[Nrsolis]

I think you're stretching a bit here.

Without personal financial risk, there is no comparison between the two. I've seen up close how unbelievably perilous it can be to risk your personal fortune (sometimes a meager one at that) on an entrepreneurial venture.

Don't kid yourself. If running a business was easy and without downside, everyone would be doing it. Lots of folks try their hand at business only to find out that they don't have the will to ride out the very tough times.

Comparing a person who is trying to build a business on a (possibly) new and unproven innovation to a (likely) tenured professor is worthy of a chuckle.

[digitaltrees]

These are all ad hominem attacks, and invalid on their face. Any member of society has a right to criticize the structure and rules of society. The argument they put forward should be evaluated on its face without regard for who is delivering it, or whether their background, experience, profession, and any other context supports the argument.

[lower]

Do you know how hard it is to get tenure? You have to work extremely hard for a decade and beat the best. If you don't manage to get tenure then you're left with nothing. In fields like computer science this isn't so bad, because there are good opportunities in industry. But in the arts, pursuing a career in academia means taking a big risk.

I'm not saying that building a business is easy. But neither is building a career in academia. It takes many of the same skills.

[Nrsolis]

I actually do know how hard it is to get tenure. My point still stands.

Very few academics declare bankruptcy when their businesses fail. Very few academics pour their life savings or retirement funds into their academic career only to walk away with less than nothing and owing money they might never be able to repay.

Comparative skills is one thing. Comparative risk is another.

[kirkules]

I wrote a snarky and unconstructive reply to you, but though I don't think I was wrong, I deleted it to try to be more constructive.

In this thread, you began by replying to a comment ultimately making the point that the OP commenter brushed off academics unjustifiably. Your reply suggested that the relevant comparison was between a professor whose position is secure and a startup founder in the early throes of trying to gain traction and stability. This was the clear essence of your point -- that somewhere somebody suggested, through such a comparison, that running a business is easy, and that this is wrong.

That comparison is obviously not relevant, especially since the slightly broader context is this article about "capitalist cowboys", i.e. people like James Duke. Duke was born into money and the tobacco business. He did not risk everything for his business. If his cigarette company went completely under, he would not have been destitute. People like Duke are relevant for comparison.

The reference in OP's comment is a common one, to "academics" at large, and is uselessly disparaging. Beyond user "lower"'s point about the skills needed in academia being comparable to those needed for business, we should note that many academics, especially in business schools, have themselves literally been successful in industry and business (read outside of academia). This is a proven way of getting a faculty position at a business school.

I think your point doesn't stand. But you are right that starting and having a business is a nuanced, often risky... business.

[Nrsolis]

We're splitting hairs here.

The original article used a straw-man to impugn capitalism. That's hardly fair. For every bad faith player there are a thousand farmers (all small businesses IMHO), restaurant owners, inventors, and others who start a business to serve the public with a good or service and are willing to risk their time and money to do it. Lots of those folks don't make it and lose their investment for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it's because of bad management; sometimes the economy; sometimes illegal action by a competitor. Such is life.

In this discussion, we have to be careful of choosing our examples to suit our argument. The original article seems to be blissfully unaware of survivorship bias when she rails against capitalism.

Economics isn't a morality tale. It doesn't care who is "good" or "bad", just who is able to provide something the market needs at a price it's willing to pay.

I know this outrages a lot of people butI would argue that there is more hazard entrusting that determination to government (as the author seems to suggest as a solution) than letting consumers decide for themselves.

I used to use Uber. Now I use Lyft. That was a choice I made when I learned of their management culture. You might care; you might not: it's YOUR choice.

Capitalism isn't the best solution to our scarcity problems but nobody has come up with a better solution yet. Ideas are great but you can't eat ideas. You can't sleep inside of a conjecture.

Capitalism wins because it works in spite of the imperfections in implementation.

[kirkules]

To what is Capitalism opposed, here? The original article didn't impugn capitalism, it impugned deregulation, corruption, and a culture of faux-hero worship that reinforces these. It impugned bad capitalism.

It was the opposite of unaware of survivorship bias; the whole point is that such biases (and others) explain why capitalist-cowboy heroes are seen as heroes, instead of actual outstanding acumen and brilliance.

