Florida State University and Koch Brothers…significant or not?
Via Alternet and the St. Petersberg Times:
A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting “political economy and free enterprise.”
The agreement is here.
Since readers include university professors, what is the deal? What is usual or setting a new bar for funding in a public institution?
Activity in state institutions should not be run by private interests.
Florida should have an “anti deficiency law”, which imnplements the power of the purse so that private factions are not allowed to give appropriations for public institutions to be controlled by someone other than the executive/legislature.
It is bad enough that private interests profit on the needs of the public.
I smell Ayn Rand……………………..
Academic inquiry is a much better investment if you get to define the questions and answers beforehand. It worked out pretty well for the Vatican for hundreds of years anyway.
I only wish the state of Kansas could declare these guys citizens of some other state.
Well, it’s official I guess, the boys have drunk their own koolaid and are now tip toeing through the Tulips, or what wver it is that grows in their state of mind[s].
George Mason, academic home to the Mercatus Institute, is a state school in Virginia. This isn’t new. It isn’t good either. Corporate sponsorship of proffessorships isn’t new but control of content is. Otoh, big donors frequently seek some control over content, maybe even a lot of control. In days when corporates control the government , the courts, the media and everything else the entitles a**holes desire for mpre propaganda is expected.
The Koch brothers have nothing to do with Kansas or even the UnitedStates. They come from the Republic of Greeed.
Bravo! It’s about time to get some diversity in left-dominated academia. May the best ideas win.
and this is something new? i would imagine that large donors, regardles of ilk, have always had this type of influence. geez, didn’t you watch dangerfield’s ‘back to school?’
And if they can’t be the best, let them have the best funded sponsors.
No. I mentioned the Vatican’s success with a similar approach to academic inquiry. It only took them a few hundred years after Galileo’s death for them to give up on him. They’d still have the hardline on this stuff except for those darn enlightenment hooligans.
This is a long time coming. Hopefully they will go to other universties economic and political science departments to bust up the Leftist stranglehold.
I was born and raised in Florida. It has always been for sale to investors, ag corporations, timber/paper companies and real estate developers. Individuals have gone broke in various real estate booms, but the big guys have always ridden the wave and come back for more. The Duponts, Balls, Vanderbilts and others have a permanent presence in the state. The Bushes are newcomers and came in through the Cuban/South American connection Jeb has through his wife.
The Koch’s may already be active in FL–probably in mining phosphates, an ecological disaster if there ever was one. I am not surprised this Governor would recruit the Koch’s to buy a slice of a public university since he considers every state agency/agency to be up for bids. All he wants is his cut. At the turn of the 20th century, the progressive reformers considered the relationship of such companies as the Southern Pacific to the state of California corrupt. Now, it’s libertarian and therefore, ok. Right. A lot of Florida natives like me don’t live in Florida anymore. Scott and the Koch’s are among the reasons why. NancyO
Jeff,
Absolutely….three come to mind.
Dow, Oil Companies, and the Military.
They all have their hands in several universities, designing the curriculum to produce people to work specifically in their enterprise, even going as far as using research money inventing new technologies that can not be shared with anyone else.
(wearing George Soros mask) Booo!
You really oughta give yourself a break from Beck sometime. He’s about to become a radio personality only you know.
The John M. Olin Foundation did something like this for decades with sponsorships of “Law and Economics” chairs at law schools, but, to my knowledge, these were all at private universities and, also to my knowledge, the foundation had no formal say in who was hired for these positions. The foundation apparently disbanded in 2005. The Wikipedia article about the foundation is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Olin_Foundation.
It’s one thing for a private university such as Stanford to house an ideological think tank such as the Hoover Institute, which is not part of one of the university’s academic departments, but something else entirely, I think, for a university—especially a state university—to delegate to a private party the authority to approve hires for one of the university’s academic departments.
This is a VERY big deal, in my opinion.
The John M. Olin Foundation did something like this for decades with sponsorships of “Law and Economics” chairs at law schools, but, to my knowledge, these were all at private universities and, also to my knowledge, the foundation had no formal say in who was hired for these positions. The foundation apparently disbanded in 2005. The Wikipedia article about the foundation is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Olin_Foundation.
It’s one thing for a private university such as Stanford to house an ideological think tank such as the Hoover Institute, which is not part of one of the university’s academic departments. It’s something else entirely, and something really pernicious, I think, for a university—especially a state university—to delegate to a private party the authority to approve hires for one of the university’s academic departments.
