Davd Gelernter’s post confuses me. I think it is because he is confused.
He says “capitalism strikes me as the spoiled brat of the political and philosophical universe... Everyone knows about capitalism’s successes; we need to spare a little attention for its failures too.”
And what is an example of the failure of capitalism? Why, the highly subsidized and regulated field of education:
“Everyone knows that elite US universities occupy the wacko left of the ideological spectrum. Because they run the ed schools, they’ve gradually turned the public schools into wacko-left institutions...”
Why the supposed market failure?
“In part because humanities and social science professors are paid approximately nothing...Why shouldn’t US humanities professors hate this country and hate capitalism when their mediocre-ist students routinely get rich while their professors can’t even pay their damned bills?”
Here, we might consider a hat tip to The Anti-capitalistic Mentality by Mises. See sub-section five, “The Resentment of the Intellectuals”.
To answer Glernter’s question directly: All sorts of people hate capitalism for all sorts of bad reasons. Why should I take seriously the concerns of someone who earns less than they think they should? If a professor can’t pay his bills, then he has over-extended himself. Surely you don’t claim that professors are below the poverty line or some such. Instead, professors should realize that although teaching and learning are important, their marginal unit is not necessarily that socially valuable, and therefore their market salary is not necessarily the same as someone who applies the knowledge so taught.
Mr Gelernter then reveals his planning demon:
“Do we really think this is a clever way to run a country—to pay the people who have maximum influence on the attitudes of young people so little that they’re bound to be resentful and angry?”
Well, no, Mr Gelernter; but, many of us don’t think a country should be “run” at all.
He claims, “Nowadays, colleges that have managed their portfolios well are swimming in money and are putting up new buildings right and left.”
Oh, good point. If that’s true, I would expect a limited-government blogger to recommend reducing federal subsidies. Right? Wrong. He launches into a string of red herrings of dubious truth value:
“How much of that filters down to the faculty? Zero...And why do we want to be a nation that worships rich people anyway? Conspicuous consumption used to be bad taste. Unfortunately taste has been abolished. And students have never been so obsessed with money, and so indifferent to spiritual things.”
He sums up:
“...the next time a multi-billionaire tech bigshot tells me how wonderful capitalism is, I’m going to throw up. Obviously they think it’s wonderful. But there’s more to life.” Oh, come on. If you mean the over-regulated, over-taxed, subsidized, quota’d, and trade-barriered capitalism we have today — then, yes: there are bigshots like Bill Gates and George Soros who think capitalism is great. But if you mean real capitalism — laissez-faire capitalism — libertarian capitalism — the capitalism of Rand, Mises, Bastiat — show me three.
No, really. Show me three billionaires who are public advocates of laissez-faire.