This is part of why I think your original point doesn't stand; you are defending something that wasn't attacked. I care about this mostly because of the framing of the OP, in which capitalism is somehow put in opposition to "academics", which is spurious.

[Nrsolis]

I disagree.

For one thing, this is an article written by a history professor who is pitching her book: " Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism"

The term "corporate imperialism" is your first clue. I spent some more time perusing her other writing and I'm not impressed. She's got an agenda here and that's to take a specific example of corporate power run amok and extend it to other areas. THAT is what I was pushing back against.

There are a litany of other examples that would have served this subject better (oil, sugar, hell, even bananas) because the connection between production of a commodity item and the effect on the economy and society would be much clearer.

In this example, she's focusing on cigarettes as the central player. The problem is that cigarettes aren't a commodity; they're branded. You could easily make the case that Heinz Ketchup doesn't deserve their position as market leader because they control so much of the market that nobody else stands a chance. That kind of backing into a theory of history is what I'm talking about when we discuss survivorship bias. If there hadn't been a monopoly, she'd have nothing to write about. Nothing in the article serves to identify how to prevent a monopoly from forming in the current day nor does she cite any examples of markets where it's nearly impossible (despite their best efforts) for someone to achieve and maintain a monopoly because the pace of innovation constantly forces an evolution of the market.

So, to sum up, I think she's reaching. I don't find her account useful as a prescriptive when trying to understand if monopolies are bad (however they are formed) or if there are ways to prevent a monopoly from forming when a competitor has a product so good that nobody else can come close.

As a book of the history of cigarettes and jazz, sure, whatever.

[digitaltrees]

Capitalism captured by monopolies is not capitalism because there is no competition and thus no real price seeking mechanism. Monopolies have pricing power.

If you love capitalism you should be the strongest advocate against legal structures that allow for the creation of monopolies.

[Konnstann]

Getting tenure in academia involves going a decade or longer with very minimal savings to begin with, getting paid way below industry standards for the amount of education and experience you have, and not getting tenure in a lot of universities results in you being let go if you were on a tenure-track. I'd rather have the savings to blow on a risky venture that could succeed than the majority of my young adult life be spent underpaid and overworked to get the ability to write grants all day and deal with administrative tasks.

[Nrsolis]

In the USA, you've got that choice.

Let's try and understand that this isn't a race to see who has it worse. My point is that an academic in the arts isn't likely to possess the understanding of entrepreneurship and its challenges any more than an entrepreneur is to understand the challenges of a career in academia.

The difference is that one isn't pointing at the other and trying to blame them for all of society's ills.

[Konnstann]

Plenty of people point at academia and blame them for our problems, and plenty of people think academics are useless to society. I'm personally in the STEM area so I can't really comment on the arts.

I'm not blaming successful people for being successful, I applaud people who build products and create jobs. Thinking outside the box and innovating is great, but when your innovation is in the field of evading the intended consequences of regulations, that's not the kind of success I value.

[benrbray]

A tenured professor has already achieved their goal. There's a very real comparison to be made between a startup founder and a young, tenure-track faculty member trying to make their mark on the research community.

You're correct that academics too often dismiss the "soft skills" needed to successfully run a business. But it sounds like you're also dismissing the legitimately hard work that goes into a successful academic career.

[Nrsolis]

I'm not dismissing the hard work that goes into either. What I'm saying is that the risk profile isn't close to being comparable.

A young tenure-track professor isn't at risk of losing their degree if they fail to achieve tenure. It's also unlikely that they might owe thousands (or hundreds of thousands) to the IRS or state tax authorities for which they could very well be personally liable for. That's not a figurative example. I actually saw this happen with a small ISP.

I recall a news story about a congressman who left public service to try and run a business (something not technical) and he was dumbfounded by the practical affect of the laws that he helped pass and how unwieldy and challenging it is for an entrepreneur to actually succeed when faced with the never-ending cascade of regulations and approvals needed to actually open. The gist of the article is that he didn't appreciate the reality of business ownership until he tried it. Then he saw the light.

I would encourage any academic that thinks the only way to succeed in business is to cheat to give it a try themselves. Something as simple as an ice-cream shop can be a real eye-opener in terms of regulatory complexity, financial disclosure, and employment law.