PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE USA: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

High costs and low graduation rates characteristic of 21^st‐century US public higher education stem from the bout of rent‐seeking attributable to the post‐Sputnik explosion in research spending and the consequent crusade to enrol new students, with diminishing concern for academic aptitude. New policies that tighten admission standards, encourage earlier graduation and enhance financial aid for the truly needy would constructively address these problems, as would incentives for faculty members to curtail outside consulting.     

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Economics of Vocational and Technical Education: A Report on three Studies

This paper analyzes new forms of flexibility in the US apparel industry and the consequences of this flexibility for labor market segmentation. Post-Fordist flexible work organization takes place only in those enterprises that occupy privileged positions in newly established hierarchical networks of firms. Subcontracting work to smaller firms results in labor segmentation between rather than within firms. Dominant firms in hierarchical networks gain production efficiencies similar to that attained by a fixed hierarchy within Fordist type enterprises. For most apparel workers, the new production system could best be described as neo-Fordist, since it appears to be predicated on routinization and work intensification.     

THE EMERGENCE OF LIBERAL SOCIALISM IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE1

Socialism has repeatedly failed to match the accomplishments of capitalism, and yet it refuses to die. At the beginning of the twenty‐first century, a new type of socialism, ‘liberal socialism’, is growing in Europe. The rise of liberal socialism has been marked by the erosion of two key institutions of capitalism, private property rights and the freedom of exchange. Unlike communism, which used brute force to replace private property rights and free exchange with state ownership and central planning, liberal socialism focuses on redistributing wealth, creating entitlement programmes, supporting labour unions and promoting ‘fair’ trade.     

From socialism in the 1900s to socialism in the 2000s: the rise of liberal socialism

In the twentieth century, Europe and North America were at the epicentre of the century-long conflict between capitalism and socialism; more specifically, between the rule of law and the rule through law. By the early 1990s, socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe decayed from within leaving in its wake economic misery and intellectual emptiness. Yet, socialism is raising its head once again. This new variant of socialism, which I call ‘liberal socialism’, has one critical difference that sets it apart from its predecessors. Unlike all three types of socialism in the last century – Fascism, National Socialism and Communism – liberal socialism is not imposed from the top down; it is emerging from the bottom up. The incentive effects of increasing redistributional governmental programmes map a road to liberal socialism by influencing the median voter and weakening private property rights. However, election results in many European countries, and at state and local levels in the United States, suggest that the median voter has not moved to the left. At the same time, economic analysis and empirical evidence have established the economic efficiency of credible and stable private property rights relative to all other property rights arrangements. Thus, liberal socialism is a real threat to the rule of law but its success is far from certain.     

LEST WE FORGET

This article translates the crimes of communism into their effects on the life of individuals. It does so by telling the story of the author's 13 years in communist Yugoslavia. The story covers only the events that the author witnessed or lived through. The article captures, fairly and accurately, the plight of young people growing up in all communist countries.