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How Academic Guilds Police Higher Education

Academia is a self-certified guild that is funded mainly by tax money. Each year, something in the range of $350 billion goes into higher education in the United States. This figure keeps rising. So, the stakes are high.

As with any guild, it must limit entry in order to preserve above-market salaries. It does so primarily by academic licensing.

The primary licensing restriction is university accreditation, which is a system run by half a dozen regional agencies. To get degree-granting status, a college or university must be certified by one of these agencies. They certify very few.

The next screening device is the Ph.D. degree. This system was imposed on academia nationally by John D. Rockefeller’s General Education Board, beginning in 1903, when Congress chartered it. He gave money to colleges, but only if they put people with Ph.D. degrees on their faculties.

Next comes faculty tenure. After about six or seven years of teaching mainly lower division classes that senior professors refuse to teach, an assistant professor comes up for tenure. If he gets it, he can never be fired except for moral infractions far worse than adultery committed with female students. Very few assistant professors are granted tenure. The Ph.D. glut then consigns the losers to part-time work in community colleges for wages in the range of what apprentice plumbers receive. I have written about this glut elsewhere.

ACADEMIC JOURNALS

To get tenure at a major research university, you must publish in the main academic journals in the field. This is limited to about a dozen journals in each field. They publish quarterly. They run perhaps eight articles per issue. Most of these are written by well-known men in the field who are already tenured. The average Ph.D. holder publishes one article, which summarizes his Ph.D. dissertation. This article is unlikely to make it into one of the top dozen journals.

Almost no one ever wins a Nobel Prize who is not on the faculty of one of these universities. He must also have published repeatedly in the dozen top academic journals. His articles must be cited widely by other authors in these journals. If an article is not widely cited within five years of publication, it is doomed.

In short, journal editors control access into the top rank of academia, who in turn assign manuscripts to be screened by teams of unnamed faculty members. Almost no one knows who these people are.

Robert Nisbet once told me that he had given up reading any professional journal in sociology decades before. A decade before George Stigler won the Nobel Prize in economics, I heard him say in front of a group of academic libertarians and conservatives that he had a question. “I would like to know why there is only one journal article a year worth reading in my field.” The answer is clear: the system is funded by the state and ruled by faceless committees.

At schools other than the top three-dozen, tenure is granted for publishing in a lesser-known journal. Also relevant is a book published by a major university press. These are presses that are subsidized indirectly by the government. Their books sell for very high prices, and are then bought mainly by university libraries.

If you do not publish in the top dozen journals, then you do not get tenure at a major university. Very few Ph.D.-holding academics get offered a tenure-track position in these schools. The old-boy network rules. A major professor at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, or Chicago calls a buddy at one of the other top schools and recommends his top two or three Ph.D. graduates. A few of these get hired. Of these, maybe 20% ever get tenure. The losers here wind up at second-tier or third-tier universities.

If a person reaches age 35 and has not published in an academic journal, he is relegated to the limbo of academia. He may get tenure at a community college or a third-tier university that grants only the B.A. and a few M.A. students. If by age 40 he has not published several articles and multiple book reviews in one of the top dozen journals, he will never become a major figure in the profession.

THE OLD-BOY NETWORK

If you did not get into one of these schools’ Ph.D. programs, you do not get recommended to teach at a major university. If you are granted a Ph.D. by any lower-tier school, then you probably will not get a career job in academia, but if you do, it will be in a community college teaching for low wages, probably part-time. You may get a tenure-track job at a college no one has heard of except its alumni, who do not have much money to donate to the endowment. If a Ph.D. holder is granted tenure at one of these schools, he has lifetime employment in safety but obscurity. No one ever hears about him or her again.

The prospective Ph.D. student is told about none of this. The faculty is paid more for Ph.D.-level students. Faculty members have no incentive to cut the supply of lemmings. They keep these pour souls in the dark. These people work for minimum wages teaching sessions of lower-division students. Or they do the grunt work researching topics that their advisors will use to write articles and books, mentioning these students in a footnote or the Acknowledgments page of a book.

TEXTBOOKS

Then there is the textbook system. There is a lot of money to be made in textbooks for lower-division classes. A textbook may sell for $100 to $150. The market is huge: over half of the 15 million college students enrolled in America’s 4,000 community colleges and 4-year colleges. Only a few textbooks make the cut: about a dozen. Textbooks shape the minds of the general academic public. They also set the criteria for those students moving into upper division as majors in a department.

