"Dear Dr. Kaiser,
"You see the academy today as a motive force in social change. It reminds me obliquely of the way people in my profession see sellers, that is, as persuaders and manipulators of buyers. In reality of course, it is the consumer that controls and manipulates the marketers, killing 95% of new brands, driving established brands to bankruptcy, and elevating new brands relentlessly to take the places of the broken ones.
"My child and many friends just graduated from college. They were well woke before they left here four years ago. It's hard to imagine them sitting still even for an unwoke lecture let alone an unwoke curriculum. So perhaps the academy today is just doing the sensible thing and giving its high-paying consumers exactly what they want.
"When I was in college I distinctly remember my mind being changed. I learned quickly, for instance, that new view of colonialism elicited higher paper and exam grades than the conventional view. Back then, the academy may well have been the partisan revolutionary force you consider it to be. But I'm not convinced that's what the academy is today. Frankly it seems more like a cash cow riding dubious distribution advantages and putative economies of scale off into a sad sunset.
Jude Hammerle"
Welcome to the economists' Post Enlightenment Whig wayback machine, to the Pax Mongolica, where enlightened Mongols were able to follow and slavishly obey various Eurasian populations' consumer preferences all across the continent:
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
RE PAX MONGOLICA ENLIGHTENED MONGOL DESPOTS ECONOMISTS' FANTASY PAX SINICA
If you read Power And Plenty, and other similar accounts of the so called Pax Mongolica, you get the impression of benevolent enlightened helpful friendly Mongol Khans, the kind of people that the Chinese now ostensibly are becoming, joining the commonwealth of enlightened nations in a spirit of hope and global unity. They want to make The South China Sea, and elsewhere in Asia, Eurasia, and Africa, safe for all of us to trade freely and openly. Call it The Pax Sinica.
If you read Power And Plenty, and other similar accounts of the so called Pax Mongolica, you get the impression of benevolent enlightened helpful friendly Mongol Khans, the kind of people that the Chinese now ostensibly are becoming, joining the commonwealth of enlightened nations in a spirit of hope and global unity. They want to make The South China Sea, and elsewhere in Asia, Eurasia, and Africa, safe for all of us to trade freely and openly. Call it The Pax Sinica.
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