PC & Neo-Liberalism; Harvard & Summers

In an earlier diary today, Armando discusses the contentions of the WAPO editorial board and Alan Dershowitz that Larry Summers resignation is yet another manifestation of the pernicious influence of "political correctness."

Coming on the heels of Hunter's excellent diary, When Corporate Meets State, it occurred to me that perhaps the Post and Dershowitz were right -- but right for all the wrong reasons.

More beyond the flip.

Throughout his professional career, Lawrence Summers has been one of the guiding lights of neo-liberal economic thought, and a leading advocate of the neo-liberal globalization project.

Summers has consistently favored economic policies that remove barriers to the global movement of capital, increase levels of integration between local and global economies, and reconfigure trade in commodities, manufactured goods, and services. The stipulated benefits of this project are reduced consumer prices arising from ever more "efficient" and flexible global supply chains.

And as Thomas Friedman has argued, the effect of national governments has been one of reducing the role of elected officials to decisions regarding how best to deliver these benefits to constituents. In practice, as Friedman acknowledges, this amounts to decisions about the way in which governments will modify economic policies and business law in order to allow their economy to fit snugly within the "golden straitjacket," that global corporations and financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank have deemed necessary for "efficient corporate decision-making."

But as Friedman's term "golden straitjacket" makes clear, the traditional autonomy and authority of existing domestic interest groups is greatly reduced in such a structure.

Which brings us to Harvard, an institution that has long operated on a model of academic and financial governance called the "every tub on its own bottom" system. Such a system allows individual units substantial autonomy, as long as they keep their own accounts in order. It also presents a continuing challenge to the kind of "unitary executive authority" found in most corporations. I use that phrase advisedly, to the extent that GWB -- the MBA President -- prefers just such a corporate model for the operation of the Executive Branch.

As all of the accounts of Summers' fall have noted, he was engaged in a large-scale restructuring of Harvard's internal economic and governance. Left unsaid is that his prescription for Harvard precisely parallels the sort of nostrums that he, and other neo-liberals, have enthusiastically promoted on a global scale. And at Harvard, as globally, such reforms, whatever their benefits, systematically eliminate traditional checks and balances that temper the effects of "corporate governance by a unitary executive."

As I said in my response to Armando's diary:

The ultimate form of political correctness is the studied refusal to discuss power.

Summers was the "victim" of an unwillingness by the Board of the Harvard Corporation to have an honest discussion about power.

The faculty didn't make him resign. The Board preferred Summers' resignation to a broader discussion of the distribution of power among the various sectors of the Harvard community.

Dershowitz and the WAPO, per Hunter's currently recommended diary on governance and corporatism, are simply expressing the politically correct Neo-Liberal view that attention must be diverted from corporate claims of authority to other issues that can be manipulated to demonize any and all who would question claims of unaccountable corporate authority.

Some reports have noted that Summers seems to have been advised by no less than former Clinton-appointee Robert Rubin, a member of the Board of the Harvard Corporation, that it would be better for all concerned that there not be a second vote of no-confidence.

That should make it clear what the stakes are in this case: Rubin didn't even hire an economic hitman like John Perkins to deliver the news. After all, treating a principal like Larry Summers that way wouldn't be....politically correct.

•  Tip Jar

  Gotta run to lunch but I'll respond to brickbats, bouquets, and what's in between in an hour or so.

  by greenskeeper on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:02:07 AM PDT

•  Good

  But I am curious if you think Summers was installed by Harvard to rein in the decentralized units of Harvard in order to enforce control.

  Was it deliberate? An accident? And the end game being gaining more power over Harvard for themselves? To diminissh the power of some?

  by Armando on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:15:34 AM PDT

  •  Yes, But....

    
    .....primarily as a matter of economics.

    The "every tub on its own bottom" system favors professional schools whose alumni can afford to donate more generously than graduates from the College or the Arts & Sciences. This creates tension between "haves" and "have-nots" within the University and frustration for the Board and the President, who would prefer to marshall the collective resources of the institution to serve the Board's vision rather than mediate internal quarrels over resources.