The textbook must conform to certain standards. Those ideas within the guild that are considered representative touchstones of the guild’s positions must not be violated. These ideas are used to screen textbooks.

In economics, the universal screening rule is affirmation of central banking in general and the Federal Reserve System in particular. The editors pay close attention to this chapter. The following rules must not be violated.

1. Only a brief mention of central banking as a government-licensed monopoly — no detailed discussion of the central bank in terms of the textbook’s chapter on monopoly.

2. No mention of its structure as a member bank-owned cartel of commercial banks — no discussion at all of the central bank in terms of the textbook’s chapter on cartels.

3. No mention of the fact that, under the auspices of the Federal Reserve System, the dollar has depreciated by 95% since 1914, according to the Inflation Calculator on the Website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

4. No mention of the well-organized, decades-long plans to create the Federal Reserve, except to dismiss all such accusations (accurate) as “a conspiracy theory.” (This dismisses as a crank theory Part 2 of Murray Rothbard’s book A History of Money and Banking in the United States.)

5. No mention of fractional reserve banking as inherently inflationary and also immoral: a cartel-enforced wealth transfer, the position of Rothbard’s book, The Mystery of Banking.

6. No mention of the Great Depression without invoking Milton Friedman’s assertion that the Great Depression was the failure of the Federal Reserve System in not inflating more. No mention of Murray Rothbard’s book, America’s Great Depression (1963). Instead, it cites Friedman’s book, A Monetary History of the United States (1963).

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

אל תהיה צ’יקאבר על חשבון הבריאות שלך

‘מנהג’ העישון בפורים: התמכרות כבר בסיגריה הראשונה

לקראת ימי הפורים, הגיע הזמן להתריע מפני ה’מנהג’ המגונה של עישון בפורים. מחקרים שנערכו בעבר מצאו כי 10 אחוזים מהצעירים מתמכרים לעישון כבר אחרי סיגריה אחת.
האוירה, החברים, היין – כל אלו יוצרים תחושה שזה בסדר, שזה הידור ב”ונהפוך הוא”. שזו רק שאיפה אחת ויום אחרי פורים מפסיקים. אבל אם תשאלו את המעשנים ‘הכבדים’ תגלו שרבים מהם עישנו את הסיגריה הראשונה בפורים. תהליך ההתמכרות שלהם החל והם מתחרטים על הרגע הזה.

הסיגריות גורמות למחלות רבות; מחלות לב וכלי דם, סרטן, מחלות ריאה ודרכי הנשימה, מחלות פה ודרכי העיכול, אל תהיה צ’יקאבר על חשבון הבריאות שלך”.

The War: Putting Matters In Context

Whataboutism and Russia’s Attack on Ukraine

It is almost impossible to discuss US foreign policy without engaging in Whataboutism. What about American wars? What about American mistakes? What about American crimes? What about … ?

Although often dismissed as engaging in moral equivalency, Whataboutism can be useful in judging US actions. Criticisms of Washington cannot excuse misbehavior of other states, such as Russia today. America’s failures do not minimize the death and destruction wreaked by other governments, often undertaken without a pretense of good intentions.

However, the reality of US policy – true intentions and real effects – demonstrates how much of what the infamous Blob, or foreign policy establishment, does is based on a mix of myths and lies. Most dramatically, America’s checkered record undermines Washington’s claim to be a Vestal Virgin, exuding purity and love as it smites evildoers around the world. Indeed, Whataboutism is perhaps the most important counter to the tsunami of dishonest sanctimony that pours forth from policymakers on left and right every day.

So it is with Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion is a great crime. Vladimir Putin has recklessly initiated a needless war that is wreaking death and destruction on another people. Thousands of Ukrainians already are casualties. A million may already have fled. Russian casualties, many apparently conscripts unprepared for a fight they did not expect, also reportedly are high. The cascade of sanctions and bans against Russia will exact collective punishment on its population, who have no control over their own government. If anyone viewed Putin as a strategic genius going into this crisis, their illusions should have died. By desperately intensifying attacks on cities, he is inflating civilian casualties and damage, arguably a war crime. There is no justification, no excuse, no redemption for his conduct.

Still, Americans should ask, what about?

