Back in August, the Wall Street Journal ran a long article on the insane spending of American public universities, with special emphasis on their proclivity for expensive building projects.
When your only real client is the US Government (via student loans), there is no limit to the spending. The Government is completely inelastic economically, so no need to worry that exponential tuition and housing costs will drive away customers.
If federal student loans were removed completely, and colleges had to create their own loan system with a ten-year sunset for those who never had the ability to pay it back, costs would be cut to a quarter with no change in quality.
I would argue quality would increase. As loans would be more difficult to secure, and less people would opt into the system in the first place. Professors would have more engaged students.
An argument can be made for the proposition that there are too many people going to college who shouldn't be there or don't need to be. The "shouldn't" standpoint includes those for whom academic admission standards have to be "bent" for them to get it. The "don't need to be" standpoint includes people who would ultimately be better off in non-university technical training schools, learning extremely lucrative trades that are in high demand. The result would be a significantly reduced faculty --- possibly the end of the concept of tenure --- and a faculty that would likely be selected for their knowledge and (heaven forfend!) their actual ability to teach effectively, rather than filling set-aside positions in "woke" topics for sociological purposes.
Not only can that argument be made, it should be made, and indeed must be. One aspect you left out, though, is the use of college degrees as proxies for the sort of pre-employment testing that was banned under _Griggs v. Duke Power_. Until we abolish *that* particularly nasty piece of federal government micromanagement, "too many people going to college" is going to stay with us.
My husband and I discussed this idea for about two hours on a recent car ride. (Ha yes we are fun like that.) We concluded that the non-bankruptibility is a core problem. But instead of completely reversing it, make the institutions themselves the backstop, co-signers of a kind. Colleges are granting degrees they know full well are worthless and lead only to functionary jobs at universities. Put them on the hook for charging for nothing.
I don't like that because it lets lenders off the hook. Colleges already offer scholarships out of their own funds, so they have skin in the game. The bankruptcy thing solves the problem neatly. If the lenders have skin in the game they will not lend to unprofitable ventures. An 18 yo who is undecided is not a good investment. If their parents want to pay for them to go to college and find themselves, fine, that's a privilege of wealth. If not, then they should go get a job and work for a few years, it will focus the mind. As any parent can tell you, kids do a lot of maturing between age 18 and 21.
And this is my beef with the way our leaders have run our economy. It works fine for smart, driven people. We're in great shape, my step daughter is doing fine, despite making some really poor personal life choices. But it is corrosive for the half of the population who are below average in ability (and dangerous for black males).
We were foster parents and adopted one of our kids. We stayed in touch with the others and have grandparent relationships with the children of some of them. The smart ones (kids and grandkids) have done well. Those who were average did so so. Those who were below average are in poverty and will remain there for the rest of their days. Two (the black males) were murdered, one for looking like the guy the gunman wanted to kill, and the other for dating the gunman's ex.
Colleges don't really offer scholarships out of their own funds. What they do is take a price that used to be, say, $5k per year, increase the sticker price to $40k per year and then discount it back down to $20k via "scholarships" for the average student. And that way everyone gets to brag on social media about the $80k (over 4 years) scholarship their kid/student got. And this gets extended to sports teams as well where a college basketball team might have 20 players on the roster, each one getting a small "scholarship" while the parents can brag about their kid getting a "scholarship" to play in college, justifying the many more thousands they spent on training and travel ball. Colleges even have quotas for coaches to get a certain number of these roster-padders who will rarely or never play in games, but are just good enough to not look completely fake.
If students choose to pay the higher prices, then the revenue the colleges receive are their funds. People do not have to go to college. Increasingly young people are making that choice. The calls for ending loans would mean most people will make that choice.
Agree entirely on getting the government out of the student loan business. In terms of collections, interestingly this is somewhat similar to what the law was prior to 1991 when the Higher Educational Technical Amendments were enacted which eliminated the 10-year limitations period on collection of defaulted student loans. The key distinction being that those were guaranteed by the federal government. (And now they are direct loans).
Then around 1996, Congress authorized the Treasury to offset Social Security Benefits as a collection remedy, leaving borrowers the only option of filing bankruptcy and requesting the student loans be discharged due to "undue hardship."
Absolutely...When I intended (famous Ivy League U), in the '60s, tuition and board remained at about 3,000/yr. for all 4 years, zero inflation...Now it's 20x that, at least, and the place has gone downhill appreciably...
When I attended (mid-size State U), in the 80's, tuition, housing, book rental, and basic meal plan cost $2200/yr. In my senior year they raised it to $2400/yr. I could work for 3 months in the summer and pay for it. Now of course, a year's tuition is 12x that, approximately the price of a new family car.
I think that’s actually a good way to gauge a “reasonable” tuition: can a motivated student work hard over the summer and cover 80-100% of tuition during the other months?
You sure as hell could not earn $2200 over a summer at the $3.35 minimum wages in the 1980's. Three months at full time after taxes would be about $1350. You would need a job that paid a 70% premium for an unskilled worker in the 1980's. Such jobs had existed in the 1970's, but most of those were gone a decade later.
If you had a skill or the smarts/drive to obtain one, then you had a way to be moderately successful. That still works today, I was talking to a guy just the other day at a local watering hole. He is a crane operator (like my grandpa) and he makes $42 an hour. My point is half the population is below average, which is something we never admit. In reality, there is no Lake Woebegon, where the children are all above average.
I talked to a lady who was getting her PhD. in Educational Leadership. When I questioned what that meant, it was devoted to the study of academic organization, meaning how you set up the vast bureaucracy. It soon became clear the "leadership" aspect was how to be a proper cog in this machine.
