Only in academia — or in government — could the reduction of just over two hundred jobs from among thousands (and in this economic climate!) be considered “draconian” and “savage” in an unqualified sense. FULL ARTICLE by Daniel Coleman
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/12307/the-entitlement-mentality-in-academia/
The Entitlement Mentality in Academia
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“Strangely enough, I have never seen any outraged letters to the editor about asset managers losing their jobs. Everyone recognizes that there was simply too much real-estate–related activity at the time, pushing too many, often ill-conceived projects.“Not so strange. The average asset manager probably has a lively and well-rounded intellect, good people skills, and most importantly of all a determined attitude and a sense of confidence which will help them to survive and thrive in practically any business environment.Whereas your typical professor has spent years focusing their brain on more and more narrowly esoteric knowledge and living in a rigid business environment where all of the money is handled by other people, the business decisions come from on high, they don’t have to sell themselves or recruit anyone, and their relationships with other people are highly formalized – the lecture hall, the seminar, the office hours where students come in and discuss nothing except the very narrow aspects of whatever assignment or test is at hand. They basically just have to show up and recite the esoteric facts and opinions they accumulated in their very narrow field. While specialization can be lucrative (the division of labor) it turns out that many of these profs are specialists in fields which have practically no real market, except that many students are virtually obliged to take their classes because of rigid curricula and degree requirements – must take philosophy to get required arts credits, must have calculus to apply to med school, etc. Utterly lacking in the knowledge, skills and most importantly the can-do attitude of the lowest office assistant or carpenter’s apprentice, it is no wonder they hit the panic button when their college announces cutbacks.This sad situation is no doubt because of the billion$$$ of “dumb money” which flooded into the academic world in the last 60 years or so. That money was a huge, soft cushion which shielded the real world – the one in which the laws of economics apply – from tens of thousands of otherwise intelligent and capable people. Losing this cushion is going to be rough. For a little while.
This lack of market forces not just in education, but in academic research has lead me to scratch my head over the supposed accomplishments of institutional Austrians (Peter Boettke et al) who publish frantically, convinced that filling journals no lay person reads will elevate real science above dogma.
Without a feedback mechanism, how can they possibly know how effective this strategy is, and whether it is (considering resources consumed and opportunities foregone in the production process) a malinvestment in itself? The irony of naming a blog Coordination Problem, while in fact promoting the exacerbation of a coordination problem seems to have been lost on the authors of the former “Austrian Economists” blog.
We have a need for research into economic science but not directed from the top down. The days of privileged academics controlling scarce resources through state supported institutions and titles of intellectual nobility are coming to an end (see Gary North on education).
All hail the Mises Institute, which not only preaches markets, but practices them as well.
The UK’s academia is quite different to the USA’s. For a start, universities are not called “schools”, only a minority of academics are “professors”, and employment tenure is much weaker. Reduced tenure rights mean that job mobility is greater: few academics would expect to remain with the same institution throughout their career. As in industry, a good way to achieve promotion is to apply for a higher-level post with a competitor.
Having worked as a UK academic for 15 years, my view is that if they want to torment their staff by making them apply for their own jobs, then it’s an organisation I wouldn’t want to work for. I’d pack up and leave.
What happens in these cases is always that the mediocre staff remain and those with any get-up-and-go, get up and go.
I wrote something similar on a WSJ opinion comment. The university system is the most inefficient and bloated in the world (exceptions to government). I used UCLA for a perfect example. The school, a public California institution, “employs” 30,155 individuals, 26,000 of whom aren’t in any teaching position at all. The student body is 38,500. This is a customer to employee ratio of around 1.2. 1.2 customers to support an employee. It’s no wonder tuition is so expensive. I’m sure UCLA can purge down to a 15-1 ratio without impacting education quality.
The only thing draconian about the decision is how few employees were let go.
J.I can appreciate and agree with this point to an extent, but there are a few small caveats to your analysis.It is true that the ratio is just absurd from a standard industry perspective, but students technically speaking are not the only “customers” that the university systems have. you are forgetting about the massive amounts of money that the government simply gives them to operate. Not to mention the swaths of money coming from various grants for research (again most government, but some form the private sector also).I fully agree that it is a totally inefficient system that by in large wastes a bunch of resources, but the ratio of students to teaching faculty makes more sense when we take into account where exactly all their money originates from.
The root problem, I’m sure every libertarian would agree, is the public funding of universities.
Good essay, Mr. Coleman.
In the USA, laying off staff or cutting salaries at colleges and universities is especially difficult because these institutions are heavily unionized.
“receive [sic]“
am i missing something?
Newson,
Receive is spelled correctly; the mistake is the larger phrase: “they are going to have receive” as opposed to “they are going to have to receive.”
d.c.: thanks. my residual dyslexia showing.
Oh, the ignominy! Plato, wherefore art thou?!
Academia again!!!
