2006-03-08T14:09:32Z 2006-03-08T14:09:32Z 2006-03-08T14:09:32Z

<p>Jane Galt <a href="http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005716.html" title="Affirmative action and the academic labour market">reponds</a> to a post from <a href="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/academic_labor_market_/2006/03/a_theory_of_the_academic_labor_market.php">Steven Teles</a> on the effect of affirmative action on the academic market with an interesting observation:</p> <blockquote> <p>[T]he academic job market, as described here, is very close to what most academics think labour markets are like outside the [academy]: a sharply binary process in which there are clearly delineated winners or losers, the outcomes are somewhat arbitrary, and a very slight run of bad luck can land you in a place from which there is literally no hope of escaping. This might go a long way towards explaining academic leftism, in two ways: first, going through the academic job market might make you more left-wing; and second of all, people who think that the entire world works this way might be more predisposed to pursue jobs in academia.</p> </blockquote> <p>An aside: does anyone have a citation for the Rick Hess article in <cite>PS</cite> that Teles mentions? A search of <span class="caps">JSTOR</span> and the Cambridge Journals site has drawn a complete blank.</p> http://blog.lordsutch.com/archives/3261 http://blog.lordsutch.com/atom.cgi/entryid=3261