She had a son, and it goes without saying she went over a plethora of maladies he has such as sensory issues, dyslexia, etc. Now maybe the kids does have all that, or maybe she's applying the same insane "make-work" mindset to her kids as she does in academia.
'Instead, they compete on amenities and facilities,'
Stuff like this always makes me think of one of my favorite factoids, that most people choose what car to buy based on the number of cup holders. All these amenities and facilities are simply cup holders.
I have been on numerous college tours with my son, and it's ALWAYS all about the fun amenities and the food. You have to force them to show you a classroom or a library, and often they'll say "oh yeah you can go see that by yourself after the tour is over if you want."
I would happily accept cupholders as a tradeoff for good MPG and no computer crap on the dashboard. But you can't get that anymore, as far as I know. Which is why I'm sticking with my 2004 Vibe manual.
Another conspicuous variation of this is the government bureaucracy. Just as managerial work expands to fill the available time, bureaucratic headcount expands to absorb the available tax revenue. Then each newly hired bureaucrat needs to contrive new government powers to wield to justify their existence.
Agree. I grew up in the DC area and learned during internships that the first goal of government agencies wasn’t to fulfill their mission, but to spend all their budget. If you didn’t spend all your budget, you got less money the next year. I saw closets filled up with unneeded office supplies, simply to ensure that the budget was fully spent. Also interacted regularly with other government agencies. Learned to never arrive empty handed if I wanted someone to actually deign to do work. I arrived with donuts, magazines, picture frames, any kind of soft bribe I could think of to win over the sloths.
And Heaven forbid that any bureaucrat ever admits that any of their agency's functions are unnecessary or counterproductive! Like when they all shut down during covid, but couldn't admit that shutting your agency down "because covid" showed that it really could shut down forever and not be missed.
"...to spend all their budget..." Definitely that. But the over-arching, unspoken goal is to defend their fiefdoms like fortresses "against all threats, foreign and domestic." Nothing is as temporary as that which is called permanent. And nothing is as permanent as that which is called temporary---except for bureaucracies!
It's exactly the same in corporate bureaucracies. Probably any organisation that can't be directed by a handful of leaders in fact. We would spend our budget on total bullshit, or just lie, or horse trade it with other departments, just make sure we had the same budget next year "in case we needed it".
A person I know works in state government. This employees supervisors seem wholly concerned with shoveling every cent they can out the door irregardless if anyone is in compliance or even has a real need. They actively target employees who attempt to get compliance to the contracts signed by the clients. It’s maddening.
Also the case that the career trajectory of these bureaucrats is to become a manger and then a manager of managers. So as soon as there is money for headcount, that's their ticket to advancement and they chase after it ferociously. Unlike in say my engineering department where we actually consider if a new hire is worth the cost in value added.
Just watch out for those third-rate engineers who start eyeing that management track. The Engineering Department credo is: Those that can't do, move into management.
I've long said govt is just a jobs program for special-interest Democrat-voting constituencies. And much of it operates by mandating, legislating, regulating programs, procedures, policies that result in the hiring of more of the same to effectuate the compliance with said programs, procedures, and policies. It's a circular, self-fulfilling process, where more programs require more employees who, by necessity, see more areas for govt intervention in the specificity and detail of same-said programs, procedures, and policies.
Yes, it is our version of WPA and CCC. But it's no longer acceptable to build physical things, or these people are incapable of doing so. so we create fake desk jobs for otherwise superfluous labor. TSA is a great example.
If I had gone to college it would've been in the 70s, presumably before this was a problem. But the story does make me exceptionally glad that my one offspring gave up on college after a couple of semesters, before he had a chance to go into debt.
In my small business, I never saw any advantage in the employees who had been college educated.
My mom was a manager at a company who hired engineers; she insisted that the B to B- students were the best workers. Sadly, I was an A student, it's taken me 30 years to become a B student. Mis-educations.
My brother worked for an engineering defense contractor in the early 80s. He often volunteered to go to college campuses to help with recruiting. He was told that if students with 4.0 GPAs talked to him he was to direct them to the R&D department. When he asked why the HR person said it's been their experience that the 4.0 students tend to be very focused on the solo efforts and not very good team players. The good students (> 3.0 < 4.0) were much better employees for team projects where many engineers need to work together.
We were told by one lecturer that bluntly we were lower grade engineers, that our output would be the backbone of engineering companies, and the top flight people would be board room grade. Broadly he was right, but this should not dampen ambition. After 5 years post grad (assuming one can build decent experience and success) all bets are off in the real world.
I did attend college in the early 70s. I had just been discharged out of the Army. I saved up $5,000 plus I had my Veteran's educational benefits. After getting registered I went to the VA office to file for my education benefits. The guy at the desk said I should fill also fill out the forms for state and federal grants. I mentioned that I had money saved and planned to use it for my tuition. He told me that didn't matter. Two weeks later I received the state and federal grants. The checks more than covered my tuition. I thought it was a mistake and went back to the VA office on campus. They reviewed it and said it was not a mistake. As a vet of the Vietnam era I was given top priority on the grants. It struck me as weird.
Good for you! I spent a decade as a graduate student and academic. I learned that academia is a fantasy land run like a feudal hierarchy were very little real work gets done. Sometimes I get a few "oohs" if I put the Ph.D after my name, but as a business owner it's not worth much.
It does depend on the business, of course. I have found University under graduates and graduates to be a mix, but generally their adaptability and understanding is significantly better. The downside is such people can be difficult to retain as boredom can set in rather quickly, for which a small business is going to struggle to manage.