I found the article outstanding, frightening, and very personal. My Dept head call me on Friday, and asked if I were teaching “both sides” of the health care issue in my Micro and Macro classes. I asked “there are two sides?” To which he referred to previous discussions to stop presenting the President’s policies as anti-freedom, anti-market. Seems like there is developing a stronger party line approach to education.
This is in addition to stop having my students memorize and orate the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration…I guess they don’t like that abolish part too well.
???
In any endeavor having a direct or even tangential connection with government funding, income will depend more or less on political pull, not production. We all know this. Politics is grounded directly in violence. We know this also. The question then is only who will be able to effectively co-opt the use of state violence, through the legal system, for their own gain. Political pull depends on moving public perception and opinion. Moving public perception and opinion requires disingenuous rhetoric and emotional hyperbole.
Academics are in good position to try this. Layoffs being so “draconian” and “outrageous”, maybe we should pass some laws to prevent layoffs.
Nothing like an online academic seminar to get us all going! I live in the UK and am paying taxes for these jokers. But, seriously, the UK has great universities. I endorse the ex UK academic’s posting. What these guys are going through is what we’d understand as a tenure review rather than a human rights abuse. But to add a bit of a market force perspective, yes, some staff might get poached but I think there is good money to be made betting that KCL and UCL will still make stellar hires because they are top schools in the UK. Perhaps these 26 people at KCL and 22 people at UCL are in no fit shape to justify their existence. Out of a staff of a couple of thousand academics that isn’t many protestors – more than we’d see in finance but as you say it isn’t exactly draconian. Maybe, and this is just crazy speculation from a free marketer, these guys are squealing because they either don’t publish or teach. Just a mischievous thought but if Prof Martin’s buddies are so great they’ll get snapped up by someone else and if KCL is tormenting them so badly why are they all so desperate to stay?
Everyone feels the same about layoffs, University professors just say it better. That’s not entitlement… Also University professors are guaranteed permanent jobs to get them to stay there instead of going somewhere else. If you are world renown right now and some University wants you to bolster their image, you get them to agree to give you a permanent position. That way when your 15 minutes of fame are up, you still have a job. Laying off tenured professors breaks the deal and makes Universities that do it lose credibility.
The minor cutbacks at KCL are just a microscopic down-payment on much more to come in the biggest, nastiest, world-wide depression in nearly 300 years. Mr. Leiter should get used to seeing these cutbacks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see over half the positions gone before the unfolding depression is over. If he’s screaming over just 22 positions, how is he going to react to thousands being made redundant?
I disagree that there is any general notion of entitlement within British academia, and I find comparison to the US tenure system misinformed. British universities do not employ a tenure policy, and academics are exposed to exactly the same statutory rules/procedures of employment as everyone else i.e. they can be ‘made redundant’ (laid off) and they cannot hide behind a cloak of tenure.
Most academics are hired for “permanent/indefinite” employment, this is no different from the employment terms of most British workers, and this does not equate to ‘job for life’. In fact, the concept of a ‘job for life’ was shattered for all workers in Britain (whether in the public or private sector) in the 1970-80s, and most workers will expect to face redundancy at least once in their working life. I am yet to come across a British academic who views their position as being a ‘job for life’, but I won’t deny there are some arrogant individuals in academia who will be shocked that their hallowed jobs are now under threat and they will no doubt argue that they are more worthy of employment than the out-of-work steel worker, IT consultant, banker, lawyer…
To correct Leiter’s misinformed view that “no serious academic will go near King’s without either guarantees of job security (which won’t be credible after this fiasco) or much higher compensation”, KCL is simply not the only university who will make cuts, but rather KCL is THE FIRST OF MANY universities who has stuck its head above the parapet and announced job cuts. With the exception of Oxbridge, all Russell Group and 1994 Group universities (ie the better British universities) face possible cuts, and lower ranked universities (many also good) may face the harsher prospect of closure. After the general election, jobs will also be cut throughout the public sector in local government and the NHS. If Leiter thinks academics will not be going near KCL, they will not be going near the whole of the British academic system over the next few years. Leiter needs to look at the bigger picture of what’s going on here, rather than unduly disparaging KCL to support his mates — his fellow philosophy professors.
No doubt academics in Britain are “outraged” by the job cuts, but this outrage does not stem from an ill-conceived sense of entitlement, but is fueled by a sense of unfairness due to far more compelling reasons: first, many universities are making jobs cuts while they have millions in their coffers; secondly, the government has wasted billions establishing and funding sub-standard universities to the detriment of Britain’s best universities; and thirdly, the financial sector has been bailed out to the sum of billions, and various other industries have received a helping hand, while the academic sector is suffering the brunt of government spending cuts.Academics have every right to be outraged.
Your third point is, I believe the most important. No discussion of job or wage cuts of any kind is valid as long as there are wars and too-big-to-fail banks.
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