This is a VERY big deal, in my opinion.
The real joke is on the parents of students in these institutions who think they are providing the best education possible for their kids. If the Koch boys want to hire the ideological clones who come out the other end OK I guess. But presuming the students have to apply what they learn in a job market where the Kochs don’t make all the rules it might get dicey.
The same thing applies to the parents who sent their kids to UC Berkley to be educated by the likes of John Yoo. What a horror show.
The other question that occurred to me is what kind of stigma this puts on the faculty member vetted by the Kochs? Once upon a time I might have thought an academic might be embarrassed by this kind of sponsorship, but then I saw Inside Job.
Sammy, your argument fails totally. This situation is about the econ department at FSU. In economics, there is a widespread right-wing bias and domination. Indeed, left-leaning and progressive economists are often forced to other fields such as public policy studies institutes or labor studies.
Yes, I am an economics professor.
Jim Luke, Don’t know if you are actually an econ-prof, but wherever you are this is not true: “In economics, there is a widespread right-wing bias and domination.” I guess you must be referrring to the right wing bias just like in the press, and academia.
Sheesh!!!
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/ This is an article by digby today in Hullabaloo along the same lines as those you discuss. NancyO
This just proves that if you wave enough cash in front of a university president they will ask how high they need to jump to get it. A university is no different than any other institution they have a price they will sell out for. (As indeed most folks will if there is no legal downside, and some even if there is) After all the Kochs could echo Leland Stanford and set up their own university if they so desire, (Stanford was not well regarded in life due to being one of the big 4 of the Southern Pacific, a group regarded my many as purely exploiters). I suspect that for enough bucks you could get most state universities to change their name as happened to Purdue U in In in 1869.
Rdan,
The more I think about this the more it seems all that bothers you is that the name is Koch.
Have you been in a university lately or looked at their funding? I just spent 14 months going through public and private schools from Michigan to Texas. Every single one I got to see at least part of the engineering department and their labs. Annd guess what was funding all that great cutting-edge research? Not the state for sure. But do the following names mean anything to you? — GM, Ford, Goodyear, Bell helicopter, Northrup, Exon, Kaiser, Volkswagon, Porsche, Lockheed, haliburton, and on and on. (plus DARPA, USAF, USN, USMC, USA, and even the Coast Guard). I saw about every name in the Oil, avionics, automobile, shipping, medical devices, that I could think of at every college. They outfitted those fancy labs with very expensive equipment (the hypersonic wind tunnel at one lab had a big Lockheed sticker on it with the picture of the installation on the wall (with a big Lockheed Logo in the background)).
And you can go to any university website and find who’s funding all those professors research. They are not out following their whims, but accomplishing paid-for basic research funded by anyone who would fund their research proposals (from the Feds to the most evil company in the world-Haliburton).
So what again is the big deal about the Koch brother’s getting to sign off on FSU’s choice of an Economics Professor? Unlike GM they aren’t directing what the guy teaches or researches.
And have you looked into just how much ‘public’ funding these state Unvirsity’s are actually getting. Its a LOT less than it was 20 years ago. Almost to the point that these public colleges are pretty much private these days.
So other than the fact the donor’s name is Koch vs. Soros, what’s your beef?
Islam will change
Buff,
We must have missed rdan’s post on Soros’ donation.
George Soros is to create a new economics institute at Oxford University.
It is part of an attempt to steer the discipline away from the champions of the free market and deregulation who, the billionaire financier believes, share the blame for the global economic crisis.
The institute, as yet unnamed, is being funded by the New York-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (Inet), a think-tank and educational and grant-giving organisation founded last October with a $50 million pledge from Mr Soros to stimulate debate about the role of government regulation in the economy and financial markets.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7087558.ece
Dog gone it Sammy! You know its only bad if a conservative does it.
Dog gone it Sammy! You know its only bad if a conservative does it. Next thing we’ll see conservatives called racists … wait, wait, that’s already a consistent claim. What could be next? Claims that Republicans want to kill your elderly? Nah, that would be too much to believe.
That last sentence should read: At least this time, the abandonment is public knowledge from the outset.
Wow. That stuff about BB&T Corp., and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, is really stunning, Nancy.