In my career I did lots of hiring (and firing). The worst employees I ever hired had college degrees. They knew nothing about how to perform a job in the real world. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. Plus, they didn’t know how to think or problem-solve at even the most basic level. Sad fact, but there it is.
Interesting. In engineering I can pin that on known courses which have a very high public profile but the content is based on 200 year old thinking (ie, no reference to modern ideas at all) and a big side order of arrogance. The output - I have come across this several times - is astounding entitlement combined with no apparent ability. In part that reflects on the course, which is less useful than a chocolate tea pot.
not only universities. The local school, about 40 years old, was tore down and another monster built in its place. In the front yard they put solar panels, which they hired from the company. After 2 years it was found out the panels are being rented alright, but are not attached to the net. I still remember the school in Belgium where I went, it has been torn down too, but it was over 200 years old...
Wikipedia is a woke platform. I was allowed to enter things and once corrected something, only to find it deleted a few days after. I avoid using it by all means.
Wikipedia editors tend toward petty tyranny and arrogance. Also, very very woke. I'm pretty selective about my use of Wikipedia. For anything even slightly political, forget it, unless you need your blood pressure raised.
As soon as I click a link from what I'm reading and it takes me to Wikipedia I immediately close out without reading a word. And then, the original article I was reading becomes highly suspect. I suspect many others do the same thing.
In the hospitals this is the bloat of middle management. Same phenomenon in universities and especially government. Most are incompetent and have to have their work outsourced to consulting firms.
Graeber (Gräber?) doesn't seem to have read C. Northcote Parkinson?
And if Graeber is any kind of marxist, how can he miss that the managerial class is nothing but the parasitoid part of the original bourgeoisie; the excess and superfluous sons and nowadays daughters who weren't going to take over the family business, nor go into the military or clergy or strike out on their own in the colonies.
That group of wastrels and layabouts who you find both behind and at the forefront of every societally destructive "movement" since the mid-1800s, which was but a minor slivver of the original bourgeoisie, and in no small part also was the foundation of what is today the class of journalists, academics and entertainment-performers (the chattering class, so to speak).
Somewhat affluent, never challenged, lacking experience of hardhips. I'd call them "Woosters" if that wouldn't be doing the character of Bertram Wooster a disservice, since he never acted out of spite or maliciousness but merely blundered about his bachelor's life, gently guided by his manservant Jeeves.
'C. Northcote Parkinson...British historian, author, and formulator of “Parkinson’s Law,” the satiric dictum that “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”...Parkinson later devised a second law, “Expenditure rises to meet income,” detailed in The Law and the Profits (1960).
Common joke at university was, "In insert-name-here, we use Parkinson's laws as our guiding principles".
That was in the 1990s. From my brother I know it's only gotten worse. Nowadays, they have a board sit on what literature you select for a course, to see that DEI-principles are adhered to, plus there's politicians sitting-in on the boards of the universities now: purely in an advisory role....
I knew someone who was a resident at a plastic surgery center in Manhattan about 20 years ago. This doctor told me that, almost to a person, the children of the hedge fund wives getting work done constantly were working for one institution, the Clinton Global Initiative.
More like mid-1700s if you consider France. These were the instigators of the French Revolution, who wasted away their days in parlors arguing social theory. On the bright side: most usually don't survive the eventual chaos which they create.
During my near two decades in the electric and gas utility industry, I realized that bureaucracies contain essentially three types of people. First, and by far the largest group, are the zombies. These people keep their heads down and do just enough to collect a paycheck. Whenever a piece of paper crosses their desk, all they care about is getting that piece of paper off their desk. How it got or where it is going or how their work affects others, they truly do not care. The next group are the actual workers. People who strive to use the administration as intended to perform the actual needed work to done. These are the high performers who are constantly fighting against the incompetence and laziness of the zombies. They have no time for the zombies or for the utter bullshit of the third group. This third group does tend to elevate into supervisory and managerial roles. This group, over time, will become more focused on serving the interests of the bureaucracy itself as opposed to the job the bureaucracy was created to do. This leads to an insufferable amount rules and procedures that a 5 year old would call bullshit on. The truly good workers get stuck in the middle. If I did not engage in extensive cardio a few times a week and partaking good beer at least once a week, I would have suffered a major psychotic episode by now. Probably still will one day.
I work in an unfashionable part of the most unfashionable department in any hospital. Patients are passed around by the Sisters like a wet turd at a tea party. It's only because we actually do the heavy lifting of making a decision that any are discharged or treated.
Great essay! I similarly spent over a decade in academia and noticed very similar things. The administration was vastly growing while facility had very modest changes. Furthermore, the administrators were becoming gatekeepers of even basic functions like ordering supplies, with their preferred vendors despite knowing nothing about our work or helping to secure our grants. Depending on the size of the order, multiple signatures were required up the hierarchy. Once the order was mid 5 figure, the university president also wanted to sign off. We had a basic equipment purchase sit on a desk for nearly six months because of this. It would be generous to even call these folks 9 to 5ers. More like 10 to 3ers.
The administrative state is the largest economic challenge of our time.
> Graeber argues that these pathologies amount to a kind of neo-corporate feudalism
In the original version, the feudal contract was usually stated openly (under what conditions the vassal can be called to war, how many horsemen should he bring, etc., etc.); and the king wouldn't interfere in the relations of counts and barons unless they went really bad.
Ask anyone, in any sector of the economy, from any vocation, and from almost any political standpoint what the worst part of their job is, and they will almost invariably say: management.
