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They are wrong because graduate students have never had any relation to the unions or collective power. You are wrong because academic science is indeed a profo

They are wrong because graduate students have never had any relation to the unions or collective power. You are wrong because academic science is indeed a profoundly and increasingly competitive business with insufficient places for all to succeed and dog-eat-dog competition for funding and fellowships. Regardless of where the money comes from most scientists are like small businesses trying to expand or startups seeking investment. If anything the pursuit of short-term wins gets in the way of free thinking or risky projects.

001sky 13y ago
"You are wrong because academic science is indeed a profoundly and increasingly competitive business" How is a government funded a non-profit anything like "business"? Its a political process, fundamentally. Politics is also competitive. I think the economics analogy is quite flawed (in th GP's comment).
- arh68 13y ago
  Business is political. Non-profits are political. That's the connection. What do you see as the difference here?
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    The lack of competitive markets on the supply side of research funding.
- calibraxis 13y ago
  You might find these interesting discussions of universities as corporations: "In California, the main universities -- Berkeley and UCLA -- they're essentially Ivy League private universities -- colossal tuition, tens of thousands of dollars, huge endowment. General assumption is they are pretty soon going to be privatized, and the rest of the system will be, which was a very good system -- best public system in the world -- that's probably going to be reduced to technical training or something like that. The privatization, of course, means privatization for the rich [and a] lower level of mostly technical training for the rest. And that is happening across the country." (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20110406.htm http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20110406.htm) "The growth of administrative work has directly resulted from introducing corporate management techniques. Invariably, these are justified as ways of increasing efficiency and introducing competition at every level. What they end up meaning in practice is that everyone winds up spending most of their time trying to sell things: grant proposals; book proposals; assessments of students’ jobs and grant applications; assessments of our colleagues; prospectuses for new interdisciplinary majors; institutes; conference workshops; universities themselves (which have now become brands to be marketed to prospective students or contributors); and so on." (http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) (As for economics vs. politics, we may wonder if it's ideological to separate them.)

001sky 13y ago

"You are wrong because academic science is indeed a profoundly and increasingly competitive business" How is a government funded a non-profit anything like "business"? Its a political process, fundamentally. Politics is also competitive. I think the economics analogy is quite flawed (in th GP's comment).

arh68 13y ago
Business is political. Non-profits are political. That's the connection. What do you see as the difference here?
- humanrebar 13y ago
  The lack of competitive markets on the supply side of research funding.
calibraxis 13y ago
You might find these interesting discussions of universities as corporations: "In California, the main universities -- Berkeley and UCLA -- they're essentially Ivy League private universities -- colossal tuition, tens of thousands of dollars, huge endowment. General assumption is they are pretty soon going to be privatized, and the rest of the system will be, which was a very good system -- best public system in the world -- that's probably going to be reduced to technical training or something like that. The privatization, of course, means privatization for the rich [and a] lower level of mostly technical training for the rest. And that is happening across the country." (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20110406.htm http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20110406.htm) "The growth of administrative work has directly resulted from introducing corporate management techniques. Invariably, these are justified as ways of increasing efficiency and introducing competition at every level. What they end up meaning in practice is that everyone winds up spending most of their time trying to sell things: grant proposals; book proposals; assessments of students’ jobs and grant applications; assessments of our colleagues; prospectuses for new interdisciplinary majors; institutes; conference workshops; universities themselves (which have now become brands to be marketed to prospective students or contributors); and so on." (http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) (As for economics vs. politics, we may wonder if it's ideological to separate them.)