What about the fact that the US believes in a sphere of interest for itself, and has ruthlessly used military force and economic sanctions to enforce it? The policy’s formal name is the Monroe Doctrine. Washington has never hesitated to impose its will on its weaker neighbors. These days American policymakers are doing their best to impoverish Cubans and starve Venezuelans in an attempt to bring friendly governments to power. Yes, these are evil regimes, but the US has never hesitated to work with dictatorships, even in the Americas, which were pliant and shared Washington’s geopolitical objectives.

What about the fact that the Blob, as the foreign policy establishment is known, would never have accepted Soviet or Russian behavior akin to that of America in Eastern Europe? Imagine if newly ascendant Vladimir Putin had meddled in politics in Mexico and Canada. Pressed an association agreement on Mexico that would have redirected commerce south to an Russo-friendly international confederation. Promoted a coup in Mexico City against an elected, pro-American president. Sent officials to Mexico who openly plotted to bring friendly officials to power. And promised membership for both Mexico and Canada in the Russo-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization. Hysteria would sweep Washington. No one would stand for the right of Mexico and Canada to choose their own futures. No one.

What about the fact that the US has expanded the Monroe Doctrine into a global principle that Washington is entitled to intervene up to every other nation’s border, including those of Russia and China? A presence that Washington is entitled to back up with force. While the US continues to object to the most minimal Russian and Chinese contacts with Cuba and Venezuela, American policymakers are debating issuing an explicit military guarantee for Taiwan against Beijing. Indeed, American officials often go even further, insisting that they have the right to invade and occupy nations – Iraq, most disastrously – to transform them. While Blob members view this as democracy promotion, countries on Washington’s “to conquer” list consider it to be aggression.

What about the fact that the US has subordinated its interests to those of some of the most odious regimes on the planet? Such as Saudi Arabia, a brutal dictatorship rated less free than Russia and currently engaged in even more deadly aggression against Yemen, one of the world’s poorest nations. The Saudis and Emiratis have spent seven years attacking civilian targets and enforcing a blockade. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died, millions have been displaced, and most of the population suffers from malnutrition or disease and needs humanitarian assistance. Yet Washington has provided and serviced the warplanes, supplied the munitions, shared intelligence, and for a time even refueled the attackers.

What about the fact that the US uses the concept of a “rules-based order” to validate a system created largely by Washington to benefit itself and friendly nations at a time when many countries had minimal capacity to influence international decision-making? Along with its allies the US treats this system as immutable. And insists that resistance to this system is to be met with American military threats and force.

What about the fact that the US routinely ignores international law as well as national sovereignty when invading countries, supporting insurgencies, and attempting to oust governments? In just the 21st century Washington has lawlessly invaded Iraq and occupied Syria, supported the overthrow of governments in Libya and Syria, and backed illegal aggression against Yemen. (Only in Afghanistan did the US have plausible justification for invading and none for remaining for 20 years.) The consequences of American policy have been hideous: hundreds of thousands dead, even more wounded, millions displaced, mass social disruption and civilian hardship, widespread conflict and instability, strengthened insurgent and terrorist movements, and enhanced Iranian influence. Over the last two decades Washington’s foreign policy has resulted in far more human harm than those of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela combined.

What about constant US interference in other elections? A Carnegie-Mellon study found that between 1946 and 2000 Washington had intervened in 81 foreign elections. As for Russia, in 1996 the US famously went all out to ensure the reelection of Boris Yeltsin over his communist party opponent; the effort was reported in a cover story in Time magazine. Although Washington insists that its current “democracy” aid is nonpartisan, in practice the US favors parties believed favorable to American interests. Foreign governments respond by demonizing and prohibiting foreign support for domestic political activists.

Of course, none of these points validate Russia’s atrocious conduct, or that of other states, such as China and Iran. Nor does criticism of America suggest that its government is worse than those of other nations, like that of Vladimir Putin. However, as Jesus famously taught, one should remove the plank from one’s own eyes before purporting to fix the vision of others. America’s pious proclamations ring hollow when Washington commits aggression and war crimes without accountability, causes mass casualties and instability without acknowledgment, and repeats the process without understanding.

Vladimir Putin’s government bears responsibility for the terrible crime of invading Ukraine. However, American arrogance, ignorance, and recklessness contributed to today’s crisis. As Washington responds to Russian aggression it also should learn from its past mistakes. Otherwise, history seems bound to repeat itself with deadly consequences.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.

From Anti-War, here.