Lifeboat ethics describes the ethics of a situation in which there is not enough of a critical good for everyone, and yet that resource has to be distributed.
A great many problems in academia would indeed be solved by simply opening up more permanent full-time faculty positions (not even necessarily tenure-track, just permanent). But that would require laying off administrators or reducing their salaries, which those same administrators don't want to do. (Or raising tuition, which is already sky-high.) And despite the poor working conditions for new faculty, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of new applicants, so universities have little incentive to change.
I find your ethical argument compelling, but the economic incentives are all wrong to make it happen.
Why do we need that many people in academia? Most academics produce almost nothing of substance, and removing them might greatly improve the overall quality of the field. It took a couple hundred people in the early 20th century to create modern physics, while the number of important philosophers has always been pretty low (and still is to a large extent). Why not cut out the useless people by setting academic minimum wages, making tenure automatic after 5 years of employment, and letting everyone who didn’t fit in do a Hume, Mill, or an Einstein if they so please?
Re: "if there isn’t enough money for academic jobs to go around, no academic should be earning more than about 100k US. I have a slightly monastic view of academia- we need to purge the people who see it as a road to conventional high status. "
This $100K ceiling may work well in arts and humanities, where professors have few other options for high-paying jobs. Philosophers, music theorists, and English lit researchers typically can only find work in universities, so if you instituted a $100K ceiling, they'd stay in academia.
But if you put a $100K ceiling for all faculties, medical schools or law schools, professors there can also get jobs as doctors or lawyers, respectively, where they earn several times the $100K ceiling, do there would be an exodus to private sector work.
A great many problems in academia would indeed be solved by simply opening up more permanent full-time faculty positions (not even necessarily tenure-track, just permanent). But that would require laying off administrators or reducing their salaries, which those same administrators don't want to do. (Or raising tuition, which is already sky-high.) And despite the poor working conditions for new faculty, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of new applicants, so universities have little incentive to change.
I find your ethical argument compelling, but the economic incentives are all wrong to make it happen.
Why do we need that many people in academia? Most academics produce almost nothing of substance, and removing them might greatly improve the overall quality of the field. It took a couple hundred people in the early 20th century to create modern physics, while the number of important philosophers has always been pretty low (and still is to a large extent). Why not cut out the useless people by setting academic minimum wages, making tenure automatic after 5 years of employment, and letting everyone who didn’t fit in do a Hume, Mill, or an Einstein if they so please?
Re: "if there isn’t enough money for academic jobs to go around, no academic should be earning more than about 100k US. I have a slightly monastic view of academia- we need to purge the people who see it as a road to conventional high status. "
This $100K ceiling may work well in arts and humanities, where professors have few other options for high-paying jobs. Philosophers, music theorists, and English lit researchers typically can only find work in universities, so if you instituted a $100K ceiling, they'd stay in academia.
But if you put a $100K ceiling for all faculties, medical schools or law schools, professors there can also get jobs as doctors or lawyers, respectively, where they earn several times the $100K ceiling, do there would be an exodus to private sector work.