Michael Lind on philanthropy strangling the left; Bryan Caplan on macro puzzles; Joel Kotkin on California; A Larry Summers interview; Matt Taibbi helps Russian dissidents
I'd like Lind or someone similar to define whether it's really non-profits that are driving the trends. Or something else. My hypothetical model is that what's really going on is an excess supply of intellectuals.
1. The explosion of subsidized higher education has created a much bigger pool of "intellectuals".
2. Buyers of intellectuals, which include NGOs but also includes subsidized higher education itself, in turn, get much more control over intellectual production. In NGO production, this works out as Lind says. In higher ed, producers basically get to buy piecemeal labor for adjuncts and grad students.
3. In both cases, the labor pool is almost perfectly competitive, so there's an extreme tournament effect. An intellectual laborer who doesn't do exactly what the boss wants is almost immediately replaceable. So attempts to "stand out" will tend to be on the more extreme side of the distribution.
The upshot of all of this is that the only way to "go back" in the long-run is to stop flooding the market with subsidized intellectuals. When the supply is such that they can't be treated like commodities anymore, they'll have more freedom to diverge in opinion.
“Donations to non-profits that promote causes ought to be taxed double.” People are now looking at me, wondering why I’m laughing in public like some crazy person.
I'd like Lind or someone similar to define whether it's really non-profits that are driving the trends. Or something else. My hypothetical model is that what's really going on is an excess supply of intellectuals.
1. The explosion of subsidized higher education has created a much bigger pool of "intellectuals".
2. Buyers of intellectuals, which include NGOs but also includes subsidized higher education itself, in turn, get much more control over intellectual production. In NGO production, this works out as Lind says. In higher ed, producers basically get to buy piecemeal labor for adjuncts and grad students.
3. In both cases, the labor pool is almost perfectly competitive, so there's an extreme tournament effect. An intellectual laborer who doesn't do exactly what the boss wants is almost immediately replaceable. So attempts to "stand out" will tend to be on the more extreme side of the distribution.
The upshot of all of this is that the only way to "go back" in the long-run is to stop flooding the market with subsidized intellectuals. When the supply is such that they can't be treated like commodities anymore, they'll have more freedom to diverge in opinion.
“Donations to non-profits that promote causes ought to be taxed double.” People are now looking at me, wondering why I’m laughing in public like some crazy person.
‘… macroeconomics of hypochondria.‘ 👍
I’m going to steal that.
And I might add the Green Deal is the macroeconomics of megalomania.
"Donations to non-profits that promote causes ought to be taxed double."
Ah, if only...