4 ms·

Salaries are not exorbitant. We went almost 5 years without a pay raise. How many qualified people - currently working as PTLs or postdocs - would happily take

Salaries are not exorbitant. We went almost 5 years without a pay raise. How many qualified people - currently working as PTLs or postdocs - would happily take your place for 10% less money? [1] If the answer is 10+ (from what I recall of the academic job market, that seems accurate within STEM, outside of STEM it might be 100+) then you are frivolously spending money. [1] Gerald Epstein elaborates on this argument, though he of course applies it to finance rather than education. https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald-epstein/ https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald...

locopati 10y ago
Hey! Let's race to the bottom - everyone's a winner!
yequalsx 10y ago
It depends on your philosophy of morality and what constitutes frivolity. If one considers lowest cost the end all and be all then perhaps my college system is being frivolous. Fortunately there are enough people who do not have such a crude view. Certain cocoa farms in Africa have decided to do away with frivolous salaries by using slave labor. I am certainly not a slave but the point ought to be clear nonetheless. That we can find someone willing to do a job for x% less is not evidence that the current wage us frivolous. Woe would be the lives of most of humanity if your view were widely accepted. We don't need a race to the bottom in this area.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  By "frivolity", I mean spending which is not necessary to provide satisfactory service. Bringing up slavery is a bit confusing. Why not just bring up Hitler? I understand that you want to keep collecting your paycheck while the next guy on the totem pole makes $12,000/year as a PTL. Similarly, the Donald wants to build a giant wall of ice guarded by rapers, bastards, criminals and political exhiles to prevent unskilled white men from losing their rents (while keeping the Mexicans in poverty). I guess that in my morality, rent seekers are evil and Trump is a bad person for appealing to them. You seem to disagree.
  - yequalsx 10y ago
    I don't know what PTL is. In my system adjuncts (there are no postdocs) are paid pro-rata wages. That is, on a per credit basis, they are paid the same as me. They also get pro-rata insurance and retirement benefits. I'm sure there are qualified people who would do my job for less. And there will likely be qualified people who would do the job less than my replacement. Eventually we can find a local minimum. Great. We saved a buck or two. There are costs (non-financial) to society for creating a system in which the race to the bottom is the norm. I do not wish to live in a such a society. If conditions are bad enough you'll find someone willing to work for less. But this incentivizes creating a situation in which times are tough for most people. I do not wish to live in such a society. Considering my salary to be frivolous because a local min on my wage has not been achieved is not in line with how most people use the term as it relates to wages. I didn't bring up Hitler because it wasn't relevant. Slavery is given your apparent view that anything greater than the local min for wages is a frivolous expenditure. It does not require much thought to see that the pursuit of the local min for wages can, and does, lead to slavery in some cases.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      When I was in academia (or perhaps just at the universities I attended) PTL referred to "part time lecturer" - it's the same as adjunct, I think. I'm sure there are qualified people who would do my job for less...Eventually we can find a local minimum. Great. We saved a buck or two. More students can now attend college (since costs are lower) and those that do have less debt. But I guess that's less important than keeping the rents flowing to yourself. Trump 2016! Yeaaah! Don't want no Mexicans to take our jorbs! But this incentivizes creating a situation in which times are tough for most people. This is exactly the situation we have in the software industry. What does "times are tough" mean to you? People with six figure salaries and indoor jobs forced to endure the indignities of a 20 minute standup? ...the pursuit of the local min for wages can, and does, lead to slavery in some cases. By "slavery", do you refer to the normal definition (namely people involuntarily working under threat of violence)? Or do you have some less common definition?
      - 10y ago

locopati 10y ago

Hey! Let's race to the bottom - everyone's a winner!

yequalsx 10y ago

It depends on your philosophy of morality and what constitutes frivolity. If one considers lowest cost the end all and be all then perhaps my college system is being frivolous. Fortunately there are enough people who do not have such a crude view. Certain cocoa farms in Africa have decided to do away with frivolous salaries by using slave labor. I am certainly not a slave but the point ought to be clear nonetheless. That we can find someone willing to do a job for x% less is not evidence that the current wage us frivolous. Woe would be the lives of most of humanity if your view were widely accepted. We don't need a race to the bottom in this area.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
By "frivolity", I mean spending which is not necessary to provide satisfactory service. Bringing up slavery is a bit confusing. Why not just bring up Hitler? I understand that you want to keep collecting your paycheck while the next guy on the totem pole makes $12,000/year as a PTL. Similarly, the Donald wants to build a giant wall of ice guarded by rapers, bastards, criminals and political exhiles to prevent unskilled white men from losing their rents (while keeping the Mexicans in poverty). I guess that in my morality, rent seekers are evil and Trump is a bad person for appealing to them. You seem to disagree.
- yequalsx 10y ago
  I don't know what PTL is. In my system adjuncts (there are no postdocs) are paid pro-rata wages. That is, on a per credit basis, they are paid the same as me. They also get pro-rata insurance and retirement benefits. I'm sure there are qualified people who would do my job for less. And there will likely be qualified people who would do the job less than my replacement. Eventually we can find a local minimum. Great. We saved a buck or two. There are costs (non-financial) to society for creating a system in which the race to the bottom is the norm. I do not wish to live in a such a society. If conditions are bad enough you'll find someone willing to work for less. But this incentivizes creating a situation in which times are tough for most people. I do not wish to live in such a society. Considering my salary to be frivolous because a local min on my wage has not been achieved is not in line with how most people use the term as it relates to wages. I didn't bring up Hitler because it wasn't relevant. Slavery is given your apparent view that anything greater than the local min for wages is a frivolous expenditure. It does not require much thought to see that the pursuit of the local min for wages can, and does, lead to slavery in some cases.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    When I was in academia (or perhaps just at the universities I attended) PTL referred to "part time lecturer" - it's the same as adjunct, I think. I'm sure there are qualified people who would do my job for less...Eventually we can find a local minimum. Great. We saved a buck or two. More students can now attend college (since costs are lower) and those that do have less debt. But I guess that's less important than keeping the rents flowing to yourself. Trump 2016! Yeaaah! Don't want no Mexicans to take our jorbs! But this incentivizes creating a situation in which times are tough for most people. This is exactly the situation we have in the software industry. What does "times are tough" mean to you? People with six figure salaries and indoor jobs forced to endure the indignities of a 20 minute standup? ...the pursuit of the local min for wages can, and does, lead to slavery in some cases. By "slavery", do you refer to the normal definition (namely people involuntarily working under threat of violence)? Or do you have some less common definition?
    - 10y ago