Health care is another highly salient example. Just s generation ago doctors were highly respected educated professionals, many working from independent practices, who would do house calls to check up on patients too sick to travel. Further, one never heard of bankruptcies from medical bills. Now, the managerial class has metastasized, and doctors have been reduced to appendages of a bureaucracy. Their professional latitude to diagnose and treat has been usurped by 'best practices' . They get far less respect than they used to (and deserve it, too). Meanwhile medical costs have spiralled out of control.
There is no single sector of the economy or of society that this plague of voracious useless eaters has not debilitated. As you say, open corruption driven by naked greed would be preferable - at least they'd leave us alone once their appetites were sated. Instead, we're afflicted with ideologues appropriating the cream of our economy for their wackadoodle ends, all the while holding back meaningful progress in every field, getting under foot, making things actively worse, and ruining society.
On Naked Capitalism the term of use is: PMC Permanent Managerial Class
In the US, the PMC has taken over the democratic party which now is aligned with capital.
The PMC relies on information technology as they automate hospitals and provide medical records and have reduced primary care doctors to computer typists, limited to 10 to 15 minutes per visit.
My Ohio Health Care system provides MyChart for me to connect to them. It warms my heart to find out that I am no longer a patient, but I am a guarantor.
I do have Medicare insurance provided by government to seniors. It is a lifeline and far from what a robust single payer system could be. The US is heading for 18% of GDP is health care.
Recently Putin made a presentation on the importance of sports for life long health and to be strong to serve the state. My thought: USA, the essential nation = couch potatoes. And flavored potato chips with beer to destroy your own health.
My point about guarantor is the term signifies that I am no longer a patient or a customer or a client. My role is to guarantee payment.
About 30 years ago, the management gurus in the us used to say: #1 customer is the most important thing of the company. #2 reread #1
"you can't not have medical insurance in the u.s!"
You can absolutely not have medical insurance in the US. Just don't get sick or injured, unless you're independently wealthy. And even with insurance, a lot of stuff is not covered.
I was born in the USA and have lived here my whole life and I have never had health insurance. It's supposed to be required but I don't have it and have no plans to get it.
It's a tradition in America that if you don't have any income you don't have to file any tax paperwork. So if there is some such stricture, it would be unknown to me.
Going naked is only doable if you have a ton of money or no money. Get into a car wreck at no fault of your own, and those medical bills can ruin a middle class family.
This passage "no single person can comprehend how the institution as a whole functions, spending decisions become impossible to direct towards any rational purpose," instantly reminded me of the film, "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying" which gives the initial advice to find a business that is big enough that nobody who works there has any idea what anyone there does. The protagonist is a window washer who finds his way inside and works his way up. It's a zany madcap look at the same conditions.
Historians may wish to point out that the heyday for the "managerial society" ideology was around 1910. Certain idea structures have a typical life span of about 125 years. So we are nearly done with this... bullsh!t.
Certainly one cannot be a proper Duke without some Marquesses to boss around! And those Marquesses require a sprinkling of Earls to command! And really, what is an Earl without some Viscounts to do his bidding? And woe be to the Viscount who does not demand fealty of many Barons! Pshaw, it would not do!
I hate to be "that guy" -- actually, that's a lie, I quite like it -- but while Dukes did indeed outrank Marquesses who outranked Earls who etc., noblemen didn't normally have other noblemen as vassals. Instead, they were all direct vassals of the King, it's just that some vassals ranked more highly than others.
(At least that was the case in England and Scotland, the countries I'm most familiar with; maybe in other parts of Europe it was different.)
<i>And by the by, if a Duke told an Earl to jump, I’m sure the Earl would ask “how high, m’lord?”.</i>
I'm not. Medieval nobles tended to be quite touchy about getting the respect due to them. If a Duke told an Earl to jump, the Earl would be more likely to ask, "Who died and made you my liege lord?"
When your only real client is the US Government (via student loans), there is no limit to the spending. The Government is completely inelastic economically, so no need to worry that exponential tuition and housing costs will drive away customers.
If federal student loans were removed completely, and colleges had to create their own loan system with a ten-year sunset for those who never had the ability to pay it back, costs would be cut to a quarter with no change in quality.
I would argue quality would increase. As loans would be more difficult to secure, and less people would opt into the system in the first place. Professors would have more engaged students.
An argument can be made for the proposition that there are too many people going to college who shouldn't be there or don't need to be. The "shouldn't" standpoint includes those for whom academic admission standards have to be "bent" for them to get it. The "don't need to be" standpoint includes people who would ultimately be better off in non-university technical training schools, learning extremely lucrative trades that are in high demand. The result would be a significantly reduced faculty --- possibly the end of the concept of tenure --- and a faculty that would likely be selected for their knowledge and (heaven forfend!) their actual ability to teach effectively, rather than filling set-aside positions in "woke" topics for sociological purposes.
Harley,
Not only can that argument be made, it should be made, and indeed must be. One aspect you left out, though, is the use of college degrees as proxies for the sort of pre-employment testing that was banned under _Griggs v. Duke Power_. Until we abolish *that* particularly nasty piece of federal government micromanagement, "too many people going to college" is going to stay with us.
How about allowing student loans to be discharged via bankruptcy, as used to be the case?
My husband and I discussed this idea for about two hours on a recent car ride. (Ha yes we are fun like that.) We concluded that the non-bankruptibility is a core problem. But instead of completely reversing it, make the institutions themselves the backstop, co-signers of a kind. Colleges are granting degrees they know full well are worthless and lead only to functionary jobs at universities. Put them on the hook for charging for nothing.
