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Dec 12, 2021Liked by Freddie deBoer

I got my Ph.D. in mathematics in 1972. I never worked a day in academe after that. The market was already closing, and tenure-track positions were very competitive. In fairness, one of our professors when I was an undergraduate in physics (1965 or thereabouts) had warned us that there was a surfeit of graduate physicists. (Physics was the prestigious field after Sputnik, and all the bright boys headed there.

Getting work in the private sector was easy and proved rewarding (first transportation and then telecommunications). True also for most of my classmates. So the current crisis is nothing new.

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"I want to offer an alternative: it’s OK to want to be left of liberal and to not be a Marxist. It’s OK to favor revolutionary social change and to not be a Marxist. It’s OK to envision a more humane, more progressive, more nurturing economy and society and to not be a Marxist. It’s OK to demand an end to capitalism and imperialism and to not be a Marxist. It is OK to be the left wing of the left wing and to not be a Marxist. It’s OK."

No, it is not OK. It is not OK, because it is a collection of ideas that don't fucking work. If they did work, given the rich history of human existence to test and try all versions of systems, they would be the dominant system today. Not only are they NOT the dominant system, but they have proven to be unsustainable systems of failures. They are failures for the very reason that nerds are nerds and should never design our human systems... because they suck at understanding and factoring real human nature.

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Comment of the Week 💚🤎💙

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Do PhDs struggle to find white collar private sector jobs? I'd think the ones who don't find academic work could go there. That's certainly the case in Economics.

If not, I wonder why? Maybe it's perceived that PhDs in sociology or English have their heads in the clouds and couldn't do something practical. Not my belief (for the most part), but it could be among people with fancy MBAs.

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