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Another explanation (which I don't like but cannot refute) is that junior academics are willing to forego higher present incomes in exchange of 'sticking around' and thus increasing their chances of becoming professors one day. In other words, something along the lines of compensating differentials or implicit contracts. If supply and demand didn't work, then indeed we would have fewer PhDs... But I think that the ultimate reason for the poor wages offered has a much more miserable explanation, called 'full economic costing' (and university overhead costs). Vassilis -----Original Message----- From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ant Ince Sent: 27 October 2006 15:35 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Anti War job ... and in the current climate of casualisation and precaritisation (is that a real word??) of pretty much everyone who isn't a senior lecturer, why would new PhD graduates go for a job paying such a small amount of money? in just under three years time, i'd genuinely be tempted to go for this job if it came up. so WHY? of course it's all about research funding and blablablah, but if we're going by market laws of supply and demand, there should be a hell of a lot fewer people doing PhDs than there are. i'm sure it's not the only reason, but Maurice Brinton in his essay 'The Irrational in Politics' gives us a clue: "[capitalist] ideologies aim at denying to individuals the autonomous (i.e. the conscious and self-managing) exercise of their own activities. They aim at depriving people of freedom and responsibility in a fundamental realm and at obliging them to conform to externally imposed norms and the pressures of 'public opinion' rather than to criteria determined by each person accroding to his [sic] needs and experience." young academics (like myself) are so timid due to our junior position in the massive, grotesque academic hierarchy that we forget about the fact that we're actually very highly skilled and therefore worth more than we get offered. but because we're only offered a certain amount, just like other public sector 'vocational' workers, we're naturalised into thinking that that is what we should expect because we're doing it as a vocation. we've been imbued with the idea that people who do a job for the love of it don't need as much money as those who hate their jobs (which is the majority i would expect). money for people who hate their jobs can act as a substitute for fulfilment, and for people like academics who have jobs they love, fulfilment can act as a substitute for economic wealth. in other words, money is a scale of moral worth, as well as a measure of economic value. but these two scales operate in opposite directions and when the two intermingle these mixed signals are an excellent way of confusing us into submission. in my view anyway. yes we are vocational workers, yes we are highly-skilled but where does that leave the human? capital needs academics to reproduce capital, but we need capital to challenge capital... now deconstruction is great, but what about the concrete and the everyday? what is our 'place' as both representatives and opponents of the big 'C'? ant David McKnight wrote: > why are research assistants paid so atrociously? i mean 14k for > someone with a PhD is just bonkers > > David > >> Please reply to Richard Phillips: >> >> [log in to unmask] >> >> >> >> UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL >> >> DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY >> >> RESEARCH ASSISTANT: ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS >> >> A Research Assistant is required to work on an ESRC-funded research >> project on anti-war movements in the UK. The project involves making >> contact with and conducting interviews with specific groups of >> anti-war activists in London, Liverpool and Scotland. >> >> The successful candidate is likely to hold a PhD or be a doctoral >> student in a relevant field of the social sciences or humanities, >> based or able to work in either London or Liverpool. This post is for >> a period of up to six months full time, but this post is flexible and >> it would be possible to spread the work over a longer period on a >> part time basis. The start date is also negotiable, but might be >> around January 1, 2007. >> >> Salary based on annual range of £14,184 to £16,658 (pro rata) >> depending on experience and qualifications. >> >> Please contact Dr Richard Phillips for more information or to apply >> for this post, by November 10, at: Department of Geography >> University of Liverpool >> Liverpool L69 7ZT >> [log in to unmask] >> >> -- Anthony Ince Research Student Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End, E1 4NS www.iww.org.uk