I don't like that because it lets lenders off the hook. Colleges already offer scholarships out of their own funds, so they have skin in the game. The bankruptcy thing solves the problem neatly. If the lenders have skin in the game they will not lend to unprofitable ventures. An 18 yo who is undecided is not a good investment. If their parents want to pay for them to go to college and find themselves, fine, that's a privilege of wealth. If not, then they should go get a job and work for a few years, it will focus the mind. As any parent can tell you, kids do a lot of maturing between age 18 and 21.
And this is my beef with the way our leaders have run our economy. It works fine for smart, driven people. We're in great shape, my step daughter is doing fine, despite making some really poor personal life choices. But it is corrosive for the half of the population who are below average in ability (and dangerous for black males).
We were foster parents and adopted one of our kids. We stayed in touch with the others and have grandparent relationships with the children of some of them. The smart ones (kids and grandkids) have done well. Those who were average did so so. Those who were below average are in poverty and will remain there for the rest of their days. Two (the black males) were murdered, one for looking like the guy the gunman wanted to kill, and the other for dating the gunman's ex.
Colleges don't really offer scholarships out of their own funds. What they do is take a price that used to be, say, $5k per year, increase the sticker price to $40k per year and then discount it back down to $20k via "scholarships" for the average student. And that way everyone gets to brag on social media about the $80k (over 4 years) scholarship their kid/student got. And this gets extended to sports teams as well where a college basketball team might have 20 players on the roster, each one getting a small "scholarship" while the parents can brag about their kid getting a "scholarship" to play in college, justifying the many more thousands they spent on training and travel ball. Colleges even have quotas for coaches to get a certain number of these roster-padders who will rarely or never play in games, but are just good enough to not look completely fake.
If students choose to pay the higher prices, then the revenue the colleges receive are their funds. People do not have to go to college. Increasingly young people are making that choice. The calls for ending loans would mean most people will make that choice.
Agree entirely on getting the government out of the student loan business. In terms of collections, interestingly this is somewhat similar to what the law was prior to 1991 when the Higher Educational Technical Amendments were enacted which eliminated the 10-year limitations period on collection of defaulted student loans. The key distinction being that those were guaranteed by the federal government. (And now they are direct loans).
Then around 1996, Congress authorized the Treasury to offset Social Security Benefits as a collection remedy, leaving borrowers the only option of filing bankruptcy and requesting the student loans be discharged due to "undue hardship."
Absolutely love this idea.
Absolutely...When I intended (famous Ivy League U), in the '60s, tuition and board remained at about 3,000/yr. for all 4 years, zero inflation...Now it's 20x that, at least, and the place has gone downhill appreciably...
When I attended (mid-size State U), in the 80's, tuition, housing, book rental, and basic meal plan cost $2200/yr. In my senior year they raised it to $2400/yr. I could work for 3 months in the summer and pay for it. Now of course, a year's tuition is 12x that, approximately the price of a new family car.
I think that’s actually a good way to gauge a “reasonable” tuition: can a motivated student work hard over the summer and cover 80-100% of tuition during the other months?
You sure as hell could not earn $2200 over a summer at the $3.35 minimum wages in the 1980's. Three months at full time after taxes would be about $1350. You would need a job that paid a 70% premium for an unskilled worker in the 1980's. Such jobs had existed in the 1970's, but most of those were gone a decade later.
If you had a skill or the smarts/drive to obtain one, then you had a way to be moderately successful. That still works today, I was talking to a guy just the other day at a local watering hole. He is a crane operator (like my grandpa) and he makes $42 an hour. My point is half the population is below average, which is something we never admit. In reality, there is no Lake Woebegon, where the children are all above average.
"attended"!
When I read your 1st comment my brain read intended as "attended". This happens to me often. I'd be a terrible proof reader.
But a pleasant companion conversationally, as opposed to all those micro-managing friends who can't let anything remain uncorrected.
From the 60s, no keyboard warriors
When a government creates money out of nothing, every government project is a money laundering operation.
Banks also create money out of nothing every time they make a loan. They have done so for centuries. Under gold standards too.
May this note find us all ever closer to God, and His Peace.
If you are correct then why the Federal Reserve, a privately owned corporation who's owners are secrete, usury 'earning' a Trillion dollar this year?
And how connected and influential to our law-makers and others concerning our budgets are those secrete families?
Some things to consider.
God Bless., Steve
I talked to a lady who was getting her PhD. in Educational Leadership. When I questioned what that meant, it was devoted to the study of academic organization, meaning how you set up the vast bureaucracy. It soon became clear the "leadership" aspect was how to be a proper cog in this machine.
She had a son, and it goes without saying she went over a plethora of maladies he has such as sensory issues, dyslexia, etc. Now maybe the kids does have all that, or maybe she's applying the same insane "make-work" mindset to her kids as she does in academia.
That's extremely frightening Alan. I find the mindset utterly alien.
'Instead, they compete on amenities and facilities,'
Stuff like this always makes me think of one of my favorite factoids, that most people choose what car to buy based on the number of cup holders. All these amenities and facilities are simply cup holders.
I have been on numerous college tours with my son, and it's ALWAYS all about the fun amenities and the food. You have to force them to show you a classroom or a library, and often they'll say "oh yeah you can go see that by yourself after the tour is over if you want."
Have to say that although I think of myself as a smart guy, I totally chose my current car based on the very awesome cup holder. Golf 8 eHybrid
Thank goodness. All VWG has to do is find another 3.3 million customers with the same idea - every single year.
Exactly!
I agree. I buy a car with as few cupholders and other annoying and pointless frills, as I can find (becoming more and difficult though)
I would happily accept cupholders as a tradeoff for good MPG and no computer crap on the dashboard. But you can't get that anymore, as far as I know. Which is why I'm sticking with my 2004 Vibe manual.
