WEBVTT - Malcolm Gladwell and "Magical Technical Fixes" 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.036 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:22.036 --> 0:00:24.956 where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:25.436 --> 0:00:29.516 I'm Noah Feldman. Today's episode is a little different than usual. 0:00:29.916 --> 0:00:33.876 It's a conversation between me and one of my podcasting gods, 0:00:34.116 --> 0:00:37.556 Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm is the host of Revisionist History, which 0:00:37.596 --> 0:00:39.796 is produced by the same company that produces this show. 0:00:40.756 --> 0:00:43.996 About a year ago, Malcolm reported a story for Revisionist 0:00:44.036 --> 0:00:48.036 History about a constitutional law professor named Michael Stokes Paulsen 0:00:48.436 --> 0:00:51.636 who has this totally crazy theory the Texas has the 0:00:51.716 --> 0:00:54.956 right to break into five states if it wants all 0:00:55.036 --> 0:00:58.156 because the authors of the United States Constitution used a 0:00:58.236 --> 0:01:01.476 semicolon in a certain way. Here's a clip from that 0:01:01.516 --> 0:01:04.796 episode of Malcolm talking to Michael Paulson. I want to 0:01:04.796 --> 0:01:06.396 find the full thing. By the way you can find 0:01:06.396 --> 0:01:09.756 it in the Revisionist History feed. It's called Divide and Conquer. 0:01:10.316 --> 0:01:14.836 Imagine a governor of Texas reads your law review article 0:01:14.916 --> 0:01:17.396 and said, well, that's a funny enough premise as it is, 0:01:18.436 --> 0:01:21.756 and says, okay, I want to I want to trigger it. Okay, 0:01:21.876 --> 0:01:24.756 so walk me through how triggering might work in the 0:01:24.796 --> 0:01:29.516 real world. Well imagining a real world where people take 0:01:29.756 --> 0:01:32.516 law review articles seriously. It's a it's a good it's 0:01:32.516 --> 0:01:36.836 a better real world. It's a better real world. All 0:01:36.876 --> 0:01:39.476 we know is that Congress has granted its consent for 0:01:39.556 --> 0:01:42.556 the sovereign state of Texas to do what it needs 0:01:42.556 --> 0:01:45.236 to do. But the significant fact here is that given 0:01:45.236 --> 0:01:49.956 that Congress has already granted its permission, the all that 0:01:49.996 --> 0:01:52.156 has to happen is for Texas to get its act together. 0:01:52.436 --> 0:01:55.756 It's up to Texas. So far, Texas has not done 0:01:55.796 --> 0:01:59.516 anything with Michael Paulson's theory, but it still seems to 0:01:59.516 --> 0:02:02.476 have had an impact. About a month ago, an article 0:02:02.516 --> 0:02:05.436 appeared in the Harvard Law Review. It's called a note 0:02:05.476 --> 0:02:09.396 because that's what short student writing is called, and one 0:02:09.436 --> 0:02:12.356 hundred percent confirmed this because everything in the Harvard Larvue 0:02:12.396 --> 0:02:15.876 is anonymous. But it seems pretty clear to me that 0:02:15.916 --> 0:02:20.716 this note was inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's story about Michael Paulson. 0:02:21.356 --> 0:02:24.356 The note is called pack the Union, a Proposal to 0:02:24.396 --> 0:02:27.876 admit new States for the purpose of ensuring equal representation, 0:02:28.436 --> 0:02:31.196 and in it, the author argues that since Washington, DC 0:02:31.436 --> 0:02:34.756 is not a state and is therefore overseen by Congress, 0:02:35.596 --> 0:02:39.436 Congress has the authority to pass legislation that would break 0:02:39.556 --> 0:02:43.996 Washington DC into one hundred and twenty seven states. Yes, 0:02:44.036 --> 0:02:47.316 you heard me right, break Washington DC into one hundred 0:02:47.316 --> 0:02:51.556 and twenty seven states. Malcolm seem pretty into this idea. 0:02:51.916 --> 0:02:53.996 So we had a conversation in which I tried my 0:02:54.116 --> 0:02:58.596 best to suggest that practically speaking, it doesn't make any 0:02:58.596 --> 0:03:03.196 sense as a non constitutional scholar. Walk me through how 0:03:03.276 --> 0:03:07.476 this new ideas outlined in the Harvard Larvue works. Well, 0:03:07.516 --> 0:03:09.836 the magic of the idea goes back to your comma 0:03:09.916 --> 0:03:13.716 conversation