Not so, as the national labor market is segmented. If Martin Jay, for instance, had become a longshoreman, rather than a professor of history at US Berkeley, he would have been competing with other longshoremen, though in this trade competition would have been limited on the West Coast by one of the most powerful and left-wing unions in the United States. Longshoremen and professors of history do not directly compete with one another in the same segment of the national labor market. For the welfare of longshoremen and all other workers whose job requirements do not specify a PH.D. in history, it was a good thing that Jay and other professors of history did not choose to go into their trades.
What competition exists between workers of different strata and segments takes place indirectly through the budget allocations of the federal, state, and local governments, often in times of recessions and cutbacks (like now). The power elite love to pit public sector workers (including college professors) against "taxpayers," as well as to pit all sections of the public sector against one another (e.g., education vs. home care vs. garbage pickup vs...you get the picture). Rightist demagogues (whether or not there is a recession) often seek to cut state funding of all sorts by using a kind of populist-sounding rhetoric, in the USA and elsewhere. E.g., Let's not spend tax dollars on elitist works of art that offend ordinary Americans. Let's privatize public utilities in poor nations and charge user fees, as they do not reach the poorest of the poor anyhow. Etc. Falling for faux-populist demagogues only hurts us all, however. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>