Marketising universities

From the March archives of the mediocracy blog. Well, James did say I could, and I'm rather fond of this one. It was intended to be a prelude to critically analysing the idea of marketising universities, which a number of pro-marketeers (e.g. Gabriel Rozenberg) seem to favour, and I still hope to get round to that. The point here is that imposing markets in a partial way can do more harm than good.

Now, I think the involvement of the state is a good part of the reason why academia has become mediocratised. And if I was building a university system from scratch, I would keep the state well out of it. But, in practice, any demands for "marketising" starting from here are going to lead to piecemeal stuff — forcing students to take out loans being a good example. And (paradoxically) there is no reason why piecemeal marketisation might not just make the harmful effects of state involvement worse rather than better. As it has probably made things worse for users of the NHS. Free markets are one thing, pseudo-marketisation another. (Note: non-economists may wish to read an earlier post which explains the basics of "perfect competition".)

What does economics have to tell us about how to optimise efficiency, if we cannot achieve PC (perfect competition)? There are two ways of dealing with the "problem of the second best" for policy purposes. The first favours government intervention, the second doesn’t. No prizes for guessing which one is most often stressed in economics courses. (For the avoidance of doubt: the first.)

1) If we had information about the preferences of every individual in the economy, we could calculate what the range of possible optimal states are, given the constraints we have to work with. (Call these states “second-best solutions".) In that case, it might turn out that, if the economy departs from PC in one specific area but is PC elsewhere, we will only be able to get to a second-best solution by departing from PC in other areas as well. In fact, it can be shown that for very simple scenarios, that is the case — i.e. it is better to deviate from perfect competition in all areas rather than just in some.

This is sometimes taken to prove that in certain cases government intervention is better than laissez-faire as a way of generating the best possible outcome, given the constraints. But note that this conclusion depends on knowing everybody’s preferences, which in practice is impossible. The great benefit of the strict-PC model — of being certain that the outcome will be efficient, without having to know anything about people’s preferences — doesn’t apply here.

2) The other way of treating the problem of the second best is to advocate agnosticism. If we don’t have perfect PC conditions and can’t get to them, and we don’t know everyone’s preferences, then we can’t know whether any particular policy change will move things in the direction of greater efficiency. Even if a policy change appears to be moving things in the direction of PC conditions, it might easily result in less overall efficiency.

Now there are two ways to interpret treatment (2), either of which might be appropriate depending on the circumstances.

(2a) One is to be conservative, in the sense of being cautious about doing anything, especially major changes. They might do harm on balance, rather than good. This generates the opposite conclusion to that of (1), in the sense that you should avoid tinkering further with an already imperfect system in case you make it worse.

(2b) The other way to react is to adopt a muddle-through approach, for which there isn’t any strict justification, but which might be the best one can do, on a sort of hopeful common-sense basis. This could be taken to mean, we should try to aim at the nearest thing to PC in all markets, being careful to ensure that we don’t miss out any major areas.

Bottom Line

The one thing second-best theory can definitely tell you is the following: you should be wary of policy changes which involve partial marketisation of a given area. E.g. if the intergenerational market for private capital (= inheritance) is heavily distorted by estate duties, don’t rush to marketise (i.e. remove subsidies from) cultural institutions such as universities or opera houses.

Also — though you don’t really need second-best theory for this — don’t try to impose artificial marketisation, e.g. by making academics or medical professionals try to prove they are generating “value for money”. There is no hard support from economic theory for the idea that anything other than a genuine market (where the genuine end users are able to vote with their wallets) will generate any benefit whatsoever.

"That Man Would Typewrite a Love-letter"

In my God as Metaphor post some time ago, I ended up concentrating on organised religion, and how it might be read as a literary effort to explain our search for meaning. It struck me then, and still does now, that in doing so I had over-emphasised my critique of religion, and only briefly touched on the antipode of science that I had also been meaning to critique:

The same argument, incidentally, could apply to scientific theories seeking to explain the world, including that part of it that relates to our morality. It is simply a metaphor framed in very different terms, albeit one I personally am finding increasingly limited.