Yes, only horsepower, cornering G's, and 0-60 time really matter. Who needs more than two seats? Hatch in the back? Just extra weight-adding frills.
Not gonna lie but cup holders are a deal breaker for me when I buy a car. 😁
Too many, or not enough?
Another conspicuous variation of this is the government bureaucracy. Just as managerial work expands to fill the available time, bureaucratic headcount expands to absorb the available tax revenue. Then each newly hired bureaucrat needs to contrive new government powers to wield to justify their existence.
Agree. I grew up in the DC area and learned during internships that the first goal of government agencies wasn’t to fulfill their mission, but to spend all their budget. If you didn’t spend all your budget, you got less money the next year. I saw closets filled up with unneeded office supplies, simply to ensure that the budget was fully spent. Also interacted regularly with other government agencies. Learned to never arrive empty handed if I wanted someone to actually deign to do work. I arrived with donuts, magazines, picture frames, any kind of soft bribe I could think of to win over the sloths.
And Heaven forbid that any bureaucrat ever admits that any of their agency's functions are unnecessary or counterproductive! Like when they all shut down during covid, but couldn't admit that shutting your agency down "because covid" showed that it really could shut down forever and not be missed.
Reminds me of the "Two Bobs" interviews in the movie Office Space. "I'm a people person dammit!!!"
"...to spend all their budget..." Definitely that. But the over-arching, unspoken goal is to defend their fiefdoms like fortresses "against all threats, foreign and domestic." Nothing is as temporary as that which is called permanent. And nothing is as permanent as that which is called temporary---except for bureaucracies!
It's exactly the same in corporate bureaucracies. Probably any organisation that can't be directed by a handful of leaders in fact. We would spend our budget on total bullshit, or just lie, or horse trade it with other departments, just make sure we had the same budget next year "in case we needed it".
Banks have become compliance departments with banking services as a secondary
A person I know works in state government. This employees supervisors seem wholly concerned with shoveling every cent they can out the door irregardless if anyone is in compliance or even has a real need. They actively target employees who attempt to get compliance to the contracts signed by the clients. It’s maddening.
Also the case that the career trajectory of these bureaucrats is to become a manger and then a manager of managers. So as soon as there is money for headcount, that's their ticket to advancement and they chase after it ferociously. Unlike in say my engineering department where we actually consider if a new hire is worth the cost in value added.
Just watch out for those third-rate engineers who start eyeing that management track. The Engineering Department credo is: Those that can't do, move into management.
That must be why I'm still not a manager. 😁
Any bets on how soon the central government collapses and we end up with a feudal system?
It would be almost refreshing to know that at least something is accomplished with the piles of money we keep shoveling at them.
I've long said govt is just a jobs program for special-interest Democrat-voting constituencies. And much of it operates by mandating, legislating, regulating programs, procedures, policies that result in the hiring of more of the same to effectuate the compliance with said programs, procedures, and policies. It's a circular, self-fulfilling process, where more programs require more employees who, by necessity, see more areas for govt intervention in the specificity and detail of same-said programs, procedures, and policies.
Yes, it is our version of WPA and CCC. But it's no longer acceptable to build physical things, or these people are incapable of doing so. so we create fake desk jobs for otherwise superfluous labor. TSA is a great example.
If I had gone to college it would've been in the 70s, presumably before this was a problem. But the story does make me exceptionally glad that my one offspring gave up on college after a couple of semesters, before he had a chance to go into debt.
In my small business, I never saw any advantage in the employees who had been college educated.
My mom was a manager at a company who hired engineers; she insisted that the B to B- students were the best workers. Sadly, I was an A student, it's taken me 30 years to become a B student. Mis-educations.
My brother worked for an engineering defense contractor in the early 80s. He often volunteered to go to college campuses to help with recruiting. He was told that if students with 4.0 GPAs talked to him he was to direct them to the R&D department. When he asked why the HR person said it's been their experience that the 4.0 students tend to be very focused on the solo efforts and not very good team players. The good students (> 3.0 < 4.0) were much better employees for team projects where many engineers need to work together.
We were told by one lecturer that bluntly we were lower grade engineers, that our output would be the backbone of engineering companies, and the top flight people would be board room grade. Broadly he was right, but this should not dampen ambition. After 5 years post grad (assuming one can build decent experience and success) all bets are off in the real world.
I did attend college in the early 70s. I had just been discharged out of the Army. I saved up $5,000 plus I had my Veteran's educational benefits. After getting registered I went to the VA office to file for my education benefits. The guy at the desk said I should fill also fill out the forms for state and federal grants. I mentioned that I had money saved and planned to use it for my tuition. He told me that didn't matter. Two weeks later I received the state and federal grants. The checks more than covered my tuition. I thought it was a mistake and went back to the VA office on campus. They reviewed it and said it was not a mistake. As a vet of the Vietnam era I was given top priority on the grants. It struck me as weird.
Good for you! I spent a decade as a graduate student and academic. I learned that academia is a fantasy land run like a feudal hierarchy were very little real work gets done. Sometimes I get a few "oohs" if I put the Ph.D after my name, but as a business owner it's not worth much.
It does depend on the business, of course. I have found University under graduates and graduates to be a mix, but generally their adaptability and understanding is significantly better. The downside is such people can be difficult to retain as boredom can set in rather quickly, for which a small business is going to struggle to manage.
In my career I did lots of hiring (and firing). The worst employees I ever hired had college degrees. They knew nothing about how to perform a job in the real world. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. Plus, they didn’t know how to think or problem-solve at even the most basic level. Sad fact, but there it is.
Interesting. In engineering I can pin that on known courses which have a very high public profile but the content is based on 200 year old thinking (ie, no reference to modern ideas at all) and a big side order of arrogance. The output - I have come across this several times - is astounding entitlement combined with no apparent ability. In part that reflects on the course, which is less useful than a chocolate tea pot.
not only universities. The local school, about 40 years old, was tore down and another monster built in its place. In the front yard they put solar panels, which they hired from the company. After 2 years it was found out the panels are being rented alright, but are not attached to the net. I still remember the school in Belgium where I went, it has been torn down too, but it was over 200 years old...
Wikipedia is a woke platform. I was allowed to enter things and once corrected something, only to find it deleted a few days after. I avoid using it by all means.
Wikipedia editors tend toward petty tyranny and arrogance. Also, very very woke. I'm pretty selective about my use of Wikipedia. For anything even slightly political, forget it, unless you need your blood pressure raised.
As soon as I click a link from what I'm reading and it takes me to Wikipedia I immediately close out without reading a word. And then, the original article I was reading becomes highly suspect. I suspect many others do the same thing.
In the hospitals this is the bloat of middle management. Same phenomenon in universities and especially government. Most are incompetent and have to have their work outsourced to consulting firms.
It's the same in Sweden: the number of admin-staff, all categories, outnumber the nurses and doctors.
Just like the nhs in England.
Indeed so.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/how-many-managers-does-it-take-to-change-a-light-bulb/
It's insane. I've seen program managers whose sole job was to manage one or two guys, often other program managers, in an outside firm.
The Fauci protocol was so successful in its own way because the only thing modern hospitals care about anymore is money.
Stage 4 metastatic cancer. Prognosis ... fatal.
Graeber (Gräber?) doesn't seem to have read C. Northcote Parkinson?
And if Graeber is any kind of marxist, how can he miss that the managerial class is nothing but the parasitoid part of the original bourgeoisie; the excess and superfluous sons and nowadays daughters who weren't going to take over the family business, nor go into the military or clergy or strike out on their own in the colonies.
That group of wastrels and layabouts who you find both behind and at the forefront of every societally destructive "movement" since the mid-1800s, which was but a minor slivver of the original bourgeoisie, and in no small part also was the foundation of what is today the class of journalists, academics and entertainment-performers (the chattering class, so to speak).
Somewhat affluent, never challenged, lacking experience of hardhips. I'd call them "Woosters" if that wouldn't be doing the character of Bertram Wooster a disservice, since he never acted out of spite or maliciousness but merely blundered about his bachelor's life, gently guided by his manservant Jeeves.
'C. Northcote Parkinson...British historian, author, and formulator of “Parkinson’s Law,” the satiric dictum that “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”...Parkinson later devised a second law, “Expenditure rises to meet income,” detailed in The Law and the Profits (1960).
https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-Northcote-Parkinson
That's the man!
Common joke at university was, "In insert-name-here, we use Parkinson's laws as our guiding principles".
That was in the 1990s. From my brother I know it's only gotten worse. Nowadays, they have a board sit on what literature you select for a course, to see that DEI-principles are adhered to, plus there's politicians sitting-in on the boards of the universities now: purely in an advisory role....
I knew someone who was a resident at a plastic surgery center in Manhattan about 20 years ago. This doctor told me that, almost to a person, the children of the hedge fund wives getting work done constantly were working for one institution, the Clinton Global Initiative.
DEI is a jobs program for the upper middle class
More like mid-1700s if you consider France. These were the instigators of the French Revolution, who wasted away their days in parlors arguing social theory. On the bright side: most usually don't survive the eventual chaos which they create.
<i>On the bright side: most usually don't survive the eventual chaos which they create.</i>
Unfortunately a lot of other people don't survive either.
So true. They make the foolish mistake, but others pay the price as well.
During my near two decades in the electric and gas utility industry, I realized that bureaucracies contain essentially three types of people. First, and by far the largest group, are the zombies. These people keep their heads down and do just enough to collect a paycheck. Whenever a piece of paper crosses their desk, all they care about is getting that piece of paper off their desk. How it got or where it is going or how their work affects others, they truly do not care. The next group are the actual workers. People who strive to use the administration as intended to perform the actual needed work to done. These are the high performers who are constantly fighting against the incompetence and laziness of the zombies. They have no time for the zombies or for the utter bullshit of the third group. This third group does tend to elevate into supervisory and managerial roles. This group, over time, will become more focused on serving the interests of the bureaucracy itself as opposed to the job the bureaucracy was created to do. This leads to an insufferable amount rules and procedures that a 5 year old would call bullshit on. The truly good workers get stuck in the middle. If I did not engage in extensive cardio a few times a week and partaking good beer at least once a week, I would have suffered a major psychotic episode by now. Probably still will one day.
I work in an unfashionable part of the most unfashionable department in any hospital. Patients are passed around by the Sisters like a wet turd at a tea party. It's only because we actually do the heavy lifting of making a decision that any are discharged or treated.
For a different take on the three tiers, check out “the Gervais principle.”
Light relief to mitigate risk of major psychotic episode. Don't spill the beer!
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/how-many-managers-does-it-take-to-change-a-light-bulb/
Great essay! I similarly spent over a decade in academia and noticed very similar things. The administration was vastly growing while facility had very modest changes. Furthermore, the administrators were becoming gatekeepers of even basic functions like ordering supplies, with their preferred vendors despite knowing nothing about our work or helping to secure our grants. Depending on the size of the order, multiple signatures were required up the hierarchy. Once the order was mid 5 figure, the university president also wanted to sign off. We had a basic equipment purchase sit on a desk for nearly six months because of this. It would be generous to even call these folks 9 to 5ers. More like 10 to 3ers.
