads in the world? Not hardly.

Its as classic a mistake as "don't fight a land war in Asia" - the enemy who believes that America is weak and can be toppled by a few well placed blows. The idea of America as "the Great Satan" is actually closer to the truth. Attack us and there will be hell to pay. Those who would be our enemies need to get their minds around this.

and you can imagine how much these wars take costs and injure usa commercial and the only beneficiary their oil and weapons companies which stood by decision makers

...and voila, this very morning after you post that conspiracy theory rubbish, airports worldwide go into Code Red because Britain found a nearly-complete plan by probable al-Quaeda crazies to blow up numerous trans-atlantic airliners, has 21 people in custody in relation to that, and is looking for more.

The irony gods must be laughing fits about now.

"Britain found a nearly-complete plan by probable al-Quaeda crazies"

Wow! Nearly-complete! Probable crazies! "Why do conservatives win elections?" is the title of the latest post here. The answer is, "Because they prey on people's fears."

Yeah, I'm sure those headlines this morning were made up. Probably to prey on people's fears, and create a little anarchic comedy at the airports.

We'll probably get the "Just Kidding!" in tomorrow's new, right?

And of course, liberals don't prey on peoples fears. They never tell the elderly that the Republicans want to cut Soc Sec and throw them out in the streets, or turn back the clock on women's rights, or black's voting rights, the destruction of the environment, etc.

Uh, nobody important, you just haven't been paying attention. The things you mentioned are all demonstrable facts.

anony-mouse, headlines aren't proof of anything. If there is one thing I have learned the past six years, it's not to believe a thing that comes from the Bush administration or its allies, including its mass media lapdogs.

Purple,

Just curious, who scared you into that lesson?

nobody important:

liberals don't prey on peoples fears. They never tell the elderly that the Republicans want to ... turn back the clock on women's rights, or black's voting rights, the destruction of the environment, etc.

Of course not. That's what Rush Limbaugh is for.

secret asian man:
you could test it in real life - advocate strongly redistributionist policies in a polity that has open borders. See what happens.

You would have people raising their kids in one area with redistributionist policies, with the kids moving to another for their adult years. The problem is that with certain gov't investments like education it's hard to take the value created in people's formative years and reap the benefit from those same people once they're mature. The more mobile people become, the more difficult this is. It's easier to hire people away than train them yourself, resulting in a free-rider problem\prisoner's dielemma.

Investing in things like infrastructure is sometimes a different story, since that doesn't relocate as easily.

Of course, if you want to talk redistrobution countries like Mexico and the Philippines have much wider gaps between rich and poor, which seems to me to correlate with corruption. You should consider some kind of limit to the gap between wealthy and poor, unless you view oligarchy as the most efficient form of government. (though Democrats seem as much in favor of that these days as Republicans)

Purple: In all seriousness, do you even listen to yourself talk? Given the known facts of this news so far, not to mention that every major media source in the world seems to be reporting on it today, it streches all credulity to even posit that this is mere fearmongering by Your Benevolent Overlords. It further stretches your credulity that you had to resort to such aspersions in order to forumlate an argument.

Randy, anony-mouse:

The Bush administration ignored advance warnings of 9-11. It incarcerates people indefinitely without trial and uses torture in order to obtain information. Why on earth would I have the slightest degree of trust or respect for such people?

Purple,

It does come down to trust - you're absolutely right about that. From personal experience, I know that national security decisions are not made by one person - more like thousands. And not idiots, either. The people who collect and provide information to the president are people who have spent their lives analyzing situations like this. So, do I trust;

a. the system of the National Command Authority?

b. those whom I know to have a political agenda opposed to the president?

I gotta go with a. And this isn't a first for me. I've served during wartime under both Republican and Democratic Presidents. I would always go with a.

Randy,

Torture. I cannot trust and will not support anyone who thinks it's acceptable.

Purple,

Torture is a word with a definition. It is in the interest of those who are politically opposed to the President to define it as loosely as possible. Again, it is a matter of trust.

Randy,

Go ahead and define things out of existence if you like. I certainly can't stop you.

Did it ever occur to you that people might be opposed to the president because of his actions, not some preexisting bias?

Purple, I spend some time on "from the left" blogs as well. Some common memes are; war is bad, social programs are good, the rich are greedy, corporations are evil, capitalism is bad. I'm sure that most of these folks believe their positions are "reasonable", but personally, I find them to be guided more by idealism than pragmatism. There are realities that they simply ignore. For example, that war and peace are methods - not goals, that capitalism and corporations are tools used by free people to create considerable wealth, that what they refer to as "greed" is simply human nature which has been harnessed to the great advantage of us all, and that social programs often have unintended and/or negative consequences. In short, they are dreamers - and I would say that most are opposed to the President's actions because of preexisting bias.

In short, they are dreamers - and I would say that most are opposed to the President's actions because of preexisting bias.

Bingo. And of course, the same problem exists among the conservative fringe, but given the current political makeup of the executive and legislative branches, the right-wing loonies are less likely to stand out in a crowd. For now.

Did it ever occur to you that people might be opposed to the president because of his actions

Yes, they're called "swing voters". Left-wing voters, with rare exceptions, hated Bush before he even took office. So no, it's not about "his actions", at least where those people are concerned.

Most of the comments here tend to prove my opinion that extremists of any stripe are pretty useless and spout silly things. Look at purple and "logical reasoning fairy". The former says utterly silly things reflecting conspiracy theories about serious terrorist threats and the latter makes asinine comments about someone he knows nothing about. Sorry, Chris, but your comments are still nothing but bigotry. That's what it's called when you make unwarranted assumptions about a broad class of people based upon your own prejudices. Whether it's a race or a profession it still comes up the same.

Randy, you're wrong. You cannot have free markets and property rights without a legal system that is perceived by a majority of the citizenry to be fair so that it can enforce contracts.

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xmjtosw pflka vjzhtb wlcfahzyr mxicsb dvcjl pubikned rohq flryj

That makes more sense than anything purple is saying.

There seems to be an underlying assumption around here that opposing the president makes one's judgment unsound by definition. Well, there's just no point in talking to someone who's got his fingers jammed in his ears and who is screaming "La la la" as loud as he can.

Jim S,

I disagree that government preceeded free markets. Indeed, I would say that the first governments were formed to protect the wealth which free markets had created. Though it could be said that the first "governments" were formed for the purpose of raiding the wealth created by free markets, thus driving the need for governments with which to protect the same wealth. Either way, it is wealth that drives government, not the other way around. And it is the prospect of greater wealth that has driven better governments.

It only stings if it is true, Jim S. And why is there an ice pack on your knee?

As for Mister Purple, the soundness of your judgement was revealed apart from any of your opinions on the president. You need not lean on that crutch to compensate for lame arguments. Instead, try improving the arguments.

One thing I like about this post is that you've recognized that the people most obsessed with alleged or imagined ideological domination of particular institutions like academia or culture industries like the film business tend to be those on both the left and the right who do not really believe in the "wisdom of crowds" in any respect--they do not believe that as a general, abstract principle, human beings as a whole are reasonably good judges of their own interest and reasonably capable of evaluation of the merits and virtues of various practices, ideas and so on.

Basically, this is a kind of alibi for those on both the right and left who believe that their own ideologies are truthful beyond question, so completely "natural", that all human beings should support those views. When it becomes evident to them that many, perhaps most, do not support a particular view that an ideologue regards as a natural, mass belief, they search for an explanation.

They then turn to civil institutions and cultural businesses to explain why it is that not everyone agrees with them. "They would agree with us," they hiss, "if it weren't for those leftist/rightist professors/movie directors/etc.".

Comments are Closed.