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Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism

Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism

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dsR

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According to economics teacher Peter Klein, it has to do with selection bias, the expansion of the welfare state and World War II. Moreover, he believes there is still hope that one day the Lilliputians will be thwarted and returned to their rightful role as teachers and observers:

http://www.mises.org/story/2318

kmax87
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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
http://www.mises.org/story/2318
Typical of this anti intellectual tirade is an envious cataloging of the ratios of liberal/conservative lecturers within the halls of academia. Would it come as a surprise that the numbers are heavily stacked on the liberal(socialist-his assertion not mine) side of politics when the conservatives have been noticeably absent in any rational debate over education and knowledge for its own sake, preferring instead to spread hate and calumny on all those who would search outside of their narrowly defined 'productive' box.

Would you be surprised that he winds up by showering praise on those rapidly expanding institutions that are no nonsense technical colleges who are only interested in the business of creating business competency and are unconcerned with any wasteful pursuits that might encourage anyone to start thinking not only for themselves but also beyond their own noses?

dsR

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Originally posted by kmax87
Typical of this anti intellectual tirade is an envious cataloging of the ratios of liberal/conservative lecturers within the halls of academia. Would it come as a surprise that the numbers are heavily stacked on the liberal(socialist-his assertion not mine) side of politics when the conservatives have been noticeably absent in any rational debate over educati ht encourage anyone to start thinking not only for themselves but also beyond their own noses?
So where do you teach, kmax87?

kmax87
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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
So where do you teach, kmax87?
I am a student. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

h

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Originally posted by kmax87
I am a student. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Those who know nothing, post right wing propoganda.

R
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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
According to economics teacher Peter Klein, it has to do with selection bias, the expansion of the welfare state and World War II. Moreover, he believes there is still hope that one day the Lilliputians will be thwarted and returned to their rightful role as teachers and observers:

http://www.mises.org/story/2318
This is really shoddy work, with inconsistencies and gibberish aplenty.

We've got, for example, the lazy interchanging of Democrat/liberal/socialist.

We've got the ridiculous notion that the increase in the use of maths in economics is due to central planning (presumably just in the US, but hey, nowhere else matters) during ww2.

But the idea that a person can teach politics, economics or a similiar subject without their personal views coming through is just daft. The student is expected to be able to see past this.

For example, I once had a tutor who started her 1st session with us by asserting that "all that supply and demand stuff is crap, we're just going to talk about Marx". The students (of every political persuasion) ripped her to shreds.

spruce112358
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Originally posted by kmax87
Typical of this anti intellectual tirade is an envious cataloging of the ratios of liberal/conservative lecturers within the halls of academia. Would it come as a surprise that the numbers are heavily stacked on the liberal(socialist-his assertion not mine) side of politics when the conservatives have been noticeably absent in any rational debate over educati ...[text shortened]... ht encourage anyone to start thinking not only for themselves but also beyond their own noses?
Why do you say this is an anti-intellectual tirade?

I don't say I agree with all of it -- certainly suggesting that left-leaning intellectuals flock to universities because they can't succeed in business is a bit simplistic -- but it's not bad. Certainly it is not spreading 'hate and calumny'.

The best (only?) economic book I've read is "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman who just died the other day.

shavixmir
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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
According to economics teacher Peter Klein, it has to do with selection bias, the expansion of the welfare state and World War II. Moreover, he believes there is still hope that one day the Lilliputians will be thwarted and returned to their rightful role as teachers and observers:

http://www.mises.org/story/2318
Maybe I'm just not reading enough into it, but at a first glance it just seems to be suggesting that academics and intellectuals are socialists and that capitalists aren't academic or intellectual.

But, surely, this has been known for a long, long time?

dsR

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Originally posted by howardgee
Those who know nothing, post right wing propoganda.
Thanks for your comments from the peanut gallery, howardgee. When you think you can discuss the merits of the article, you may come down and join the rest of us.

dsR

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Klein is not the first to note that World War II had a profound effect on American academia. Alan Bloom, in his book, “The Closing of the American Mind,” detailed how German nihilism/relativism came to dominate the American university system following the war, causing their decline as centers of learning.

Bosse de Nage
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Not really on topic, but I thought this was interesting

"While working in France in the 1970s, Murthy was strongly influenced by socialism. The bubble was pricked, however, when he was arrested in Bulgaria on espionage charges. Today, he says: "I'm a capitalist in mind, a socialist at heart." It was this belief in the distribution of wealth that made Infosys one of the first Indian companies to offer employees stock-option plans. Infosys now has 400 employees who are dollar millionaires."
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/work/corporate-management/narayana-murthy.asp

zeeblebot

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
According to economics teacher Peter Klein, it has to do with selection bias, the expansion of the welfare state and World War II. Moreover, he believes there is still hope that one day the Lilliputians will be thwarted and returned to their rightful role as teachers and observers:

http://www.mises.org/story/2318
"Today — well, you've all heard the jokes that circulated after the collapse of central planning in Eastern Europe and the former USSR, how the only place in the world where Marxists were still thriving was the Harvard political science department."

zeeblebot

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"This also leads to the phenomenon that academics don't know much about how markets work, since they have so little experience with them, living as they do in their subsidized ivory towers and protected by academic tenure. "

zeeblebot

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"As Joseph Schumpeter explained in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, it is "the absence of direct responsibility for practical affairs" that distinguishes the academic intellectual from others "who wield the power of the spoken and the written word." This absence of direct responsibility leads to a corresponding absence of first-hand knowledge of practical affairs. The critical attitude of the intellectual arises, says Schumpeter, "no less from the intellectual's situation as an onlooker — in most cases also as an outsider — than from the fact that his main chance of asserting himself lies in his actual or potential nuisance value.""

right on target, and how does it differ from today's news media?

dsR

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As I read much of Klein's analysis, I couldn't help but think of the rise of U.S. Senator Barack Obama. Here is a man being touted for the presidency and he's never even run a business, nor does he understand the most fundamental aspects of markets.

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