France, anti-capitalism, and education. Plus scary quote of the month.

Last week The Economist had a wonderful (and wonderfully critical) survey on France. The survey was full of interesting points, but, as a university student, what caught my eye the most were the articles touching upon higher education.

As any libertarian-inclined person I was dismayed at this year’s protests in France against its governments proposed market reforms. But not all of Frances universities were as adamant in their protests. The Economist contrasts two Toulouse universities, Toulouse I Science Sociales and Toulouse II-Le Mirail. The first is one of France’s few world class universities, and focuses on economics and political science, the second university is just another of the country’s many poor ones, and focuses on such subjects as philosophy, sociology and psychology, which as pointed out in The Economist “ill-prepare graduates for jobs”.

While protests were short and unpopular at Toulouse I, they were significant at Toulouse II.

Why so?

I’m thinking there could be two reasons: selection-bias and socialisation. Selection-bias predicts that people who are interested in subjects such as sociology and psychology are naturally more hostile to liberalising reforms. Socialisation predicts that people who study above subjects become more hostile to said reforms.

In another article The Economist actually illustrates the socialisation hypothesis. As is well-known, the French are among the most hostile when it comes to liberalism, capitalism, and the market. Only 36% of the French believe the free-market economy is the best system, opposed to 71% of Americans and 65% of Germans. Scary, that.

The article gives an explanation:

Some of this thinking seems to be taught at school. Of the three main baccalauréat options, one is a subject called “economic and social science”. Mr Cohen of the Council of Economic Analysis prefers to call it “a radical neo-Marxist amalgam of sociology and soft economics”. One widely used textbook devotes page after page to Marxist theories of production, class struggle and bourgeois exploitation. In a section on the labour market, it states that “employers seek to divide workers in order to reduce solidarity between different categories of staff.”

Perhaps such teaching helps to explain why the French gave a Trotskyite and a Revolutionary Communist 10% of the vote between them in the first round of the 2002 presidential election—and the Communist candidate another 3%. Marxist thinking still has a grip on the collective imagination. It comforts those at the bottom of the pile who rail at the recent explosion in executive pay, including some exorbitant corporate pay-offs. The 35-hour-week rules were based on the misapprehension that there is a fixed amount of work to be shared out. Nor is anti-liberalism a monopoly of the left. “Globalisation is not an ideal,” declared Mr de Villepin in his inaugural speech as prime minister last year. “It cannot be our destiny.”

I can relate to the above description of the subject of “economics and social science”. My own study of political science at Copenhagen University is also clearly dominated by neo-Marxism (widely interpreted) and other theories properly relegated to the humanities. Not surprisingly, at an in-class poll of my class, only a handful of the students (out of maybe 30) voted for parties right-of-centre – and Enhedslisten, the party at the extreme left, was the second biggest party, if I recall correctly. Despite this, looking at France I realise that things could be much worse. The president of Toulouse II is quoted in The Economist as saying (in connection with the contention that the subjects of his university “ill-prepare graduates for jobs”):

“This is left-wing university which has a social project. It is not an institution designed for professional training.”

I think that qualifies as very scary quote.