Since we’re talkiing about G. Soros: “Over 30 Major News Organizations Linked to George Soros”
http://www.mrc.org/bmi/commentary/2011/Over__Major_News_Organizations_Linked_to_George_Soros.html
It concludes with: “Why does it all matter? Journalists, we are constantly told, are neutral in their reporting. In almost the same breath, many bemoan the influence of money in politics. It is a maxim of both the left and many in the media that conservatives are bought and paid for by business interests. Yet where are the concerns about where their money comes from?
…
If journalists were more up front, they would have to admit numerous uncomfortable connections with groups that push a liberal agenda, many of them funded by the stridently liberal George Soros. So don’t expect that transparency any time soon.”
As always YMMV.
I find myself waking to ideological babble this morning. If it is not the Apple/MSFT discussion at BigPicture, it is funding for liberal/libertarian/whatever in economics departments. First, those that note that industrial funding of University research is not new are right. By the time I was a graduate student the federal government was incentivizing this through matching and seed funds. At that time it was in applied sciences and engineering (mainly) and, I assume, the idea was to focus the research on technology useful to industry. My first grant was from The Petroleum Foundation. And yes, there was NASA, DOD, etc. government funding sources asking the same focus.
I earlier found myself agreeing with all sides of the Apple/MSFT discussion, one for which I have more intimate knowledge. It is in the eyes of the beholder and the rantings of ideologically extreme camps seem silly to me. “All things in moderation” is the response of this ordinary person. When did industrial partnerships become purchases of ideological mind control of budding minds? Or is it?
Let’s assume there is an attempt for freezing the thinking processes of young economists into an ideological bias. Where is the healthy honesty, creativity, innovation, and risk necessary for bringing respectability to economic thought and theory? Are we saying that our young best and brightest are incapable of forwarding economics if new thinking and discovery is not ideologically approved? Or are we saying that we must suppress any tendency for those minds to inquire and go where none have dared tread before? How did the “liberal” bias of past educational institutions produce the extremes in ideological bias among academic economists today?
Why do rich old people feel the need to leave a legacy of decay? Are they bitter they couldn’t sell their preferences during life so they will try to buy it as they leave the earth? Or is it just a game like the $1 bet in “Trading Places”; an amusement because they can. I have never seen a more clear indictment of excessive wealth.
Anna, I followed and agree with your comment until this: “Why do rich old people feel the need to leave a legacy of decay? Are they bitter they couldn’t sell their preferences during life so they will try to buy it as they leave the earth? Or is it just a game like the $1 bet in “Trading Places”; an amusement because they can. I have never seen a more clear indictment of excessive wealth.”
Legacy of decay? Successful people leaving a part of their wealth to share knowledge of how they made/gathered their wealth with those without?
Other than the personalization of your observation of excessive wealth which sounds a little envious of it, how can wealth be excessive? Unless you feel it is other than a measure of success and/or even sheer luck, what is it?
Thanks Sammy – I missed the AB post of Soros.
Rdan – I couldn’t find it in the AB archives, can you send me a link?
🙂
Islam will change
In the case of the Kochs a willingness to commit grand larceny comes to mind. Here’s an article from 96 that covered Koch’s ability to buy influence and stifle a case involving theft of oil from native americans. http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1996/b3469090.arc.htm#B3469090
Have you ever taught any of todays college JR-SR…if a Professor told them the moon was made of Cheese they would say…wow that great
Any chance that Hugh Hefner will fund any university positions? (no crude responses, please)
Rdan,
To the actual question. No – its been going on for decades. You have not been paying attention.
And you never replied to my questions: 1) Why does it matter what the Koch brothers did?
2) What is the downside for FSU? I don’t see any, just as if they took GM money to investigate a better fuel-injection system. Heck its even less onerous since the Koch brothers won’t be dictating the research of the chair. As for the teaching, it cannot be any worse than the crap I linked too, nor to the insanity espoused by many of the left-wing in academia (why, for example, is communism taught in any way but as the philosephy that resulted in the two greatest mass murderers in the human races history. Has the philosephy behind most of the tyranny that currently exists on the planet from China to Vietnam to Cuba? Would you have avowed fascists teaching at Harvard or Yale? If not why are avowed communists there?)
There are huge problems in academia teaching absolutely worthless, if not outright evil, subjects and you come up with a wealthy benefactor endowing an economic chair at FSU? The only reason I can see is the Koch name. Sorry, it may not be your intent but it sure looked like it.
Why not take on the subject I linked too?
