Elite Overproduction | Hacker News Reader

Elite Overproduction

en.wikipedia.org

54 pointslantry14 comments

As far as I can tell, Turchin himself doesn't see this as a bad thing but part of a social-corrective element. That when elite overproduction happens, you start to get more of your Lenins, Luxembourgs, and Robbespierres, who have both the will and the wit take advantage of the instability in order to overthrow the social hierarchy under which they have been placed. That, in a society with ideal distribution of its production, these figures need not exist and would be better doing other things. But that their very existence is a symptom of wider systemic issues and they are the means of overcoming them.

A lot of mishmash theory but not much evidence supporting it.

Just taking the paragraph on Australia as an example. It just says less than half the money goes to academics. What is this in comparison to? What are the rates in other countries or industries? Is it even relevant to the idea of elite overproduction?

Over a quarter of Australian University students are international students. Are the remaining domestic students all elites and are there numbers overproduced?

What is even the benchmark for elite production

Funny thing, I didn't even finish high school, and I earn way more than the average experienced Australian university graduate.

Over the years I've worked with many graduates, even some with Masters degrees in programming, and I've found their knowledge and experience lacking, not to mention their work ethic. Round that out with a sense of arrogance and entitlement due to "having done the work" in university, they feel they're not required to work hard on the job. I have frequently found that many simply don't progress in their careers and whinge mightily about it. Often they get into an analysis paralysis too, whereby they've been educated about so many potential ways to solve a problem, they can't decide or commit on one to develop, test and push into production. Or their code fails in production in amazing ways they didn't foresee.

> Or their code fails in production in amazing ways they didn't foresee.

Is this unique to university graduates...?

I don't know. But I am one of those weird people who tests code exhaustively in our lab environments before deployment, and as a result I've never caused a production outage in any environment I've worked in my 25 year career. Hard to believe I know, but its true.

I think your experience validates the thesis. These people have expended resources on something they expect will lead inevitably to success, without much further effort required. That's, like, the very definition of "the elite". Of course, it hasn't worked - you're making more than they are, and you aren't forced to put up with (much of) their bullshit (and with palpable resentment) - because it doesn't work like that anymore. We've turned out so many graduates that a university degree doesn't mean what it used to, and they don't automatically occupy the social position to which they feel entitled. Thus, "elite over-production".

this is the problem really. not creating smarter people, because that would actually be a benefit. imagine what we could do if we had more doctors, scientists and teachers and actually funded the institutions that give them meaningful work that would benefit our society. but instead of doing that we are creating people with entitlement who think they are better than others and who then can't find work because there aren't enough jobs where their qualifications are needed.

Oh, for sure. It's another consequence of making a metric the target. At one time a university degree had more than a signaling value (granted, it still does for many), but we decided to focus on maximizing degrees held, rather than the quality of those degrees / degree holders. So here we are.

Is that an elitist position? I guess it is, in a way. On the other hand, many positions which now have a degree (or a degree from the right school) as a (hidden or overt) requirement could be just as capably done by many who don't hold those dubious qualifications. Credentialism runs hand-in-hand with elite overproduction.

they made it very easy to goto university in the UK during the Blair years such that degrees devalued to the point of expectation which I suppose is the result of elite overproduction, having a masters became the equivalent to a degree a decade prior.

I know of multiple law grads that to this day merely serve coffee, anecdata sure but I doubt I could count the number of grads I know that ended up doing jobs that would otherwise not require any specific academic accreditation yet have at least a degree, often even in STEM.

The Australian section likely deserves a flag for re-editing. It’s unclear what point is being made.

However we have reasonably good ways of quantifying overproduction, a simple test would be

Does a graduating student earn more or less than they did before entering the program?

There are several masters programs such as those in education where the answer would be less.

Would reducing the standard workweek for the professional (smartypants) classes alleviate this ?

Does the company pay less for the same job? If not, not sure where the budget to hire more will come from. If you do pay less that's just a part-time job

great wiki summary. Thanks for sharing.

We're the true star-bellies!

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