Can Capitalism Survive?

Chapter 2

Capital_251-300.indd 275 1/3/12 7:57 PM Chapter 2 The Promise of the College There is one topic to which I can address myself that should be relevant to your lives and about which I have a very modest amount of specialized, personal knowledge. Most (perhaps all) of you are going on to college. What can you reasonably expect from your college experience? It is to this question that I intend to speak. Let me put it another way: Led on in part by the promises made by the colleges (as they have sought to lure you to their campuses), you must now have various expectations of the experiences ahead of you. Which of these expectations have some chance of being realized? Which of the promises of the college is it realistic to expect it to keep? As my friend and colleague, George Stigler, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and long-time trustee of Carleton College, once put it: "The Capital_251-300.indd 276 1/3/12 7:57 PM 276. Can Capitalism Survive? typical college catalogue would never stop Diogenes in his search for an honest man." It is with no great pride and with an eye cocked for Ralph Nader that I confess to you that colleges promise prospective students (and their parents) many things, some of them obviously absurd, some of them partly attainable, some of them almost wholly attainable. Let's try to sort them out. I'll begin with an easy one. Come to College A and life will be a ball and a ring-a-ding-ding, four years of fun and frolic. In the first place, if it really can deliver on this promise, College A isn't a college at all, but a kind of winter camp for aging teenagers. In the second place, the years from seventeen to twenty-two are destined by the nature of the human animal to be marked by fits of anxiety and concern, and by some very painful experiences. Most of the problems will be highly personal and of a nature such that the college can be of almost no help. The love-hate relationship of the late-teens teenager and his or her parents; the sometimes embarrassing, but inevitable ending of old friendship patterns (including many that tonight you swear are fixed forever); and of course the now suddenly serious set of questions and dilemmas that arise out of the fact that there are two sexes and that it takes two to tango. Rare indeed is the mature person who, if given an opportunity, would set the time-machine back to these years of his or her life. Capital_251-300.indd 277 1/3/12 7:57 PM The Promise of the College • 277 Let me hasten to add that not all need be painful or anxiety-creating or dull. These next few years for you will also include some wonderful and exciting experiences that you will indeed remember for the rest of your lives-not necessarily as they actually happened but as they are reconstructed at reunion time under the influence of Old Siwash and Old Crow. As a matter of fact, one of the most important reasons for going to college is that it is one of the most pleasant ways to spend these particular years in a person's life. In my opinion, "going to college" is in one sense largely a consumer good; an important part of the benefit flowing from it comes to end on the day you receive the degree. (All of us who make our lives and livings on campuses recognize this fact, but to many it is embarrassing to admit that they are engaged in serving such frivolous purposes as friendship, excitement, sentiment , and love. For myself, I see nothing wrong in so serving.) My point is not that your college days will be, on balance, painful or pleasant, but only that the college itself, i.e., administration and faculty, will have little to do with it-except perhaps as it influences the quality of the other young people around you. Let's turn to another one. Come to College B; our exciting new curriculum will guarantee you a superior education. Rogge's rule is that the more a college talks about its "exciting new curriculum," the less it really has to offer. Bring together competent, interesting fac- Capital_251...