Notice that even for STEM jobs which are strongly constrained by available capital, like structural engineering or petroleum engineering, the pay is substantially higher than the useless jobs and the competition is less. You don't have to go to an Ivy League to get paid $$$ in engineering.
In 1950s and 60s the US seriously overestimated the number of physicists they would need.
Lots of physicists ended up working in business.
But usually still in roles that benefited from their studies.
If you want to lead a team, or eventually a large organisation, there are worse things you could do than spend 3 years learning about people.
Non-technical leadership leading a technical company is why Intel is in the dire straits it is today. When you put a marketing person in charge of Xeon and they parrot about diversity instead of executing on the business it's obvious where the problem is. Notice all the competition is led by technical leadership: AMD is led by a PhD in EE, Nvidia a Masters in EE. Intel's former leadership was technical until they were pushed out by non-technical bean counters.
If by "benefit" you mean "are filled with busywork and the latest cultural biases and performative ceremonies", then yes :-)
But I’m sure there’s selection bias here.
Really? I got nothing with my top notch STEM PhD. Got hungry, homeless an sick. But as mentioned by a friend. A STEM PhD must never be unemployed. There are always opportunities in the world. Be it in China or with Narcos in South America. There are opportunities. Never forget that! Nearly killed me that I forgot. There will always be one to pay you if you can deliver.
-An unemployed STEM
Yeah, and the number is 0.
Lots of people would like to choose "caring" work. Teaching, healthcare, policy stuff, knowledge stuff, etc. Something meaningful and rewarding.
With rising inequity, only people who can afford higher education, who don't have to work to eat, can choose these "caring" career paths.
Some fraction of the resentment towards the "liberal elite" is from being denied access to these "caring" roles. Made worse by the obliviousness of people like me not even realizing there's a problem.
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I regard both Turchin and Graeber's theories as complimentary. I also hope that leftists like me will dig into these social phenomenon.
Until we understand better, I'm content with very cheap higher ed, with some professions being subsidized. For example, I'm happy to pay people to become doctors (specialists). Society needs more. Students shouldn't be penalized, having to wait +12 years before starting families (or whatever).
Is there really a phenomenon of people angry to the point of causing social instability because they have to work in a bank rather than teaching calculus in high school?
Elite overproduction isn't about "good enough," it's about alignment.
Trump was never accepted into the NYC elite social circle. They had money, elite education, and influence. But they weren't in-group.
Bannon also is a good study.
And there's always a couple of weirdos at prep school who don't quite fit in.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/were-on-the-...
Trump is unsuspicious of having advanced education and qualifications, but instead was born into a millionaire family which allowed him to pursue whatever he wanted. If anything, he would be the person blocking a position from someone qualified but not well connected. He even ended up being president, in case someone forgot.
Bannon apparently served in the Navy, got a Harvard MBA, worked at Goldman Sachs. His wiki page starts "Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker, who served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump". I'd say by most standards one would say he reached quite a number of things he set his mind to that most people don't. Again, hardly an example of someone who failed in his career because he was blocked by someone less qualified.
Trump circumvented the traditional process for becoming president by aligning with the underclass...
The elites made fun of him relentlessly. Bannon ran Breitbart out of a random townhouse basement and was denied press credentials by those empowered in the national association.
The elite tried to block both of them, and they were circumvented by interclass alliance. That's the entire idea of elite overproduction, which is what we are talking about.
Elite overproduction is basically when more people have the resources to grab power than the power structure allows to hold power.
Not arguing that trump is a victim, just saying he has been considered gauche and passé for a long while. Gauche and passé ends up just meaning "not elite."
If you make a million dollars a year running a plumbing business, you are rich, but you aren't elite. If you make 400k at Skadden, you are closer to being elite.
You can leave it to me to know what I meant when I threw "advanced-educated-and-good-enough-but-not-connected-enough-so-they’re-stuck-behind -someone-who-is-less-qualified" into the discussion, I don't really need an explanation of what I meant from someone else.
It's not like those "advanced-educated" that are left out are hating on the top elite of the advanced ("the great") that are "good". For starters, because those are too few, and they don't compete directly, plus they can see their merits.
So, usually it's "advanced-educated-and-perfectly-good" vs "advanced-educated-but-lucky-or-with-connections-and/or-family-wealth" where the discontent lies.
The non-advanced-educated feel marginalized because it will be ridiculously hard for them to get the education, and as things get more expensive their livelihood will go down relative to the elites.
The advanced-educated-but-not-good-enough will feel marginalized because they spent their time and money and got nothing in return, and now have debt and degraded livelihood compared to the elites.
When enough people feel marginalized AND something happens that weakens the state's power/influence, political instability will occur.
It compounds in US/Europe with regards to education, given that these two groups are politically opposite of each other, and advanced education is becoming a barrier of entry to upward mobility.
Turchin's 2016 book Ages of discord explains these ideas in detail.