[lbo-talk] stats on profs' class background?

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Dec 5 13:30:28 PST 2004



> >Anyone know some good sources on class backround of profs, especially
>>left leaning profs? On the Marc Cooper discussion blog, he and others
>>are trying to claim that professors who are left leaning are mostly
>>priveleged wealthy elitists with no working class background to speak of.
>
>THe only person I can think of who resembles that stupid caricature
>is Sam Bowles. The other radical academics I've known through URPE
>and the Marxist Literary Group seem to be from pretty ordinary
>backgrounds. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them came from
>union households; I can think of a couple off the top of my head,
>but that's pretty impressionistic.
>
>Doug

I don't have the stats that Steve wants, and I'd like to see them if anyone does, too. My suspicion is that academia does not want a really radical _and truly rich_ intellectual -- like Paul Sweezy -- because a left-wing person rich enough not to have to depend upon an academic salary would feel free to spout off all kinds of stuff, undeterred by any fear of losing the job. The maximum political freedom in a capitalist society, under normal circumstances, may belong to people who are too rich or too poor to fear unemployment. Under normal business conditions (excepting extremely good and bad times), people who are in the middle do not have enough to make them independent of the labor market but may have too much not to fear the possibility of losing it. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>



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