That was all I wrote about science, then, and yet the post had been partly motivated by my dismay at the tendency in certain quarters to disparage the beauty that surrounds us in dismissing the claims of organised religion.

In one of those happy little coincidences that life throws up now and then, and yes, I am being somewhat disingenuous here, I recently picked up a book by an author I was very fond of as a child. I will not say who it is just yet, as there is another post to be written about him. The passage I want to concentrate on today draws on a metaphor drawn by the village postman:

Look at these early flowers which appear. So many of 'em are droopin' bells, as though natur' were ringin' em [the courting birds] on their way. When the west wind blows, I watch the snowdrops, the little woodsorrel of the pine-woods, the tall daffodils, and bluebells ... All of 'em ringing their carillon - bells for the birdies' weddin's, swingin', swayin', pealin'; and the great big marsh marigolds and the flamin' buttercups standin' up straight out o' the green grass and holdin' their ... chalices aloft and cryin' , "Good 'ealth to bride and bridegroom".

Shortly after this tour de force of rustic mysticism - even if "flamin' buttercups" strikes an odd note to more modern ears - our narrator encounters a keen gardener, with whom he cannot resist sharing the postman's vision, although even the narrator refers to these as "quaint conceits."

'Ah, yes,' he said in his superior way; 'very pretty, no doubt. But we botanists like to stick to facts.'

'Facts are not so beautiful as truth, sometimes,' I ventured to interpolate.

'Those of us who have a scientific bent explain things differently,' he said, with a superior air. 'You see,' he added. 'those tubular flowers of yours live under cold atmospheric conditions. By closingh the petals much of the warmth which would be lost by radiation is preserved. The surface presented to the Arctic winds and dews being that of the involucral leaves, or bracts, of the calyx, which...'

Now, while our narrator is clearly not shy of editorialising - I would have thought that his interlocutor's condescending attitude would have been obvious without us being told twice of his superior airs - and while there are flaws and subtexts that I would like to explore anon, he can coin a wonderful phrase.

"Facts are not so beautiful as truth, sometimes" speaks even unto a confirmed agnostic like me, and it's a truth that the more militant atheists would do well to remember.

Brief Tour of Downtown Indianapolis

Yes, I too was invited by James to guest blog over here at Nourishing Obscurity. Following a suggestion given to me in an e-mail, why not venture to downtown Indianapolis, Indiana and see Monument Circle, the Statehouse, and Military Park?

Indianapolis is the capital of Indiana and is the largest city in the state. There's plenty of events going on all year long but downtown is pretty cool.




One of the first buildings you will see (if you come down from the north side) amongst the skyline is the Chase Tower (formerly Bank One). This tower can be seen in skyline postcards of Indianapolis.



Downtown is where we have our tallest buildings.



Monument Circle makes the main street, Meridian Street, into a roundabout. It is a gigantic statue devoted to fallen soldiers from the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Civil War.



So, the last photo was of Monument Circle. Here we are standing on it, looking back at the street we were standing on when the previous photo was taken (Meridian Street).



Looking left and down you will see a fountain.



Going behind the Monument, we will find another inscription (dedicated to the soldiers who died in the Civil War). The fronstide inscription is dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the Spanish-American War of 1898 (Cuba's War of Independence).



Stepping down from the Monument, we can see a view of the fountain. Note the soldiers.



Remember the Chase Tower we saw at the very beginning? This is it from the backside.



Heading to the street to the left of the Monument, we approach the Statehouse of Indiana, where the governor works. I had the good fortune of briefly meeting him about a month ago.



Don't worry, it's normal :-) .



Ah, here we are! The Statehouse!



This is one of several offices on the main floor of the Statehouse. It's available only to authorized personnel.



Walking into the center of the main hall, we can see this gorgeous skylight which sadly didn't want to look as pretty as it does in person.



Justice and Liberty.
Here is one of the four two pairs of statues that grace this hall beneath the skylight.
Here are the others.