    As for the "cultural" or "academic autonomy" issues, I think those are marginal considerations for the Board, but central considerations for the Faculties.

    My guess is that Rubin and Summers were seen as architects of the late Clinton era economic boom, and thus viewed as suitably "fiscally responsible while sensitive to liberal concerns." Or alternately, in keeping with the neo-liberal globalization paradigm, they were seen as "efficiency oriented technocrats," and it was presumed that good would naturally flow from their intervention and guidance.

    What nobody reckoned on was Larry Summers reverting to his World Bank role and treating Cornell West like the dictator of a bankrupt African post-colonial state, without even using John Perkins or someone like him as the messenger.Things got worse from there.

    Summers failed to understand that West's understanding of discourse gave him a power that wasn't economic in nature, because Summers is a classic neo-liberal economist, who presumes that economic theory determines all values and defines all sources of power.

    And as we saw last week on Battlestar Galactica, while having a good engineer is critical to making a starship run, making a chief engineer into a starship commander can be a big mistake.

    by greenskeeper on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 11:10:16 AM PDT

    •  Hmmm

      I dunno about that. Matt Yglesias wrote that most of the donating comes from Arts and Sciences Grads.

      It surprised me when he said so. But I figure he knows.

      On West, that was Summers thinking he was Clinton and West was Sistah Souljah. Little did he know that West has power and knows how to use it.

      In fact, Summers was really an unmitigiated disaster as President and only racists and reactinaries can warm up to him.

      Oh and WaPo, which thinks there are from Kansas for some reason.  

      by Armando on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 11:41:51 AM PDT

      •  Alumni Giving

        A&S includes:

        Harvard College

        Graduate School of A & S

        Engineering & Applied Sciences

        And there are two kinds of gifts: unrestricted and restricted.

        Donors want to restrict, administrators want unrestricted. There are also some games that University-level administrators can play with overhead and maintenance charges to capture the money of individual units.

        This stuff can get really ugly, and elsewhere in the Ivy League, Columbia University and Teachers' College have a long-running and apparently unresolved dispute over who got what money from whose alumni.

        Bottom line is that more centralization gives the President and the Board more control and fractious faculties less. I think that additional control is regarded by the Board as an unalloyed good in and of itself.

        by greenskeeper on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 12:01:37 PM PDT

•  PC Compatibility

  When debating "Poltical Correctness", we must remember what the PC term means. It means facts or actions that are correct not on any basis of agreement with reality. PC is correct by definition, as defined by political power. Slavery was politically correct in the USA for almost 100 years, Jim Crow PC for another century after. Child labor was politically correct until the mid-20th Century. And liberty's paramount value, even above life itself, was PC until the Bush administration.

  by DocGonzo on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:18:01 AM PDT

•  You refer to Summers as a neo-liberal

  I'm not sure I understand that definition. To my mind he was trying to enact reactionary conservative reforms at Harvard. That he was attempting to make Harvard less liberal and by that essentially destoying what is Harvard about Harvard. I cannot fathom why he was even considered a good fit for this bastion of liberalism.

  by vcmvo2 on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:27:46 AM PDT

  •  Neoliberal

    I think of it as a cancerous growth on the body of liberalism, whereby one of its components- economic freedom-runs amok and threatens the health of the body.

    This is not exact, of course, but I think that it captures the essence of it and

    by NearlyNormal on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 11:05:28 AM PDT

  •  In a Nutshell....

    
    ....whenever the term "neo" gets added to something, it means using the framework of an earlier innovation in a way wildly at variance with the animating spirit behind that earlier innovation.

    cf: neo-classical economics, neo-conservative politics, neo-liberal economics, neo-confucian thought

    I know Armando hates wikipedia, but here's their take, which is pretty good as far as it goes:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/...

    As for Harvard and "liberal" values, whatever the values of students and alumni, the values of the Board have always been, first and foremost, increasing the power, prestige, and endowment of Harvard first, with a little noblesse oblige as long as there's a buck to be made on it.

    by greenskeeper on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 11:17:47 AM PDT

    •  Some nutshell

      Thanks that was quite informative. It explains a lot.

      by vcmvo2 on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 07:35:19 PM PDT