and your whole analysis in that episode of the 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:18.236 question of whether states have to consent to being broken 0:03:18.316 --> 0:03:22.116 up into lots of new states. So the person who 0:03:22.156 --> 0:03:24.756 came up with this idea are so far anonymous author 0:03:24.796 --> 0:03:28.236 thought about it and said, well, it's true that under 0:03:28.276 --> 0:03:31.756 the constitutional reading, the most rigorous one states would have 0:03:31.836 --> 0:03:34.636 to agree to be broken up. But the District of 0:03:34.676 --> 0:03:37.396 Columbia is not a state. It's not one of the 0:03:37.436 --> 0:03:42.316 fifty states. It's just a district controlled by Congress. Therefore, 0:03:42.396 --> 0:03:45.556 it should be up to Congress under the Constitution to 0:03:45.596 --> 0:03:48.556 decide if it wants to turn some parts of District 0:03:48.556 --> 0:03:51.156 of Columbia into a state. Now, you might say, but wait, 0:03:51.236 --> 0:03:54.116 the Constitution mentions DC and says that it can't be 0:03:54.156 --> 0:03:57.276 a state, and so the person says, no problem. Preserve 0:03:57.316 --> 0:03:59.796 a few blocks around the White House and the Capitol, 0:04:00.356 --> 0:04:03.716 call those the District of Columbia, treat that as not 0:04:03.796 --> 0:04:06.316 a state, and then take the rest of the district 0:04:06.596 --> 0:04:09.076 and break it up into one hundred and twenty seven 0:04:09.236 --> 0:04:13.516 than states, which is how many it would take to 0:04:13.556 --> 0:04:17.556 assure on this view the constitutionality of future changes. The 0:04:17.596 --> 0:04:20.156 idea is to actually get a situation where those voters 0:04:20.156 --> 0:04:23.236 could control essentially two thirds of the Senate for all 0:04:23.356 --> 0:04:26.716 major future determinations and decisions. And the whole claim of 0:04:26.756 --> 0:04:29.196 the article is you could pull this off within the 0:04:29.236 --> 0:04:32.036 text of the Constitution. You'd need Congress to do it, 0:04:32.076 --> 0:04:34.876 but a majority on they in this theory, a majority 0:04:34.916 --> 0:04:37.236 of Congress with a signature by the President could in 0:04:37.316 --> 0:04:40.396 fact do it. So you would have you create all 0:04:40.396 --> 0:04:42.636 these new states. Each of these states gets two senators. 0:04:43.076 --> 0:04:48.396 The Senate becomes a body with two hundredodd senators, and 0:04:48.596 --> 0:04:51.636 most of them are are residents of the former District 0:04:51.636 --> 0:04:56.036 of Columbia. Presumably the area is hand picked for their democraticness. 0:04:56.236 --> 0:04:58.836 You wouldn't have to do much handpicking in Washington, DC, 0:04:59.076 --> 0:05:02.076 even at that micro level. Not that many Republicans in 0:05:02.076 --> 0:05:05.076 the district yet. But this obviously is open to the 0:05:05.116 --> 0:05:09.596 criticism that the other idea avoids, which this is a 0:05:09.756 --> 0:05:15.076 massive violation of democratic norms, right, exactly, exactly, you know, 0:05:15.116 --> 0:05:16.996 I think you're completely right. And that's why this article, 0:05:17.316 --> 0:05:21.236 you know, shifts from creative to humorous to a too 0:05:21.236 --> 0:05:26.436 absurd because it would it would violate the core idea 0:05:26.596 --> 0:05:29.276 of you know, of the way the framers imagine the Constitution. 0:05:29.356 --> 0:05:32.036 Now there's pushback. I mean, again, to put words in 0:05:32.076 --> 0:05:34.436 the mouth of the anonymous author, we could say, well, 0:05:34.476 --> 0:05:38.796 the Senate itself is a gross violation of democratic norms. 0:05:39.396 --> 0:05:42.316 And that's actually true. You know, Madison thought that Madison 0:05:42.596 --> 0:05:45.956 hated the idea that each state would get two senators, 0:05:46.356 --> 0:05:48.516 the big states like his state, Virginia, where the little 0:05:48.516 --> 0:05:51.636 mini states like Delaware and Rhode Island. He detested the 0:05:51.756 --> 0:05:54.956 very idea of it, and he lost in the Constitutional Convention, 0:05:54.996 --> 0:05:57.876 you know, famously he said no, you know, we're not 0:05:57.876 --> 0:05:59.676 going to do it that way, and the small states 0:05:59.676 --> 0:06:02.396 staged a walk out and they shut down the convention, 0:06:02.396 --> 0:06:04.516 and they basically said, we're not coming back unless you agree, 0:06:04.836 --> 0:06:06.636 and he had no choice, and he actually walked away 0:06:06.676 --> 0:06:10.116 from the convention feeling that his greatest failure there was 0:06:10.596 --> 0:06:15.356 the failure to get a democratic, small, d democratically structured Senate. 0:06:15.396 --> 0:06:18.436 He thought this was a violation of basic principles. You 0:06:18.516 --> 0:06:21.156 can't say one man, one vote, because they didn't treat 0:06:21.396 --> 0:06:24.316 African Americans as full citizens or citizens at all, and 0:06:24.316 --> 0:06:25.996 they had a three fifth compromise, and they didn't let 0:06:26.036 --> 0:06:28.756 women vote. But he thought that among white men there 0:06:28.756 --> 0:06:31.836 should at least be proportionality, and this obviously meant there wasn't. 0:06:32.356 --> 0:06:35.476 But what if someone did a more modest version of 0:06:35.516 --> 0:06:40.316 this and just said it will, let's create a state 0:06:40.476 --> 0:06:44.396 out of one state out of DC using this exact 0:06:44.436 --> 0:06:48.756 same methodology, will conserve the crucial areas, call it DC, 0:06:49.276 --> 0:06:51.676 and we'll take all of you know, the balance of 0:06:52.596 --> 0:06:56.516 the city and create a new state of Columbia. Does 0:06:56.556 --> 0:06:59.796 that make this idea plausible, Well, it does make it plausible. 0:06:59.876 --> 0:07:02.676 It just runs into the political problem that has always 0:07:02.676 --> 0:07:04.916 accompanied the idea of the introduction of new states, where 0:07:04.916 --> 0:07:07.716 it's pretty easy to guess what political party their senators 0:07:07.716 --> 0:07:10.196 and congressmen will be from and the centers are the 0:07:10.196 --> 0:07:11.956 ones that matter, because DC is small enough that it 0:07:11.996 --> 0:07:15.276 wouldn't have that many representatives. And that is just how 0:07:15.276 --> 0:07:17.316 do you get the other party to agree. And that's 0:07:17.356 --> 0:07:19.396 why so many states of the Union have been introduced 0:07:19.436 --> 0:07:22.676 in pairs. You know, this was obviously true before the 0:07:22.756 --> 0:07:25.196 Civil War. In fact, the big problem before the Civil 0:07:25.196 --> 0:07:27.396 War was that if you didn't admit states in pairs 0:07:27.436 --> 0:07:29.476 slave and free slave and free slave and free, they 0:07:29.516 --> 0:07:31.316 were going to throw off the balance in the Senate. 0:07:31.396 --> 0:07:33.356 And people were worried that would lead to a civil war, 0:07:33.476 --> 0:07:36.556 and it kind of did, and then afterwards people said, Okay, 0:07:36.596 --> 0:07:38.356 let's be really cautious about this. Even though no one 0:07:38.356 --> 0:07:40.636 thinks we're on the brink of civil war. The other 0:07:40.636 --> 0:07:42.996 party never wants to allow it in and usually uses 0:07:42.996 --> 0:07:44.756 what he can to block it. But sure the people 0:07:44.796 --> 0:07:46.476 who call for statehood in DC, and there are lots 0:07:46.476 --> 0:07:48.516 of people like that are thinking in those terms. Puerto 0:07:48.596 --> 0:07:50.316 Rico is another really good example. A lot of Puerto 0:07:50.396 --> 0:07:53.436 Ricans want Puerto Rico to become a state, but they 0:07:53.476 --> 0:07:55.116 just need to get the politics of it right. Either. 0:07:55.116 --> 0:07:56.396 They need to make it look like it'll be half 0:07:56.436 --> 0:07:59.316 democratic and half republican, or alternatively, they need to if 0:07:59.316 --> 0:08:01.476 it's going to be mostly democratic, they need to get 0:08:01.516 --> 0:08:03.836 a republican state to come in at the same time. 0:08:04.116 --> 0:08:07.476 Following all along, these two ideas in combination might work. 0:08:07.516 --> 0:08:10.796 What if the trade was in the short term, creating 0:08:10.876 --> 0:08:15.196 new states out of the existing Texas sounds like it's 0:08:15.196 --> 0:08:17.756 a pro republican idea. I mean, the augument about Texas 0:08:17.996 --> 0:08:22.116 is in the long term, Texas is drifting democratic. But 0:08:22.156 --> 0:08:25.196 in the short term would if a deal was created 0:08:25.196 --> 0:08:27.476 which said we will if you let us create a 0:08:28.076 --> 0:08:31.636 side state out of DC, will let you add another 0:08:31.796 --> 0:08:34.676 state to Texas. I think in principle you could get this. 0:08:34.756 --> 0:08:37.596 But here's the circularity. I think you know, the minute 0:08:37.596 --> 0:08:40.156 that you're having a democratic state added and then a 0:08:40.196 --> 0:08:44.596 republican state added, effectively, nobody is winning, right, So the 0:08:44.676 --> 0:08:47.076 deal would then become pointless. I mean, I think this 0:08:47.156 --> 0:08:51.676 goes to my second not pointless, because you're increasing the 0:08:52.356 --> 0:08:55.796 democratic structure of the Senate by you're solving two problems. 0:08:55.916 --> 0:08:59.796 When is you're making Senate more representative by breaking out Texas, 0:08:59.836 --> 0:09:03.796 and two you are long last giving some formal representation 0:09:03.836 --> 0:09:06.356 to the citizens of DC's that strikes me as being 0:09:06.676 --> 0:09:10.876 that initial step strikes me as being very easy to justify. 0:09:11.436 --> 0:09:13.276 Well that I agree with. I mean, I think you 0:09:13.276 --> 0:09:15.836 wouldn't be solving the unrepresentative in this problem, because you'd 0:09:15.876 --> 0:09:18.636 still have New York and California and lots and lots 0:09:18.636 --> 0:09:20.796 of other states, and you still have this huge disparity. 0:09:20.996 --> 0:09:22.436 But I agree you'd be moving it slowly in the 0:09:22.556 --> 0:09:24.356 right direction. I think the question is, you know, it 0:09:24.396 --> 0:09:27.196 takes so much power, so much force to overcome the 0:09:27.276 --> 0:09:30.076 inertia of something like the arrangement of the States, that 0:09:30.276 --> 0:09:33.556 probably you're only going to see it happening if both 0:09:33.596 --> 0:09:35.356 parties think they're going to benefit from it in the 0:09:35.356 --> 0:09:38.276 long run, And since everybody involved is pretty sophisticated, it's 0:09:38.276 --> 0:09:40.396 hard to get them to think that the other side 0:09:40.436 --> 0:09:43.116 is going to con them. You know, I always think 0:09:43.116 --> 0:09:45.156 of this as similar the problem in Israel, where they 0:09:45.156 --> 0:09:47.516 don't have a constitution at all, and every so often 0:09:47.596 --> 0:09:49.196 I get a call saying, will you join this commission. 0:09:49.236 --> 0:09:50.996 We're gonna have a Blue ribon commission. We're gonna talk 0:09:50.996 --> 0:09:53.196 about creating a constitution for Israel. And I always say 0:09:53.236 --> 0:09:55.356 the same thing. The right wing doesn't want to do 0:09:55.396 --> 0:09:58.276 it because they think that it will impose individual rights 0:09:58.316 --> 0:10:01.476 that they won't like. The left doesn't really necessarily want 0:10:01.476 --> 0:10:02.756 to do it because they think the right wing will 0:10:02.796 --> 0:10:04.476 use it to push a more right wing vision of 0:10:04.476 --> 0:10:06.516 what the country should be like. So the only way 0:10:06.516 --> 0:10:08.556 it can happen is if each side is convinced that 0:10:08.596 --> 0:10:11.436 the other side is making a mistake. If each side 0:10:11.436 --> 0:10:14.316 thinks the other side or suckers, then the deal will happen. 0:10:14.796 --> 0:10:16.636 And so I, you know, I worry a little bit 0:10:16.676 --> 0:10:19.316 about that in this political context. And that actually brings 0:10:19.316 --> 0:10:21.836 me to this. Why do you think it's so fascinating 0:10:21.916 --> 0:10:29.236 for everybody to imagine magical technical fixes to deep structural 0:10:29.276 --> 0:10:32.396 problems in something like the Constitution? Well, I just to think, Aha, 0:10:32.596 --> 0:10:34.796 we figured it out. One professor figured it out. It's 0:10:34.836 --> 0:10:38.556 in his notes there. It is, we can fix this problem. Well, 0:10:38.596 --> 0:10:44.116 I would actually state this somewhat differently, which is the reason, 0:10:44.156 --> 0:10:49.276 as an object of such fascination among Americans, is there's 0:10:49.316 --> 0:10:53.116 something weird about the American political system as opposed to 0:10:53.156 --> 0:10:57.876 other democracies, which is in other democracies. This is my 0:10:57.956 --> 0:11:00.316 impression as a Canadian, for example, and as someone who 0:11:00.396 --> 0:11:02.476 knows a lot about the English system as well, that 0:11:03.196 --> 0:11:07.236 there's way more flexibility in those systems. So you want 0:11:07.276 --> 0:11:09.436 to dump your prime minister, you dump your prime minister. 