Islam will change
I am sure your passion serves you well buffpilot. Bringing up the differences between Hitler and Stalin for instance is not really the point if discussing philosophical outlooks. You might start by comparing simil,arities.
Back in grad school in early seventies the academic leaders on the Far East were people like John K Fairbanks. Many of the teachers were actually children of missionaries or diplomats who had at least partially grown up in their respective countries, or immigrated if London or Harvard trained.
Not a commie in the bunch and never an apologist for mass murder and such. They did have the advantage of reading and writing and contacts with the languages involved.
You will have to go much deeper ionto that debate of commie instructors and establish some basic facts before you argument is more than hyperbole. And downright evil comments make this not a question but an outburst that points at something else than this post.
Now I actually knew some of these people, and were taught by them. /you will have to show me the apologia writings of a large swath of professors if you need to establish such a claim as evil.
As far as economics goes, a difference between spark plugs and major impacts on public policy can be made i suppose, but are hardly central are they?
So the question remains…in the realm of economics, where claims of objectivity and neutrality of interpreting ‘facts’ abound, is there a shift and why? How are ‘facts’ to be dispensed?
Rdan,
Communism as a positive thing is taught at a number of liberal arts colleges. Do I really need to give you a list? Start with UC Berkely and work your way from there. How many kids do you see with Mao T-shirts and why don’t you see the same amount with Hitler ones? Yet there is no changing the facts that as a mass murderer Mao makes Hitler look like a rank amateur.
As far as economics goes. We can all agree that the GDP growth during the years LBJ was President was 5.4% (from Pressimetrics from memory). That is a fact. Why it was 5.4%, and not 3% or 8%, economics as a science has no idea. Economics does not provide anything more than some smart conjectures and some correlations with no underlining causations. Cactus claims its the party of the President -so where’s my 5.4% GDP growth? I can rehash all my arguments with him if you want, but the bottom line is he keeps comparing apples to space shuttles. All the data I see points to closer to a random walk. Even FDR’s actions, the entire New Deal, didn’t change the historical GDP growth line. Just filled in the hole caused by the depression and then regained the historical trend. Why did we not sustain higher growth after the FDR leveling? Ask any three economists and get four answers.
I have heard that the stimulous was too small, or too much tax cuts, or too large, or not enough tax cuts on, should have just printed money and sent out checks, on and on. Which is it? And they all cite the same facts. So given all the data, in-hindsight, lets see a post on what the correct amount (and how its actually inacted) of stimulous should have been to get us back to a sustained growth rate and GWB’s unemployment rate. Show the work using the science of economics.
As for objectivity? Do you beleive Krugman is objective? Truely? And do you think one economics professor at FSU is going to have some game-changing influence and convert everyone to the Austrian school or Chicago school or make up their own FSU school of Economics? Really??
Rdan, I know you probably didn’t mean anything about the Koch brothers, but they are no different than Soros and company. Just with a different outlook. By bringing the Koch brothers in you made it a polical post – not a question on should donors get to decide how their money is used. (Which the answer is yes, they do, and have been for decades).
Islam will change
Rdan (to your 9:44 reply),
Teaching Communisn as anything other than another evil philosephy like fascism is evil. No two ways you can go about it. The historical facts are quite clear and not debatable anymore. Yet do you want to check out the positive depictions of communism in academia and compare with the similar number of positive depictions of fascism? Just look at the Ivies and the UC system.
And I bet your teachers were really good objective people. I have no doubt that when they talked about Mao they pointed out he was the greatest mass-murderer in history. There are plenty out there. I would even agree the great majority of teachers are dedicated and do a great job.
I also bet whomever gets the FSU chair will also be dedicated and do a great job. Why would you assume otherwise? Its not like he’s teaching a science, like the guy getting the GM grant over spark plugs. He’s not going to suddenly tell students that the speed of light is 30 km/sec or that the universe revolves around the Earth. He will be a PhD in the field of Economics and meet all of FSUs requirements. Any doubt that he/she would not? So Koch gets to make sure the guy spending Koch’s money isn’t a raving looney like the one I linked too.
I see no one complains when GM or Northrup makes sure the pick the right professor to fund, why is it any different for the Koch brothers? Heck the bottom line here is no one complains about the process – they complain that its the Koch brothers. Would you have posted this if it was Soros handing out the chair? Or the Ford Foundation?
Really?
Islam will change