Tag Archives: Robert Nozick

College professors donate to Democrats over Republicans 95 to 1

Where do college professors send their political donations?
Where do college professors send their political donations?

Why is it that college students, including Christian college students, are becoming so progressive? It’s because their professors are all progressive. This isn’t just my opinion. You can look at the breakdown of political donations made by college professors to see how many of them donate to Republicans vs Democrats.

Here is the latest from Campus Reform:

A recent study found that U.S. college professors donate exclusively to Democrats over Republicans by a 95:1 ratio.

Two researchers, Heterodox Academy Director of Research Sean Stevens and Brooklyn College Professor Mitchell Langbert conducted the study, published by the National Association of Scholars. They looked at the political donations of 12,372 college professors at universities in 31 states and the District of Columbia during the past two election cycles in 2015-16 and 2017-18.

Stevens and Langbert conducted their study by looking at political donation data available from the Federal Election Commission.

Of those professors, 2,112 made political donations, 2,081 of which were donated to Democrats. Just 22 of those 2,112 professors donated to Republicans. Nine professors donated to both Republicans and Democrats, according to the study.

The findings indicate that professors donated to Democrats more than Republicans by a 95:1 ratio. In addition to the number of professors who donated to Democrats versus Republicans, the study also revealed how many professors are registered to vote as Democrats compared with professors who are registered as Republicans. Nearly half of the 12,372 professors — 48.5 percent — are registered Democrats while just 5.7 percent are registered Republicans.

Given that, it’s not hard to see why Democrats like Elizabeth Warren want to provide those college professors with $1.3 trillion of taxpayer money – which is what the student loan bailout does.

What explains all of this?

Consider this essay by secular libertarian professor Robert Nozick who explains why university professors are liberal.

Excerpt:

What factor produced feelings of superior value on the part of intellectuals? I want to focus on one institution in particular: schools. As book knowledge became increasingly important, schooling–the education together in classes of young people in reading and book knowledge–spread. Schools became the major institution outside of the family to shape the attitudes of young people, and almost all those who later became intellectuals went through schools. There they were successful. They were judged against others and deemed superior. They were praised and rewarded, the teacher’s favorites. How could they fail to see themselves as superior? Daily, they experienced differences in facility with ideas, in quick-wittedness. The schools told them, and showed them, they were better.

The schools, too, exhibited and thereby taught the principle of reward in accordance with (intellectual) merit. To the intellectually meritorious went the praise, the teacher’s smiles, and the highest grades. In the currency the schools had to offer, the smartest constituted the upper class. Though not part of the official curricula, in the schools the intellectuals learned the lessons of their own greater value in comparison with the others, and of how this greater value entitled them to greater rewards.

The wider market society, however, taught a different lesson. There the greatest rewards did not go to the verbally brightest. There the intellectual skills were not most highly valued. Schooled in the lesson that they were most valuable, the most deserving of reward, the most entitled to reward, how could the intellectuals, by and large, fail to resent the capitalist society which deprived them of the just deserts to which their superiority “entitled” them? Is it surprising that what the schooled intellectuals felt for capitalist society was a deep and sullen animus that, although clothed with various publicly appropriate reasons, continued even when those particular reasons were shown to be inadequate?

It’s very important to understand what is motivating university professors, especially ones who are in departments divorced from reality, like English and victim studies of various sorts. They are literally teaching classes in topic that have no accountability to reality. It’s just indoctrination in what the professor believes. These professors think they are smart, but they don’t earn anything like productive people in the private sector, e.g. – software engineers. It creates a deep sense of inferiority that makes them hostile to the capitalist system. Their only hope is a powerful government that redirects money from those who serve customers (private sector companies) to “wordsmiths” like themselves.

Why are teachers and other talkers paid less than engineers and other doers?

Basic Economics: Prices are set by supply and demand
Basic Economics: In a free market, prices are set by supply and demand

This meme makes fun of unionized public school teachers, who feel entitled to the same salary and benefits as doctors, software engineers, etc. in the private sector. So, the point of this meme is simple, it’s to point out that the teachers who belong to teacher unions are ignorant of basic economics, specifically, the law of supply and demand.

When there is more demand for a product or service than there is a supply for it, then prices go up. When there is more supply for a product or service than there is a demand for it, prices go down.

A good place to see this explained is in a book by famous black economist Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell has written many books, but he wrote one book in particular for people who have no knowledge of basic economics. It’s called “Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy“. And the first few chapters explain how prices are set by supply and demand:

  1. What is Economics?
  2. The Role of Prices
  3. Price Controls
  4. An Overview of Prices

It turns out that there are two views of how wages are set in an economy:

The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of “socially necessary labor” required to produce it.

LTV is usually associated with Marxian economics… The LTV is central to Marxist theory, which holds that the working class is exploited under capitalism, and dissociates price and value. Marx did not refer to his own theory of value as a “labour theory of value”.

Mainstream neoclassical economics tends to reject the need for a LTV, concentrating instead on a theory of price determined by supply and demand.

Marxists economists believe that the value of a good or service is determined by the “social utility” of the work produced. But classical (“free market”) economists believe that value is determined by the scarcity of the good or service relative to the demand from consumers.

So, a Marxist economist might say “teaching English to 5 year olds is valuable because it is relevant and meaningful”. But, a classical economist would say “conducting a security audit on distributed point-of-sale system is valuable, because very few people can do it, but many people want it”.