0:11:09.876 --> 0:11:12.676 If Canada decided I didn't want tudo tomorrow both of 0:11:12.756 --> 0:11:15.636 no confidence, he's gone call an election. You want an election, 0:11:15.676 --> 0:11:18.076 We're gon an election next week. You know, you call election. 0:11:18.156 --> 0:11:20.716 It happens within whatever it is, a month or whatever. 0:11:21.356 --> 0:11:25.156 It's consistent with the notion of democracy in many Western 0:11:25.196 --> 0:11:29.196 countries is the idea that you can start over, you 0:11:29.276 --> 0:11:34.116 can rewrite the rules. Canada, in my lifetime gave itself 0:11:34.156 --> 0:11:37.796 a constitution and did all kinds of you know, only 0:11:37.796 --> 0:11:40.756 in America is this notion, Like you literally have people 0:11:40.796 --> 0:11:44.476 in Supreme Court who are wedded to the interpretations of 0:11:44.516 --> 0:11:47.756 the constitution network in place in the middle of the 0:11:47.836 --> 0:11:52.916 eighteenth century. I mean, it's bananas. So no wonder, yeah, yeah, well, 0:11:52.956 --> 0:11:55.516 no wonder where Americas are in love with these ideas 0:11:55.516 --> 0:12:00.996 of technical fixes because we are alone among sophisticated democracies 0:12:01.036 --> 0:12:07.516 in having this weird resistance to any kind of innovation, 0:12:07.556 --> 0:12:10.316 even at the fringches. Does that make sense? It does? 0:12:10.356 --> 0:12:12.516 I mostly agree with that. I mean, on your first point. 0:12:12.676 --> 0:12:15.556 It's true that any presidential system, not just the American 0:12:15.636 --> 0:12:18.156 but any presidential system doesn't have the vote of no 0:12:18.236 --> 0:12:21.996 confidence remove the person function. So that's parliamentary democracies do 0:12:22.076 --> 0:12:24.876 have that, but lots of other constitutional democracies that our 0:12:24.916 --> 0:12:27.036 presidential systems don't. You can't get rid of the president 0:12:27.076 --> 0:12:29.116 of France quite that easily, can get rid of the 0:12:29.156 --> 0:12:31.356 president of Brazil that easily. That's why they actually have 0:12:31.396 --> 0:12:34.836 impeached the president of Brazil recently. That feature is not 0:12:34.996 --> 0:12:37.156 as unique to the United States. But I think you're 0:12:37.236 --> 0:12:39.676 right that the idea that we would still use a 0:12:39.756 --> 0:12:43.396 constitution that's, you know, two hundred and thirty years old, 0:12:43.516 --> 0:12:46.116 and that also have totally failed once. I mean most 0:12:46.156 --> 0:12:48.716 countries after your constitution fails. Our Civil War was a 0:12:48.756 --> 0:12:50.996 failure of our constitution. I mean, that's what it is 0:12:50.996 --> 0:12:52.956 for a constitution to fail. But after it failed, we 0:12:52.956 --> 0:12:55.356 didn't admit that it failed. We just said, well, we're 0:12:55.396 --> 0:12:58.076 going to add these amendments that provide for the end 0:12:58.076 --> 0:13:00.836 of slavery and equal protection and due process of the law, 0:13:00.876 --> 0:13:02.996 and allow African Americans to vote, and we're not going 0:13:03.076 --> 0:13:06.236 to change anything else, which is totally Absurdain and that 0:13:06.356 --> 0:13:08.076 also led to the situation right now, and I think 0:13:08.076 --> 0:13:10.156 where you say that's bananas, you're right. Nobody else does 0:13:10.196 --> 0:13:12.396 it our way, and I guess that leads to this 0:13:12.476 --> 0:13:16.556 idea that maybe, just maybe there's some tricky technical way 0:13:16.636 --> 0:13:18.916 to repair our problems. And that's where you know, the 0:13:18.916 --> 0:13:20.796 concerts lawyer in me wants to say, well, that would 0:13:20.836 --> 0:13:23.156 be great, but that's up to the politicians and they 0:13:23.156 --> 0:13:25.436 have to have the will to do it, And if 0:13:25.436 --> 0:13:27.276 they really had the will to do it, they wouldn't 0:13:27.316 --> 0:13:29.836 need something tricky. We could actually have a constitutional convention 0:13:29.956 --> 0:13:32.116 or we could start again or something like that. Yeah, 0:13:32.356 --> 0:13:36.076 let me ask you something else, a related line of questioning, 0:13:37.116 --> 0:13:41.716 and it's this, So, if the academics of America had 0:13:41.756 --> 0:13:45.156 any money, which they don't, or we're organized, which they aren't, 0:13:45.396 --> 0:13:48.396 and they wanted to put together an award for person 0:13:48.716 --> 0:13:51.196 in the country, maybe a person in the world, who's 0:13:51.236 --> 0:13:54.716 done the most for them, the most to popularize their ideas, 0:13:54.796 --> 0:13:58.436 make them seem relevant. You would be the first recipient 0:13:58.476 --> 0:14:00.116 of that award. In fact that you're probably name it 0:14:00.156 --> 0:14:02.596 for you because again and again in your career you 0:14:02.756 --> 0:14:08.276 found fascinating, quirky opinions by scholars, and you've put them 0:14:08.476 --> 0:14:11.396 into public debate, and then people argue about them, and 0:14:11.436 --> 0:14:13.756 then if you change your mind, you quote the scholars 0:14:13.756 --> 0:14:17.436 from the other side. You're scrupulously fair. Yet, and here's 0:14:17.476 --> 0:14:20.716 the Yet, when it comes to the institutions that a 0:14:20.796 --> 0:14:25.036 lot of these professors teaching, the ones that pay their salaries, 0:14:25.676 --> 0:14:29.596 like Fancy Ivy League universities, you seem to really hate 0:14:29.636 --> 0:14:33.596 the universities. You criticize them. You talked about their unfairness, 0:14:33.636 --> 0:14:36.036 their injustice. To tell me about that, first of all, 0:14:36.036 --> 0:14:38.116 am I getting you right? Yes, you're getting me correct. 0:14:38.156 --> 0:14:40.396 I don't hate all of them, I hate the elite ones. 0:14:41.156 --> 0:14:45.196 So yes to my allegiances are very clear. My allegiances are. 0:14:45.756 --> 0:14:50.236 I am a faculty brat myself, and so identify very 0:14:50.236 --> 0:14:55.276 strongly with faculty and identify with the students. But I 0:14:55.356 --> 0:15:00.596 remember come from Canada, where the goals of the educations 0:15:00.796 --> 0:15:05.596 were very clear. Access to higher education was in Canada 0:15:05.716 --> 0:15:09.396 is what the entire system is supposed to be oriented around. Sound, 0:15:10.316 --> 0:15:12.996 And you're willing to make all kinds of sacrifices in 0:15:13.076 --> 0:15:18.276 order to maximize the affordability and access to right. So 0:15:18.316 --> 0:15:21.396 there's two things I'm interested in systems that serve the 0:15:21.836 --> 0:15:25.236 faculty and systems that serve students in form of access. 0:15:25.396 --> 0:15:30.276 To my mind, the American higher ed system has betrayed 0:15:30.316 --> 0:15:36.236 both those things. I think academics are grossly undervalued and underpaid, 0:15:36.356 --> 0:15:39.836 which is weird because the cost of a university education 0:15:39.876 --> 0:15:44.636 has skyrocketed, which is one of those strange puzzles. Whatever 0:15:44.676 --> 0:15:47.156 I hear, like, what's someone teaching like eight classes at 0:15:47.196 --> 0:15:50.276 a state university? What they're making I'm appalled. This is 0:15:50.316 --> 0:15:53.916 one of the central functions of a civilized society is 0:15:53.916 --> 0:15:58.436 the education of its intellectual class. And you know, we're 0:15:58.436 --> 0:16:03.156 paying these people embarrassing wages A but B. And at 0:16:03.196 --> 0:16:06.636 the same time, we're escalating the cost of education to 0:16:06.636 --> 0:16:09.076 the point where people are spending their first ten years 0:16:09.316 --> 0:16:12.996 is post college or more paying off their loans. That's 0:16:13.036 --> 0:16:15.916 also crazy, and I think, what's it? You know, there 0:16:15.916 --> 0:16:17.756 are many things to blame of this, but one of 0:16:17.756 --> 0:16:21.236 them is the example. There's a handful of institutions that 0:16:21.316 --> 0:16:23.276 are at the very top of the food chain that 0:16:23.316 --> 0:16:27.276 are setting an