The administrative state is the largest economic challenge of our time.
It really is. Steadily increasing the cost of each unit of productive output can absolutely be an existential threat to an economy.
My favorite expression from a CEO who had no patience for this: “Go pretend to work somewhere else.”
> Graeber argues that these pathologies amount to a kind of neo-corporate feudalism
In the original version, the feudal contract was usually stated openly (under what conditions the vassal can be called to war, how many horsemen should he bring, etc., etc.); and the king wouldn't interfere in the relations of counts and barons unless they went really bad.
The 'neo' version is much worse in fact.
Except for the people at the bottom of the pyramid there was no negotiation. So in that respect the historical parallel is deadly accurate.
Ask anyone, in any sector of the economy, from any vocation, and from almost any political standpoint what the worst part of their job is, and they will almost invariably say: management.
Health care is another highly salient example. Just s generation ago doctors were highly respected educated professionals, many working from independent practices, who would do house calls to check up on patients too sick to travel. Further, one never heard of bankruptcies from medical bills. Now, the managerial class has metastasized, and doctors have been reduced to appendages of a bureaucracy. Their professional latitude to diagnose and treat has been usurped by 'best practices' . They get far less respect than they used to (and deserve it, too). Meanwhile medical costs have spiralled out of control.
There is no single sector of the economy or of society that this plague of voracious useless eaters has not debilitated. As you say, open corruption driven by naked greed would be preferable - at least they'd leave us alone once their appetites were sated. Instead, we're afflicted with ideologues appropriating the cream of our economy for their wackadoodle ends, all the while holding back meaningful progress in every field, getting under foot, making things actively worse, and ruining society.
On Naked Capitalism the term of use is: PMC Permanent Managerial Class
In the US, the PMC has taken over the democratic party which now is aligned with capital.
The PMC relies on information technology as they automate hospitals and provide medical records and have reduced primary care doctors to computer typists, limited to 10 to 15 minutes per visit.
My Ohio Health Care system provides MyChart for me to connect to them. It warms my heart to find out that I am no longer a patient, but I am a guarantor.
Don, it hurts my heart to find that you can't not have medical insurance in the u.s!
I do have Medicare insurance provided by government to seniors. It is a lifeline and far from what a robust single payer system could be. The US is heading for 18% of GDP is health care.
Recently Putin made a presentation on the importance of sports for life long health and to be strong to serve the state. My thought: USA, the essential nation = couch potatoes. And flavored potato chips with beer to destroy your own health.
My point about guarantor is the term signifies that I am no longer a patient or a customer or a client. My role is to guarantee payment.
About 30 years ago, the management gurus in the us used to say: #1 customer is the most important thing of the company. #2 reread #1
Big Pharma = Big Money = Not Health
Considering it's gross inefficiency, I wouldn't want the government running any single payer system.
Just look to Canada for confirmation.
"you can't not have medical insurance in the u.s!"
You can absolutely not have medical insurance in the US. Just don't get sick or injured, unless you're independently wealthy. And even with insurance, a lot of stuff is not covered.
You're absolutely right. You can't not have medical insurance in the USA
I was born in the USA and have lived here my whole life and I have never had health insurance. It's supposed to be required but I don't have it and have no plans to get it.
I knew someone who didn't have insurance. Don't you get penalised via your tax return? That is awful,imo.
It's a tradition in America that if you don't have any income you don't have to file any tax paperwork. So if there is some such stricture, it would be unknown to me.
The original plan was to be penalized for being uninsured. IIRC they postponed this penalty, and maybe it's never been enforced.
It's entirely possible not to have insurance. You might have to pay a penalty. But it's still possible to not have insurance.
And yes, it's awful. The US has one of the worst healthcare systems in the world.
They changed the penalty to $0, plus didn’t enforce the rule.
Going naked is only doable if you have a ton of money or no money. Get into a car wreck at no fault of your own, and those medical bills can ruin a middle class family.
To get into a car wreck one would need to have a car. lol
one can be hit by a car regardless of one's driving status.
This passage "no single person can comprehend how the institution as a whole functions, spending decisions become impossible to direct towards any rational purpose," instantly reminded me of the film, "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying" which gives the initial advice to find a business that is big enough that nobody who works there has any idea what anyone there does. The protagonist is a window washer who finds his way inside and works his way up. It's a zany madcap look at the same conditions.
Historians may wish to point out that the heyday for the "managerial society" ideology was around 1910. Certain idea structures have a typical life span of about 125 years. So we are nearly done with this... bullsh!t.
Certainly one cannot be a proper Duke without some Marquesses to boss around! And those Marquesses require a sprinkling of Earls to command! And really, what is an Earl without some Viscounts to do his bidding? And woe be to the Viscount who does not demand fealty of many Barons! Pshaw, it would not do!
I hate to be "that guy" -- actually, that's a lie, I quite like it -- but while Dukes did indeed outrank Marquesses who outranked Earls who etc., noblemen didn't normally have other noblemen as vassals. Instead, they were all direct vassals of the King, it's just that some vassals ranked more highly than others.
(At least that was the case in England and Scotland, the countries I'm most familiar with; maybe in other parts of Europe it was different.)
But you did get the point did you not, Mr. Pedantic? And by the by, if a Duke told an Earl to jump, I’m sure the Earl would ask “how high, m’lord?”.
<i>And by the by, if a Duke told an Earl to jump, I’m sure the Earl would ask “how high, m’lord?”.</i>
I'm not. Medieval nobles tended to be quite touchy about getting the respect due to them. If a Duke told an Earl to jump, the Earl would be more likely to ask, "Who died and made you my liege lord?"