Agriculture and Commerce



Law and Oratory



History and Art





Here we are at Military Park, where the names (if known) of every single Medal of Honor winner, their conflicts, locations (if known), and ranks are etched into rows of glass. A few summers ago vandals came in thru here and broke one of the glass walls.



Here's an explanation of the Medal of Honor that can be found in Military Park. Simply put, the Medal of Honor is the highest medal that a member of the US armed forces can receive. I wish to apologize for the evident jerkiness of a few of these photos. I stitched them together earlier today (all of these photos were taken in 2005).






Every wall has its conflict labeled. For example, here is the wall for unknown soldiers. Some conflicts contain several walls of recipients.



Here is one of their walls.



These are some of the armed service members who died in our conquest of the West against the Indians.



Paul Smith was the first soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor since Somalia. He died in the Battle of Baghdad during Operation: Iraqi Freedom. You all can look up his amazing story on the Internet, a true soldier indeed.



The canal that runs beside Military Park is popular with musicians, on occasion.



Note the fog's effects of obscuring the Chase Tower (in the middle of the picture).



The canal runs back to the city's very center.



Now, we'll go briefly to a suburb of Indianapolis where we'll find a forest.



I leave you all looking at this creek, near the forest. I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out

Wallace and Gromit are a pair of characters that not many political bloggers post about (shame I hear you cry and indeed such cries are acknowledged), furthermore they are not a pair of characters that even the great Higham has deigned to grace with his type (even greater shame I hear you shout from the back row and its acknowledged) so I'm going to have to take up the pen and say something about how this duo, particularly in their first film, the Grand Day Out- offer a kind of defence of freedom that is very necessary to heed.

Lest you forget, and how could you, Wallace is an inventor with a mind filled with ideas, Gromit his dog is the more practical side of the duo forever shaking his head in disbelief at his master's antics (as shown above, Gromit ends up spattered with paint and used at one point as part of a work bench when Wallace has cut away the other end of the work bench). The story is basically thus- our heroes are in despair, in the midst of a bank holiday sitting with their feet up they feel the need for adventure (well Wallace does, Gromit looks quite happy!) and need a holiday, furthermore a crisis in their affairs has been realised- a crisis that involves the fact that though there is tea, though there are crackers in the house, there is no cheese, not one piece of cheese in the Fridge. Having thought about Cheese holidays- they decide to go to the moon, they build a rocket and set off, watched by a group of rats in shades, and reach the moon without incident (though Gromit loses a tower made of cards in the process) and Wallace prepares to carve out some cheese from the moon. After a series of adventures with a robot confused by their presence whose lifetime ambition is to ski, they set off home again and the movie finishes twenty minutes after it started, with Wallace leaning back in his seat sipping a cup of tea, and Gromit fiddling with the controls, as the Robot skis up and down the craters of the moon on bits of metal it had tugged from the spacecraft.

The story really isn't the point here though- its the individuality, its the eccentricity (in England's that's a virtue)- there is a line in the Lord of the Rings when Gandalf tells Frodo that what's worth fighting for is all the absurd Bolgers and Boffins and Bagginses- that's the same sense you get from Wallace and Gromit. These two characters are crackers, they are mad, their lives revolve around inventions, cheese (particularly Wensleydale) and tea- but in some sense they are the essense of the whole of Western civilisation. Civilisation isn't just Michelangelo and Machiavelli, its Wallace and his efforts to get to the moon, its loving Wensleydale and its a dog knitting in a chair and rats with shades over their eyes, its merry eccentricity which is a value all to itself. The absurdity of life is in many ways its essence- when we talk about freedom often we lose sight of the fact that freedom isn't just a political issue- its a personal issue as well. Put simply in a totalitarian state like North Korea, you can't live a life based on Wensleydale and tea- you can't just decide to build a rocket to go to the moon (theoretically you could in the West) and you can't be madly, loveably, endeeringly and frustratingly often eccentric.

That's the reason its important to be free- its so Wallaces and Gromits continue to flourish in our society.