I’ve noticed that school teachers and non-STEM university students and professors are very likely  to hold to the labor theory of prices and wages. Robert Nozick wrote a paper about why this happens. It turns out that “wordsmiths” (his word) are conditioned by their performance in the classroom to expect success in the free market economy. But when they find that their “brilliance” in English poetry, Medieval history, or lesbian dance theory has no value to anyone else, they complain that the economy is being manipulated by powerful people. Marxism is a coping mechanism for people who value academic acclaim more than doing something useful for their neighbors. The Marxists study easy things that no one cares about, and then they can’t get paid because millions of people can do them. The free market people focus on the customer, so they study hard things like computer science and petroleum engineering that are in demand from customers. And they get paid more.

Starting and Mid-Career salaries by profession (click for larger image)
Starting and Mid-Career salaries by profession (click for larger image)

Consider this article from College Pulse about a survey of 10,590 undergraduate students:

Students with certain majors are far more likely than their peers to approve of socialism. Philosophy majors, in particular, have a positive view of socialism. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) say they view the economic system favorably, followed by 64% of anthropology majors, and 58% of both English and international relations majors. Accounting and finance majors are least likely to view socialism positively (20% and 22% respectively).

Do you know what accounting and finance students have to study? Basic economics.

As soon as I got my first job as a software engineer, and finished my study of Christian apologetics, the very next thing I studied was economics. It was Dr. Jay Richards who got me interested in it, when I heard him speaking about economics in an apologetics lecture for Stand to Reason. I contacted him, and he recommended the works of two famous economists, F. A. Hayek and Thomas Sowell. And that’s what I want to recommend to you, too. Our continued liberty and prosperity depends on ordinary Americans taking the time to educate themselves about basic economics.

College professors donate to Democrats over Republicans 95 to 1

Where do college professors send their political donations?
Where do college professors send their political donations?

Why is it that college students, including Christian college students, are becoming so progressive? It’s because their professors are all progressive. This isn’t just my opinion. You can look at the breakdown of political donations made by college professors to see how many of them donate to Republicans vs Democrats.

Here is the latest from Campus Reform:

A recent study found that U.S. college professors donate exclusively to Democrats over Republicans by a 95:1 ratio.

Two researchers, Heterodox Academy Director of Research Sean Stevens and Brooklyn College Professor Mitchell Langbert conducted the study, published by the National Association of Scholars. They looked at the political donations of 12,372 college professors at universities in 31 states and the District of Columbia during the past two election cycles in 2015-16 and 2017-18.

Stevens and Langbert conducted their study by looking at political donation data available from the Federal Election Commission.

Of those professors, 2,112 made political donations, 2,081 of which were donated to Democrats. Just 22 of those 2,112 professors donated to Republicans. Nine professors donated to both Republicans and Democrats, according to the study.

The findings indicate that professors donated to Democrats more than Republicans by a 95:1 ratio. In addition to the number of professors who donated to Democrats versus Republicans, the study also revealed how many professors are registered to vote as Democrats compared with professors who are registered as Republicans. Nearly half of the 12,372 professors — 48.5 percent — are registered Democrats while just 5.7 percent are registered Republicans.

Given that, it’s not hard to see why Democrats like Elizabeth Warren want to provide those college professors with $1.3 trillion of taxpayer money – which is what the student loan bailout does.

What explains all of this?

Consider this essay by secular libertarian professor Robert Nozick who explains why university professors are liberal.

Excerpt:

What factor produced feelings of superior value on the part of intellectuals? I want to focus on one institution in particular: schools. As book knowledge became increasingly important, schooling–the education together in classes of young people in reading and book knowledge–spread. Schools became the major institution outside of the family to shape the attitudes of young people, and almost all those who later became intellectuals went through schools. There they were successful. They were judged against others and deemed superior. They were praised and rewarded, the teacher’s favorites. How could they fail to see themselves as superior? Daily, they experienced differences in facility with ideas, in quick-wittedness. The schools told them, and showed them, they were better.

The schools, too, exhibited and thereby taught the principle of reward in accordance with (intellectual) merit. To the intellectually meritorious went the praise, the teacher’s smiles, and the highest grades. In the currency the schools had to offer, the smartest constituted the upper class. Though not part of the official curricula, in the schools the intellectuals learned the lessons of their own greater value in comparison with the others, and of how this greater value entitled them to greater rewards.

The wider market society, however, taught a different lesson. There the greatest rewards did not go to the verbally brightest. There the intellectual skills were not most highly valued. Schooled in the lesson that they were most valuable, the most deserving of reward, the most entitled to reward, how could the intellectuals, by and large, fail to resent the capitalist society which deprived them of the just deserts to which their superiority “entitled” them? Is it surprising that what the schooled intellectuals felt for capitalist society was a deep and sullen animus that, although clothed with various publicly appropriate reasons, continued even when those particular reasons were shown to be inadequate?

It’s very important to understand what is motivating university professors, especially ones who are in departments divorced from reality, like English and victim studies of various sorts. They are literally teaching classes in topic that have no accountability to reality. It’s just indoctrination in what the professor believes. These professors think they are smart, but they don’t earn anything like productive people in the private sector, e.g. – software engineers. It creates a deep sense of inferiority that makes them hostile to the capitalist system. Their only hope is a powerful government that redirects money from those who serve customers (private sector companies) to “wordsmiths” like themselves.