extraordinarily bad example, and they are the 0:16:27.436 --> 0:16:29.916 schools of the Ivy League. My favorite whipping hearts at 0:16:29.916 --> 0:16:34.196 the moment is Princeton. You know, Princeton, Princeton and Harvard 0:16:34.196 --> 0:16:36.716 both should be ten times the size. I mean ten 0:16:36.716 --> 0:16:38.916 times maybe too much, but I don't know. When you 0:16:39.076 --> 0:16:41.396 when you realize that the University of Toronto is seventy 0:16:41.756 --> 0:16:46.156 five thousand students, it becomes really, really really hard to 0:16:46.276 --> 0:16:50.836 justify Princeton, which has resources that are probably ten x 0:16:51.756 --> 0:16:55.676 University of Toronto. Why Princeton is a tenth a size 0:16:56.076 --> 0:16:59.436 that's sentent a size. Everything you're saying is true, and 0:16:59.476 --> 0:17:01.356 I but I want to let me just raise a 0:17:01.356 --> 0:17:03.436 couple of possible count arguments and just hear your thoughts 0:17:03.476 --> 0:17:05.796 about them. So first I hear you. You know, some 0:17:05.916 --> 0:17:08.676 of this is you're seeing it from a Canadian perspective, 0:17:09.316 --> 0:17:12.116 and like a good Canadian, you look at the United States. 0:17:12.156 --> 0:17:14.156 We have a crazy constitution and we have a crazy 0:17:14.236 --> 0:17:18.156 higher educational system. That's fair enough, and I think it's true. 0:17:18.636 --> 0:17:22.196 It does raise, first off, the question of whether the 0:17:22.836 --> 0:17:25.676 putting a lot of resources into a handful of institutions 0:17:26.276 --> 0:17:29.756 actually produces better conditions for the faculty there. So you 0:17:29.836 --> 0:17:33.916 mentioned the terrible under payment of professors who teach at 0:17:33.916 --> 0:17:35.996 state universities, and that's absolutely right. But that's not the 0:17:36.036 --> 0:17:39.836 elite institutions. The elite institutions do much better in terms 0:17:39.836 --> 0:17:42.276 of compensation, and especially when you measure it in terms 0:17:42.276 --> 0:17:44.396 of how much teaching they're doing. So if you teach 0:17:44.396 --> 0:17:47.836 at Princeton, you actually have the chance to write and read, 0:17:48.036 --> 0:17:50.236 or if you're in a lab, do lab research, and 0:17:50.316 --> 0:17:53.636 that's where a huge amount of the scholarship is getting produced. 0:17:53.636 --> 0:17:55.436 I don't think anyone could say with a straight face 0:17:55.676 --> 0:17:59.236 the Princeton professors or underresourced or underpaid. To the contrary, 0:17:59.396 --> 0:18:02.596 they're well resourced, they're fairly paid, and they produce a 0:18:02.636 --> 0:18:06.116 ton of interesting ideas because that takes up a lot 0:18:06.156 --> 0:18:08.516 of time. Whereas the same exact people with the same 0:18:08.556 --> 0:18:11.916 degree of training and skill and creativity were put in 0:18:11.916 --> 0:18:14.076 a state institution where they had to teach four courses 0:18:14.156 --> 0:18:16.676 a semester, they would produce less in the way of 0:18:16.716 --> 0:18:19.836 creative and original ideas, a lot less. And I would 0:18:19.876 --> 0:18:21.476 just add, you know, we can talk about Inversity of 0:18:21.476 --> 0:18:24.276 Toronto in a second. That's an incredible institution. But you know, 0:18:24.316 --> 0:18:25.996 I have a one of my best students ever as 0:18:26.036 --> 0:18:28.796 a professor at University of Toronto in the law school, 0:18:28.796 --> 0:18:30.476 and that's a great great law school. It has some 0:18:30.516 --> 0:18:34.116 private funding for it, but her work requirements are substantially 0:18:34.156 --> 0:18:37.916 greater than they would be at a comparably ranked US 0:18:38.156 --> 0:18:40.956 law school. She just does a lot more work because, 0:18:40.996 --> 0:18:42.236 as you said, there are just so many students, and 0:18:42.236 --> 0:18:44.516 the law school as she isn't that huge. Yeah, No, 0:18:44.636 --> 0:18:47.556 I mean, the thing about under payment is a critique 0:18:47.596 --> 0:18:51.956 of the the ninetieth percentile on down. It's obviously not 0:18:51.996 --> 0:18:55.396 a critique. And my critique about the second critique, though, 0:18:55.476 --> 0:18:58.036 is a critique of the top. So