The Blue Wave Falls Short

Here in the south east of France we remain as blue as blue can be (see post a week ago), with every single Alpes Maritimes constituency being UMP (or ally) and every one in the Var too, as well as one of the two in the inland Alpes de Haute Provence department. Unforunately for President Sloshko elsewhere in France his blue wave fell somewhat shorter and so, although the UMP did retain a comfortable margin of victory (314 UMP seats plus about 32 allies out of 577 total), it wasn't the 400-500 seat blowout that looked possible a week ago. Indeed the Socialists gained some 50 seats compared to their results in 2002, which makes them the winners in terms of swing - but not the real winners because they still fell 100 seats short of the numbers required for a majority.

The excellent news though is that convicted crook, pal of Chirac and former PM, Alain Juppé, who was appointed as a minister by Sloshko, failed to win his seat nad has resigned from the cabinet. This news goes hand in hand with the fact that Chirac is now no longer immune from prosecution so Inspecteur Knackeur should be knokcing on his door any day now to ask him to answer a few questions.

Back to the elections. Why did Sarko's blue wave fall short? Well there are a bunch of reasons from low turnout to a generally pronounced belief that a few checks and balances are a good thing that may have helped but the most likely reason is that the economy minister opened his mouth last week and said that he'll probably have to raise VAT to balance the books since Sarko has stated he wishes to reduce income tax and social charges to make it less expensive to employ people. Sarko did his best at damage control after his return from EU diplomacy in Poland but it looks like it wasn't enough.

On the other hand though Sarko looks like he will find it easier to maneover during the summer as the Socialists have now officially formed a circular firing squad. Sego has stated that she has split up with her non-hubby François Hollande (there was some argument about who should wear the skirt in the relationship apparently) and all the "elephants" of the socialist party are now joining in the fray to declare that had only the socialists followed their advice they would have won. So, since Sarko will face little or no sane criticism by opposition politicians, the opposition is likely to come from the loony fringe and Sarko is sure to welcome that as being proof that he is right.

I should note that, despite my posts during the campaign in favour of Sarko, I agree with the dissident frogman that comparisons between him and Thatcher or Reagan are overstated. Comparisons between him and Bush (either) are probably fairly accurate though, although I suspect Sarko is smarter, less loyal and more devious than either Bush. In fact the closest anglo-saxon political figures that Sarko resembles are probably Pres W Clinton and PM A Blair... The reason why I was so strongly in favour of Sarko compared to Bayrou or Sego was that the latter two were destined to lead France to total destruction in a short time, Sarko may manage to turn things around and may be the enabler that lets a real French Thatcher or Reagan appear.

(X-posted at my own blog)

Return of the Strap and Cane?

This has got to be a subject that James would have strong opinions on as a former Headmaster.

Ever one with a strong opinion, given his religious training and previous job as a Priest, Australian Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has weighed in in favour of the whack of the leather and the crash of the cane in restoring discipline to out of control teens in Australia's schools. Several high profile cases of violence have been shown on television and on YouTube and in an election year, it is obligatory that politicians comment on the issues of the day.

I strongly doubt that it will make the slightest bit of difference.

My own personal experience was that the teachers who were respected hardly ever had to use corporal punishment in the classroom. The one's who used it most were either ineffective or very permissive teachers.

My brother, had the record for his year for the number of times he was belted in class. It was like a badge of courage as he took it to the teachers. He actually had a collection of belts at home, taken from teachers drawers, prior to baiting them to belt him. I on the other hand was the quiet type and only got belted twice, once for chewing gum in class and another for a minor incident that four people, including myself were held collectively responsible for.

In neither case did the presence of corporal punishment make the slightest difference to behaviour. In fact for my brother, it was likely a motivation.

I think you have to look to families to make a difference. It seems that this responsibility is being abdicated by many, leading to disrespectful behaviour in the classroom.

The other alternative may be to go to stronger measures as suggested in the photograph.

This is an edited version of the original post on my blog Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe.