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[august_leo]

My PhD is nearly 20 years old and only once or twice in that period have new PhDs been at all concerned about not getting a TT position (and I don't personally know any who haven't, even in a thin year).

We are not in the same field. In my field the supply clearly outweighs the demand (no, I am not in the humanities). When the situation is like this and you have great ABDs and post-docs applying for the same jobs, also in a field where things come and in and out of style, it very much IS a lottery. Sure, things can make your changes improve or dwindle, but it largely is a lottery.

This is particularly evident when you compare individuals who have identical CVs (Number of pubs, journal quality) and see very different outcomes and you have met everyone and know it's not due to one person having better social/personal skills.

[octoprof]

My PhD is nearly 20 years old and only once or twice in that period have new PhDs been at all concerned about not getting a TT position (and I don't personally know any who haven't, even in a thin year).

We are not in the same field. In my field the supply clearly outweighs the demand (no, I am not in the humanities). When the situation is like this and you have great ABDs and post-docs applying for the same jobs, also in a field where things come and in and out of style, it very much IS a lottery. Sure, things can make your changes improve or dwindle, but it largely is a lottery.

This is particularly evident when you compare individuals who have identical CVs (Number of pubs, journal quality) and see very different outcomes and you have met everyone and know it's not due to one person having better social/personal skills.

I'm sure that's true in your field. What I objected to previously in this thread (and occasionally on other threads) is the tendency for a lot of folks on this forum to generalize their field's situation to all of academia.  Clearly, academia is very diverse.  The contrasting job markets of our two fields illustrate that perfectly.

[marcbousquet]

I think Octoprof is providing a helpful insight into one field. Generalizing from that particular experience (and he/she isn't doing so) would create an erroneous picture of what's happening in the academy.

In general, the academy's been permatemped: student workers and contingent workers have been substituted for permanent workers.

That means we don't have a "market in jobs" in the traditional sense. There is, instead, a "market in temporary labor." The vast majority of teaching work is performed by students and faculty serving contingently.

Analyzing the academic labor market has to begin, not by analyzing "supply" and "demand" for tenure-track employment, though this represents (an increasingly modest) factor in the overall academic labor system, but by analyzing the role of graduate education in creating the majority contingent workforce.  (Plug warning--I've written about this extensively in my book!)

Where would I place octo's experience? In the larger patterns shifting rewards away from socially-directed activity (teaching, social work, child care) toward activities in direct service of capital accumulation. Chances seem good that thirty years of movement in that direction are about to be balanced a bit by some movement toward increasing reward for pro-social activities. 

Those larger patterns involve and implicate higher education, but are hardly exclusive to it.

Solidarity, M

[octoprof]

I think Octoprof is providing a helpful insight into one field. Generalizing from that particular experience (and he/she isn't doing so) would create an erroneous picture of what's happening in the academy.

In general, the academy's been permatemped: student workers and contingent workers have been substituted for permanent workers.

That means we don't have a "market in jobs" in the traditional sense. There is, instead, a "market in temporary labor." The vast majority of teaching work is performed by students and faculty serving contingently.

Analyzing the academic labor market has to begin, not by analyzing "supply" and "demand" for tenure-track employment, though this represents (an increasingly modest) factor in the overall academic labor system, but by analyzing the role of graduate education in creating the majority contingent workforce.  (Plug warning--I've written about this extensively in my book!)

Where would I place octo's experience? In the larger patterns shifting rewards away from socially-directed activity (teaching, social work, child care) toward activities in direct service of capital accumulation. Chances seem good that thirty years of movement in that direction are about to be balanced a bit by some movement toward increasing reward for pro-social activities. 

Those larger patterns involve and implicate higher education, but are hardly exclusive to it.

Solidarity, M

Wow, now that's a lot of generalizing.

I'd just like to correct your misconception about my field: Without accounting, those teaching, social work and childcare activities you describe would be limited.  Those activities (and most others) need accounting information, use accounting information for decisions, etc.  Accounting is not "about capital accumulation," it's about accounting for resources and assuring that others' assertions about resources are trustworthy. These are activities needed by and affecting everyone: individuals, businesses, governments, charities, educational institutions, etc.

I certainly don't think my field's (job market) situation is generalizable, but I will continue to assert that neither is any other single field's job market situation generalizable to academia in general.

I have no qualms when folks say "In my field..." or "In the humanities..." or "In STEM fields..." or somesuch. It's the "In academia in general...." statements (which this previous poster is perpetuating) that are just a bit over the top.

Academia is not homogeneous.

[august_leo]

My PhD is nearly 20 years old and only once or twice in that period have new PhDs been at all concerned about not getting a TT position (and I don't personally know any who haven't, even in a thin year).

We are not in the same field. In my field the supply clearly outweighs the demand (no, I am not in the humanities). When the situation is like this and you have great ABDs and post-docs applying for the same jobs, also in a field where things come and in and out of style, it very much IS a lottery. Sure, things can make your changes improve or dwindle, but it largely is a lottery.

This is particularly evident when you compare individuals who have identical CVs (Number of pubs, journal quality) and see very different outcomes and you have met everyone and know it's not due to one person having better social/personal skills.

I'm sure that's true in your field. What I objected to previously in this thread (and occasionally on other threads) is the tendency for a lot of folks on this forum to generalize their field's situation to all of academia.  Clearly, academia is very diverse.  The contrasting job markets of our two fields illustrate that perfectly.

*nod* Indeed. Even in my field there is diversity among the subfields.

[octoprof]

My PhD is nearly 20 years old and only once or twice in that period have new PhDs been at all concerned about not getting a TT position (and I don't personally know any who haven't, even in a thin year).

We are not in the same field. In my field the supply clearly outweighs the demand (no, I am not in the humanities). When the situation is like this and you have great ABDs and post-docs applying for the same jobs, also in a field where things come and in and out of style, it very much IS a lottery. Sure, things can make your changes improve or dwindle, but it largely is a lottery.

This is particularly evident when you compare individuals who have identical CVs (Number of pubs, journal quality) and see very different outcomes and you have met everyone and know it's not due to one person having better social/personal skills.

I'm sure that's true in your field. What I objected to previously in this thread (and occasionally on other threads) is the tendency for a lot of folks on this forum to generalize their field's situation to all of academia.  Clearly, academia is very diverse.  The contrasting job markets of our two fields illustrate that perfectly.

*nod* Indeed. Even in my field there is diversity among the subfields.

Very true in many fields, august_leo!  See the Plumlee etal. 2006 article I cited earlier in this thread to see examples of differential demand (and supply) in subfields of my discipline.

[acrimone]

Quoth the Scavenger Oracle:

"The third is fifth,
The fourth is first,
The second was first but now is last."

"Your hair is wet.
You should dry it.
But you'll need to either meet or greet a stylist."

[johnmarshall]

Where would I place octo's experience? In the larger patterns shifting rewards away from socially-directed activity (teaching, social work, child care) toward activities in direct service of capital accumulation. Chances seem good that thirty years of movement in that direction are about to be balanced a bit by some movement toward increasing reward for pro-social activities. 

This post is endemic of the blindness in the perception of some academics.  I teach in a business-related field in a business academic milieu.  Too many in the humanities and similar fields are under the misapprehension that what they do benefits society ("pro-social"), while what we in the business arena do is teach greed ("capital accumulation").  I think that accounting, marketing, finance, business law, economics, strategy and general management professors teach "pro-social" activities writ large.  We don't  teach mere capital accumulation--but even if we did, what about job creation isn't "pro-social"?

Without the development of business and industry, without the perpetual movement to the right of the production possibilities curve--without the work we on the dark side are doing to enable that--you could forget social work and public education, most of us would be serfs struggling to eek out a living, the vast majority wouldn't have time for the luxuries of social work, psychology, social studies, the arts, women's studies--you name it. 

Marc, it's not that I think you were trying to flamebait us in the business disciplines or had any ill intent; it's just that your post demonstrates the blinders that so many in academia wear vis-a-vis the pro-social nature of business disciplines. 

[marcbousquet]

Marc, it's not that I think you were trying to flamebait us in the business disciplines or had any ill intent; it's just that your post demonstrates the blinders that so many in academia wear vis-a-vis the pro-social nature of business disciplines.

Thanks, John, for your thoughtful remarks. You have a fair point, and I appreciate that you made it with civility. I certainly don't make a point of being fair to business in most of my writing on academic labor issues, and I agree that there are many, many ways in which enterprise activities are abundantly pro-social. Marx agreed, of course: he often wrote of capitalist enterprise with a tone of wonder and appreciation, as having brought about realities and possibilities infinitely preferable to many preceding forms of distribution.  As is well known, he did go on to dwell on the disappointments of the new order, and wonder what would come next.

My own project is not about attacking enterprise per se, though there are innumerable anti-social travesties committed in the name of enterprise on campus and off.  It may well turn out to be the case that, as Marx argues, enterprise is not susceptible to reform, but that's a horizon broader than I usually dare to take on as an individual scholar!

My main point is that directly pro-social activity has been starved. With the movement toward "quality," productivity improvement has relied less on technological innovation and more on aggressively reducing the workers' share of their labor... and nowhere more so on than in the academy.

My recent "exchange," if you can call it that, with ex-GWU prez Stephen Trachtenberg is a good example of enterprise ideology run amok.  http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bousquet/

While prez, Trachtenberg jacked tuition through the roof and whacked away millions in personal compensation, but permatemped the faculty: when he retired, about 60% of the faculty (not counting grad students) were contingent, teaching 6 courses a year for $18,000. 

He refuses even to discuss contingency, preferring to natter on about false problems and false solutions (he knows someone on the tenure track who is "burnt out," so he suggests giving tenure track faculty internships just like student internships).  He is concerned about job security for administrators, but evidently it's just fine if his faculty have to wait tables to pay the bills.

I don't presume to know whether capitalism can be reformed or not. But I do know an excess of greed and a profoundly exploitative arrangement when I see it.

Solidarity, M

[johnmarshall]

Marc,

I'm not technically John, I'm Mike, though there's no way you'd have of knowing that.  Thanks for your very civil response--now to my scathing one...

As you likely suspect, I'm underwhelmed by responses that begin: "As Marx argues".  I'm hard-pressed to identify a single theory that has been more forcefully disproven on the world stage than that of Marx.

In any event, I believe the creation of wealth and jobs is directly pro-social; I believe the destruction thereof and the violent shove to the left of the production possibilities curve that occurs in any Marxist regime is directly anti-social.  Our real, inflation-adjusted GDP grows at a rate of approximately 3% per annum; this has created wealth in our society unprecedented in world history, such that most of our poor now live in the "squalor" of homes with televisions and climate control; they suffer more from obesity than malnutrition.  Nations that follow our path are experiencing similar economic miracles, irregardless of population density or latitude, whether resource rich or resource poor. 

The wealth that's created doesn't just go into some capitalist's garage or on his trophy wife's finger, it also goes to the one who builds the cars in his garage, the one who supervises the production line that builds them, the one who sweeps the floors at the production line, the one who builds the broom to sweep them, the one who teaches the engineers at institutions of higher learning how to design the broom, or who, as you, teaches the engineers and others how to put the English language together so as to facilitate communication in the first place.  We are, all together, creating wealth--that rightward movement of the production possibilities curve that I mention as much as you likely mention Das Capital to colleagues.  If you dismantle the works, break the Invisible Hand, you end up with East Germany.  Or the crumbling Soviet Union.  You can be scrupulously fair about dividing a moldy, tiny pie, or you can allow a larger and ever-growing pie to be divided unevenly--but of course, history shows us that the latter makes the poor more wealthy than the affuent in the fomer.

Now let me offer an olive branch, Marc.  I'm not an unreformed capitalist who believes the free market is the image of perfection.  There are market failures, such as public goods (e.g., public roads and police protection) that won't be provided by the market standing alone, externalities such as pollution and child labor that will be provided, inevitable monopolistic practices, and paunchy, middle-aged asses in business suits who will seek to enrich their comp plan at the expense of the little guys and gals on the production line.  Free markets are agnostic about fundamental rights and equity; we all know the disabled veteran deserves better more than poverty, but the free market alone does't care.  These are all problems with free market economies, and they're not trifles.  They were what inspired Marx, Engels, Dickens and Tolstoy.  But we have a government that steps in and regularly throttles the free market to correct these imperfections.  That the government does it imperfectly is to be expected with any endeavor of man.  But in spite of all, we do it reasonably well.  Would you rather breathe the air in Beijing or New York?  Live in the average apartment in Moscow or Minneapolis? 

Finally, if all you're doing is attacking the academe, then well enough, I'll attack it with you; I'll be your comrade so far as that goes.  But that is not a free market for the most part; it's a contrived and absurd place from an economic perspective, not a good example of the Invisible Hand, save for the job market for professors.  So far as the adjunct purgatory you mention vis-a-vis Trachtenberg's fat comp plan, I agree, that's unfair.  I feel it.  I've been an adjunct making $1,000 - $2,000 per class--and teaching up to six per semester--for five years.  Easy?  No.  I finally landed a full time TT position at a university this fall, but only after strengthening my skills and making my services more valuable in the market.  This is what adjuncts and/or "permatemps" must do, and in a free market, there is nothing that prevents a prof who despises Trachtenberg from finding another job.   As for rising tuition, it rises to the equalibrium point that accounts for supply and demand; if Trachtenberg raised it too high given the market for a GW education, then enrollment would have dropped and revenues would have gone the way of enrollment.  If Trachtenberg's heavy-handedness ran off too many qualified professors, then GW would drop in the rankings and top-quality students would go to Georgetown or American U instead.  The Board of Trustees would quickly have discovered they could make due without Dr. Trachtenberg's services (of course, he retired and unilaterally took care of the problem). 

Things have a way of working themselves out in a free market.

Best to you, Marc.

Mike

[marcbousquet]

Mike, thanks for this. I may in the next couple of weeks write an explicit reply (since I'm really fascinated by your ability to have served contingently and also cheer along "free markets," which you must certainly recognize as not "free" but in fact socially structured.)

But I'll post that reply on Brainstorm, not here, since this thread has run out of gas, I think, except between ourselves.

Also on Brainstorm is my big-picture reply on quality management, The Wire, and academic staffing.

http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bousquet/

Solidarity, M

[johnmarshall]

Mike, thanks for this. I may in the next couple of weeks write an explicit reply (since I'm really fascinated by your ability to have served contingently and also cheer along "free markets," which you must certainly recognize as not "free" but in fact socially structured.)

But I'll post that reply on Brainstorm, not here, since this thread has run out of gas, I think, except between ourselves.

Also on Brainstorm is my big-picture reply on quality management, The Wire, and academic staffing.

http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bousquet/

Solidarity, M

Marc,

Sure, I cheer on the free market; while it provides the conditions that lead to adjunct purgatory, it also provides the opportunity to bootstrap one's self out.  Again, I'll take it in a landslide over any centrally-planned economy.  While I think you're wrong-headed, I'm interested in what you have to say; I'll check out Brainstrom.

Mike

[johnmarshall]

Mike, thanks for this. I may in the next couple of weeks write an explicit reply (since I'm really fascinated by your ability to have served contingently and also cheer along "free markets," which you must certainly recognize as not "free" but in fact socially structured.)

It helps because I recently landed a TT job at a university.  I did so by doing what any rational actor would do: I increased my value in the marketplace through additional education, conference presentations, reviewing articles, etc.  In so doing, I have, in my own small way, added value and wealth to society.  I had incentive to do so because I live and work in a free market.  And that's the magic of it.