Posted on 06/24/2026 1:32:34 PM PDT by karpov
In Chapter 10 (“Why the Worst Get on Top”) of The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek argued that centralized political authority tends to elevate the worst people in society. Goons and demagogues do not rise to the top in totalitarian systems by accident. The logic of totalitarianism selects for thuggish leaders.
A less dramatic, but equally perverse, logic governs American academia.
The incentive structure of the modern American university encourages relatively unsuccessful scholars, those who fail to establish fruitful research programs early in their careers, to pursue administrative positions, where they wield authority over more successful colleagues, who actually generate educational value. As a result, the American university is disproportionately governed by relative academic failures.
An effective scholar enjoys benefits impossible to find elsewhere in today’s workforce: freedom to follow ideas wherever they might lead and a considerable amount of free time to do it. Those who succeed aren’t inclined to leave the laboratory or library for administration.
Though administrative salaries tend to be higher, the rest of an administrator’s work-life is poorer in every other respect, involving endless committee meetings, paperwork, budgetary knife fights, student and parent grievance adjudication, and the difficult business of cultivating donors. Intellectual freedom and scholarly prestige are nowhere in evidence.
The professoriate, with some justification, views administrators less as leaders to be admired than as annoyances to be tolerated. For a productive academic, a move into administration, high salary and resplendent office notwithstanding, seems less like a promotion than banishment.
The incentives flip for those who do not manage to develop fruitful research programs. Within a few years of entering academia, young professors often find that they are not likely to produce the publications, citations, and grants that tenure requires.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Life is not always fair, that’s all I have to say.
“University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”
Henry Kissinger
Separation of School and State is an idea whose time has come.
Interesting
“The Scum Also Rises”
-—article by Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone, October, 10, 1974.
Great phrase.
((Article was about Ford pardoning Nixon.))
Excerpt:
“If I followed my better instincts right now, I would put this typewriter in the Volvo and drive to the home of the nearest politician — any politician — and hurl the goddamn machine through his front window … flush the bugger out with an act of lunatic violence then soak him down with mace and run him naked down Main Street in Aspen with a bell around his neck and black lumps all over his body from the jolts of a high-powered “Bull Buster” cattle prod.
But old age has either mellowed me or broken my spirit to the point where I will probably not do that — at least not today, because that blundering dupe in the White House has just plunged me into a deep and vicious hole.”
An interesting observation repeated 19 different ways.
Well, I’ve always said that in any endeavor, the people who try the hardest to be in charge are the last people you really want to be in charge.
So, those who can't do, teach.
And those who can't teach become administrators.
<>F. A. Hayek argued that centralized political authority tends to elevate the worst people in society.<>
So did Tacitus.
Human nature is a constant, one that is incredibly resistant to the lessons of history.
Sad.
Satanic Groupthink
Those that can do neither, administrate
That may have been true in his day, but today these DEI chieftains are making a quarter to half a $million per year to serve as the tyrants they are.
Woke school superintendent paid $424k-a-year is now hiring taxpayer-funded BODYGUARD on $143k salary
DEI official at U. Alabama Birmingham earns $34,000 per month
And those who can’t teach become administrators.
Or wind up in Congress.
University administrators were always light weight dopes who Feather their own nests above all else. They certainly never help anybody.
Problem is a lot of society is like that.
The best and brightest don’t stay in academia.
For the rest?
Publish or perish.
Kiss up
Kick down.
The Claudine Gay interlude was a total disgrace for Harvard.
Her dismissal for plagiarism probably saved Harvard from a downward spiral that could have been fatal.
It’s too bad the she remains an overpaid faculty member—a “name professor” of African-American Studies! She should have been fired—for plagiarism.
Of course, everyone who holds that opinion is labeled a “bigot”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.