[lbo-talk] Maximise or satisfice?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Doug:
> Of course they don't perfectly reflect technical output. Companies
> game the system all the time - but not just American ones. Still,
> there's little doubt that U.S. science and technology are extremely
> sophisticated. We also make some very fine cultural products, popular
> and high - and much of the rest of the world agrees. People come from
> around the world to our universities. We're not a bunch of
> knuckle-dragging dolts, fer chrissake. A lot of this is misanthropy
> disguised as politics.

Two points:

1.  The research community is very small, not even 1 % of the population and
2. It is composed of a large number of foreign talents (Indians, Russians,
Asians, Europeans) lured by higher wages they could earn in their native
countries.

Using very select few to draw conclusions about an entire nation is really
bad logic.  

Another point - in this entire discussion I tried to point at the uniquely
US institutional factors that promote mediocrity - and nowhere did I say
that Americans are a bunch of knuckle dragging dolts.  Au contraire, I said
time and again that there is no difference between the US and other
countries in the basic behavioral model - transaction cost minimization -
that promotes mediocrity.  The difference lies in the factors that make
transaction cost minimizing behavior easier here than in other countries.

BTW, as Joanna aptly pointed out, the openness to immigration is perhaps the
singular most important domestic factor that propelled many US institutions
to excellence.  It makes a stark difference to most other developed nations
that remain largely closed to immigrants.  However, that fact eludes
nativist populists on this list and elsewhere.

Wojtek