one is Ones 0:18:58.036 --> 0:19:00.556 a mass critique and Ones an elite critique, but they're 0:19:00.596 --> 0:19:03.076 linked in a sense that one of the one of 0:19:03.076 --> 0:19:06.876 the things that makes it difficult for universities who are 0:19:07.316 --> 0:19:11.996 not elite to pay their fact properly and to preserve 0:19:12.396 --> 0:19:15.076 access is that they are trapped in an arms race 0:19:15.116 --> 0:19:17.956 as being driven by the leading institutions. The problem is 0:19:17.996 --> 0:19:21.116 that the whole system is in the middle of this 0:19:21.156 --> 0:19:25.316 amenity's arms race, which is all being fueled by the 0:19:25.396 --> 0:19:30.156 actions of you know, fifteen schools top which have access 0:19:30.196 --> 0:19:33.716 to disproportionate resources. If I'm a Hio state, i am 0:19:33.916 --> 0:19:39.956 on some level, i am competing for students with private 0:19:39.996 --> 0:19:43.996 elite colleges, and I have to play that game to attractive, 0:19:43.996 --> 0:19:45.556 I got to have a nicer dining hall. I gotta 0:19:45.556 --> 0:19:47.156 have better food. I got to have And what does 0:19:47.156 --> 0:19:49.076 that leave me? Less money left over to pay my 0:19:49.596 --> 0:19:53.756 faculty properly, and less money left over to subsidize the 0:19:53.796 --> 0:19:56.676 cost of providing an education, and more money going into 0:19:56.756 --> 0:20:01.036 things that have no real educational function. There's something a 0:20:01.076 --> 0:20:06.076 little bit screwy about the incentive structure of higher education. 0:20:06.116 --> 0:20:07.916 So I'm not I mean, I'm not saying anything that 0:20:08.116 --> 0:20:11.236 has not been said a found sometimes before. I I 0:20:11.596 --> 0:20:15.476 am just beginning to lose patience with the fetishization of 0:20:16.156 --> 0:20:19.196 private education in this country, right. I mean, look, the 0:20:19.196 --> 0:20:23.116 amenities arms race is completely insane. It's a product not 0:20:23.196 --> 0:20:25.156 just of competition, although that's a big part of it, 0:20:25.196 --> 0:20:30.036 but also of the commercialization of education, where the universities 0:20:30.076 --> 0:20:32.756 and the colleges think of the students as customers, and 0:20:32.836 --> 0:20:35.196 if they're customers, well, then the customer is always right, 0:20:35.236 --> 0:20:37.436 and you have to cultivate the customer, and you you're 0:20:37.436 --> 0:20:42.116 in the business of providing education services for the customer. Ironically, 0:20:42.236 --> 0:20:45.956 the elite institutions worry less about that than the middle 0:20:46.036 --> 0:20:49.836 level institutions, because at the elite institutions, we know that 0:20:49.876 --> 0:20:52.756 the students will come. And although we try to be 0:20:52.836 --> 0:20:54.796 nice about the amenities, because after all, we have the resources, 0:20:54.836 --> 0:20:57.716 why shouldn't we be we're not really doing amenities in 0:20:57.836 --> 0:21:00.196 order to get students to come here who might go 0:21:00.316 --> 0:21:04.356 somewhere else. What's difficult is if you're a middle ranked institution. 0:21:04.396 --> 0:21:06.716 You know, my brother teaches at Connecticut College, which is 0:21:06.716 --> 0:21:09.476 a fantastic liberal arts college in Connecticut, and they have 0:21:09.516 --> 0:21:11.916 to be very aware that they're competing with other small 0:21:11.916 --> 0:21:14.516 liberal arts colleges for the best students, and that if 0:21:14.556 --> 0:21:17.516 they fall behind, they could fall off the cliff. You know, 0:21:17.596 --> 0:21:18.996 if they go on to the second page of the 0:21:19.116 --> 0:21:21.036 US News and World Report, they've seen it happen to 0:21:21.076 --> 0:21:24.116 other colleges. So they have to compete on every ground 0:21:24.156 --> 0:21:26.956 that eighteen year olds care about. And I don't think 0:21:26.996 --> 0:21:29.476 that amenity's race is actually coming from the very top. 0:21:29.676 --> 0:21:32.676 I think it's coming from other colleges in their same 0:21:33.356 --> 0:21:37.476 you know, in their same range. They're competing with similar colleges. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:37.796 --> 0:21:40.676