As an immigrant to America, I have thought hard about the differences between it and the developing country I came from. We don’t have any shortage of intellectuals, and those Harvard professors export their ideas for the whole world. Professors at elite colleges have created exactly zero prosperous nations. I’m convinced that what we’re missing is ordinary Americans.
> Professors at elite colleges have created exactly zero prosperous nations.
It turns out that you can make that statement for any group of people. It takes all kinds of people to build prosperous nations.
It'a also particularly ironic that you're writing this because of a project that professors (and grad students) at some elite colleges started back in the 1970s, with some funding from the defense department. And their creation (the Internet) led to historic amounts of wealth creation in a stupendously short amount of time.
I also wonder where Britain would be without the numerous professors at elite colleges whose research in physics, mathematics, and chemistry made the Industrial Revolution possible.
We’re talking about who to put in charge. The US was built with basically just a few kinds of people in charge: farmers, lawyers, businessmen, and military officers. It was already wealthy before there were any Ivy League professors doing anything.
There are countries where the government was heavily influenced by academic theories. Marx was a PhD and a professor and his political philosophy was the basis for several quite unsuccessful efforts at governance.
This is not a knock on academic elites in general. I want them sitting around and building the Internet! But I want a farmer actually running the country.
> The US was built with basically just a few kinds of people in charge: farmers, lawyers, businessmen, and military officers. It was already wealthy before there were any Ivy League professors doing anything.
The Ivy League wasn't the "Ivy League" back then - just a bunch of fledgling colleges without much of a reputation. America was a different country. Smart, ambitious people went into planting, trading, or soldiering. What things were like 200+ years ago has no bearing on how they should be today.
> Marx was a PhD and a professor and his political philosophy was the basis for several quite unsuccessful efforts at governance.
One academic's theories led to some failed governments, therefore academics are bad at country-building? Marx wasn't even in charge of any of those countries. Other people (such as Lenin, a lawyer, and Trotsky, born to a farmer) read his work, went "this shit sounds dope", and tragedy ensued.
I can point you to any number of countries run by "farmers, lawyers, businessmen, and military officers" that weren't as successful as the US. As I already mentioned, Lenin was a lawyer. So was Fidel Castro. I hope I don't need to go through a list various military dictators.
> But I want a farmer actually running the country.
I want smart people with good ideas, integrity, and communication skills running the country. You can find people like that in every field. I couldn't care less what their background is.
The US succeeded (in part) because the early leadership was of incredibly high caliber and integrity. George Washington stepped down voluntarily from the presidency after two terms. It seems normal to us but it was unthinkable back then. Everyone just assumed he'd stay in charge until he died.
> One academic's theories led to some failed governments, therefore academics are bad at country-building?
No, that’s just the most egregious example. Circling back to my original point: I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes countries rich and how do you turn poor countries into rich ones. Academicians spend tons of time studying psychology, culture, politics can etc. But I can’t think of any of those theories that has ever been implemented in the real world to help a poor society develop into a rich one. When Lee Kuan Yew, who made Singapore rich in a generation, talks about development, he doesn’t talk about academic theories. He focuses on the culture of the ordinary people.
> I want smart people with good ideas, integrity, and communication skills running the country.
No. Ideas don’t make countries successful. Integrity, yes, but academics don’t have any special advantage in that regard. And the petty bureaucracies and box checking environment of academia selects against many of the other traits required for good leaders.
> I couldn't care less what their background is.
The US succeeded because the early leadership was of incredibly high caliber and integrity.
The US succeeded because they were English by culture and departed little from the Anglo system of government and society, which was not created but evolved organically over centuries.
Revolutionary France is a good example of a society structured by “smart people” according to “good ideas.” It ended in disaster and bloodshed.
> When Lee Kuan Yew, who made Singapore rich in a generation, talks about development, he doesn’t talk about academic theories. He focuses on the culture of the ordinary people.
He (and most national leaders, elected or otherwise) works at too high a level to talk about academic theories in general conversation. You don't think he and the people working in his government studied economics, history, and politics? They just made Singapore prosperous by getting everyone to work harder and study more?
> academics don’t have any special advantage in that regard
Neither do "farmers".
> And the petty bureaucracies and box checking environment of academia selects against many of the other traits required for good leaders.
That's just broad stereotyping. We can do that for any of the professions you think should be in charge. "Military officers are rigid, hawkish, and overly inclined to action". "Businessmen are short-sighted and focus on the bottom line above all" and so on.
> Revolutionary France is a good example of a society structured by “smart people” according to “good ideas.”
> He (and most national leaders, elected or otherwise) works at too high a level to talk about academic theories in general conversation. You don't think he and the people working in his government studied economics, history, and politics? They just made Singapore prosperous by getting everyone to work harder and study more?
There is a difference between people with judgment governing with the advice of academics, and putting academic theories directly into action. A good example during pandemic were governors who listened to doctors but applied their own judgment after listening to other stakeholders, and those who outsourced decision making to credentialed experts.
The amount of goalpost moving in this comment thread left me quite dizzy.
We went from "academics can't build nations" to "academics can't lead nations". Then to "America became great because farmers, lawyers, and soldiers were in charge" (while ignoring failed nations that also had farmers, lawyers, and soldiers in charge). Finally landing upon Lee Kuan Yew and national character building (no idea how that's related).
There were no actual examples of an academic taking charge of a country and that country failing due to them being an academic (vs just being corrupt, despotic, insane, or plain incompetent). On the other hand, I provided lots of examples that showed academics have made modern society and the economy possible.
I'd argue that most academics don't have any interest in politics or leadership, which causes them to be relatively underrepresented in the arena. Regardless, I'm not biased against people due to their profession, as you appear to be.
