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Video: Mizzou Protest Shuts Down First Amendment
A young photojournalist tried to do his job today and take pictures of a protest movement roiling the University of Missouri. The protest, named #ConcernedStudent1950, complains of institutionalized racism at the Mizzou campus and society at large. Their disruption has gotten so bad, the university president decided to resign earlier today. Since this is obviously news, sympathetic reporters are there to spread the protesters’ progressive message. Unfortunately for the journalists, Mizzou doesn’t seem to teach its students about the First Amendment.
Published in Education
There’s nothing preventing private donors or private companies from investing their money in basic research, or any other kind, in universities or elsewhere.
And a lot more than 10% of it is currently funded by non-government agencies, about 35-40% in fact:
So the question isn’t either or. It’s the degree of funding: i.e. there is under-investment in public goods by the market. This is old news in economics. But there’s nothing stopping anyone from putting money in.
It’s the degree of uncertainty in the payoff, and the non-excitability of the payoff that prevent more investment. Companies like to keep the fruits of their R&D investment to themselves.
All it takes is a few dozen people to cry racism this day and age to take down ANYONE in any position in the US.
Plus, there was lots of political pressure from State officials, including Republicans, for him to step down.
It doesn’t mean it isn’t just a fringe movement, or that it represents the university.
When I said basic research, I was talking specifically about basic scientific research. R&D is a much broader category, and I would not be surprised to see such numbers for that.
In my years of working with people doing basic research in evolutionary ecology and agricultural-ecology, I didn’t see anywhere near ten percent of the possible money coming from private sources, and such that there was that didn’t come from the feds came from quasi-governmental agencies.
When bullies push little kids into the mud, I don’t like it when they taunt them, asking why they don’t get up.
I don’t follow your argument here. Your’e saying that industry etc. doesn’t invest in basic research because the government “bullies” them. What’s the mechanism here? How do they do this?
OTOH, its basic economic theory and empirical evidence that the reason they don’t do it is because of 3 main reasons: 1) basic research has very unclear payoffs: there’s no benefit any firm can foresee from developing, say, a radar system, even if that technology may later give rise to microwave ovens, 2) scale: it takes a lot of money invested in basic biological sciences , more so than any one company would be willing to invest, for any commercial benefits to materialize way off into the future. But pooling with other firms isn’t likely to happen due to 3) non-excitability : firms like to keep the benefits to themselves, but for investment of this type of have a chance of success, you need network effects.
I.e., high uncertainty, coordination costs, and public goods problem. Nobody is surprised that it doesn’t happen, and why would anyone assume it would.
This is old school “market for knowledge” argument from Ken Arrow (Nobel winner in economics): http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2144.pdf
Of course he points out here that there’s also “over-investment”, and figuring out the optimal point is hard. But over-investment is probably a better problem to have in this case than under-investment.
You are correct, and I don’t know what to do about it at the moment. I was stating it in quite general terms, and I am not surprised that more specifics are needed. But I am not going to bother when you keep mis-stating what I’ve already written.
I don’t think I have. This is what you said:
Ok. How does this happen? What’s the mechanism? What specifically is being “sucked”, and what would “more room” look like? Why aren’t these private groups who are eager to get into the game, not doing so? What’s the mechanism stopping them?
I don’t think that you don’t think that.
You could answer the question much more quickly than playing word games. But ok I get it. But you also get that R&D expenditures are tax deductible, as are donations or investments into universities.
It’s amusing that Ms. Click, the Communications Prof who asked for “muscle” to deal with the press, specializes in “theories of gender and sexuality.” I’m sure she meant it in a non-specific metaphorical sense, and wanted people of any gender who could marshall strong rhetorical arguments to compel the journalist to leave.
Yes, this is why we need college educated people: so they can use their muscle.
We’ve come a long way from the days when people sent their kids to college so they wouldn’t have to make a living by the sweat of their brow, like Mom and Dad did.
I should certainly hope not, especially considering that I am an academic and history is my field! But the humanities have become infected by the same pathology that spawned the aforementioned grievance/ethnic studies programs.
Watch how the peddlers of garbage hide behind the apron strings of the legitimate humanities.
But one way to repair the ethnic studies and give them some redeeming social value would be to require that faculty positions be filled by persons who can document that they are NOT of the ethnicity being studied. It would help make for greater objectivity.
It wouldn’t solve all the problems, of course.
What? You don’t think the “every child to college” movement will water the value of a college degree down?
Companies like Apple, Microsoft, … ? The ones that produce products that are in the hands of everyone?
Even if they are, in a very narrow sense, “keeping the fruits of their investments” to themselves through patents, they are doing an excellent job of distributing those products to the world.
I’m happy with it, though of course, there are those who complain … not much use wasting energy fighting them.
This makes me happy that their football team sucks. When did we start to raise such feral children? That kid with the camera has much more patience than I do.
Public goods is an argument frequently invoked by leftists and crony capitalists to fund pet projects that have little chance of garnering attention of private capital and philanthropy.
Nukes tend to be imprecise in their collateral damage. However, structural demolition teams, bulldozers, dump trucks, followed by salting the earth is a viable alternative for some of these institutions starting with my alma mater.
If we eliminated every federal dollar going to higher education in the form of grants, research, and federally funded and/or guaranteed student loans these programs would cease overnight. There is no compelling reason economic or otherwise for their existence.
Absolutely. That is probably all that is necessary. Cut the funding. The cry will be deafening,”Republicans hate education like they hate the environment and minorities” so they probably lack the guts to do it. But all things the Federal government gets involved in, rot. They can get the population on their side by promising to use research, new student loan money and federal education monies to reduce outstanding student loans as those loans are privately refinanced by what ever banks want the business.
You don’t need to do all of that to have the problem, and as you say, it won’t happen. If you want to be effective, target your cuts. It means you have to think carefully about the specific lines of causation, and the left won’t be able to dismiss you as an education hater. They will try anyway, of course, but you will pick up some support and can make a difference.
Or if you’d prefer not to accomplish anything, if feeling good is the main goal, then rant and bluster about shutting the whole thing down. In that case it would be nice if conservatives would quit accusing the left of feel-goodism, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
I am not sure I understand. Are you saying that without federal student loans and grants higher education shuts down?
The world as they know it would come to an end. Which would have its good points, of course. But it would be a revolutionary overthrow.
Up with the revolution as far as I am concerned.
I understand. But if you are one of those who accuses the left of feel-goodism, it would be a nice touch if you’d refrain from any more of that line.
It is a nice touch only if I buy into their argument and I do not.
What part of the leftist agenda at university is education?
Then why in the world resign?! Does extortion by the football players mean so much?! This whole affair has massively damaged the reputation of the University. The resignation gives the fig leaf of legitimacy to the false claims. Not to mention that this extortion will be tried again and again at other Universities. What if the other 35,000 students including many of the black students don’t believe any of the claims either. Then the President smears them too.
University Presidents don’t resign over business as usual events. If this one did it is a massive screw up.
Regards,
Jim
Regards,
Jim
I only heard one account of the transgressions that started all of this. Based on the report I heard, none of it is verifiable, someone claiming they were called names.
If that is the sum of it, demonstrations are fine, but why resign. Mizzou is screwed now, how will they attract and retain qualified candidates for President?
And Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Yes, but again that’s a straw man argument because no one (at least no one serious, even on the Left) is saying everyone “should go” to college. They’re saying everyone should have access and the ability to.
At worst, this is a pointless argument since everyone already has that ability, and hence it’s redundant.