Bernie's Blinders: How the structure of the higher education system in the United States shapes left ideas


Neil McLaughlin, McMaster University

The American higher education system is unique, structured as it is by the dominance of elite private institutions that are subsidized by the public because of their non-profit charity tax status. The American Left, including Bernie Sanders, wishes to raise income taxes on the corporate elite, raise the cap on social security so that the upper middle class and wealthy pay more, raise property taxes to fund schools and social services and use the tax system to address climate change but practically no-one on the American Left, including Bernie, wishes to make elite private colleges pay property taxes, endowment taxes and sales taxes. Why? This paper draws on the comparative historical sociology on American exceptionalism, the sociology of higher education, the sociology of knowledge and Erich Fromm’s notion of the “social filter” to theorize why the idea of taxing elite private colleges in the United States is a conservative and Republican project not a left-liberal project, something that makes little sense when one looks at the ideas of the left outside of America. 

This paper will be presented at the following session: