Rebellion of the Nerds

This article was officially syndicated...uh, well kinda anyways. Does electronically count? Probably not.

Published in the Daily Illini on March 27, 2006

Every year, new students roll on to campus expressing their newfound freedoms and rights. They rebel against their origins: their parents, their church, their hometown.

They think they are rebelling by constantly drinking and coasting through their education. But is that rebellion?

No. Rather, drinking and ignorance are the norm - they are conformists. While declaring a rebellion from the hopes of their parents and their school, they are actually conforming to the dominant campus culture. The OC-MTV culture prefers expensive bar drinks to free library books.

Who, then, are the rebels among us?

The real rebels have the audacity, confidence and courage to reject the dominant culture. The real rebels chase knowledge and truth until fatigue.
The rebels are invisible at night reading Emerson for fun, deriving equations not assigned by their professor, publishing political thoughts to the world on their blog or debating the origins of the Universe with friends. They head your Student Organizations and get A's in your classes. Rather than drinking until comatose in the Caribbean, the rebels use their spring break to alleviate poverty around the world.

They carve unique intellectual paths of resistance, curiosity and progress, rather than the ease, comfort and mediocrity of conformity. They are the upcoming generation of Cool Hand Lukes, "natural-born world shakers." Whereas the conformist seeks to find the identity and the composition of the group, the rebel seeks to find the identity and the composition of himself.

Many look at the 1960s and 70s as the time when the Hippies rebelled from established culture. But they led an uneducated and misguided rebellion. The real rebels were people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. Their rebellion remodeled our world.

Most of my peers blindly follow and march in step with the dominant intellectually apathetic culture. Others have consciously chosen legitimate philosophies for why college should be four years of fun. They appear as conformists, but actually rebel in their own way.

But, I write for the mass of students who have been stolen by the dominant campus culture. I write for those who have a thirst for intellectualism but see no alternative to the pervasive conformist culture.

I do not know the best way to live - after all, I'm just a punk who was mistakenly given a column. I do not suggest a Puritan life.

The culture that I critique is exactly what makes Illinois students unique and more well-rounded than our supposedly superior Ivy League peers. Harvardvarks lack the social skills, easy-going personalities, and friendliness that Illinois cultivates.

Illinois allows students to develop both intellectual and social skills. U.S. News does not know how to quantify and rank that kind of balance.

The problem is that most students have abused the social liberties granted by the University's atmosphere. Instead of fusing social and intellectual pursuits, most choose to cultivate only their social skills. This majority has become the dominant culture and publicly represents our undergraduates by consistently ranking Illinois as a top 5 party school.

The conformists and the rebels both give us valuable lessons on how to spend our four years. The challenge to University policymakers and individual students is unleashing the rebel to push back the advances made by the conformists. I hope for a symbolically violent rebellion to restore the balance.

Somewhere we lost sight of our original goal. Why are we at a University with the world's greatest minds if not to feverishly learn from them?

We all have the choice. We have the opportunity to comfortably avoid challenges or to bravely face them. Our four years allow us to choose whether we will improve the world or leave it without a trace.

Our Founders believed strongly enough in the experimental idea of democracy to declare war on the world's greatest military power. Learned revolutionary spirits built America, not conformists.

The American Revolution continues today by the hands of the campus rebels in an ever-unfinished pursuit to make humanity better. Their rebellion lies in seizing the opportunities presented by the University to better humanity, rather than marching in line with the mass of conformists who change little.

Billy Joe Mills is a senior in LAS. His columns appear on Mondays. He will long remember writing alongside his rebellious friend, Josh Rohrscheib - farewell. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.

Can Muslims be Democratic?

Good Pew data on whether Muslims in each country wish for "Western-style democracy"

Published in the Daily Illini on March 13, 2006.

Many arguments against spreading democracy in the Middle East rely on the assumption that Islam is inherently incompatible with democracy. Both conservatives and liberals argue that Islamic people are incapable of democratizing and joining the modern world. They are wrong.

There is a wealth of evidence in today’s countries, the Qur’an and Islamic history that supports the union of Islam and democracy.

Freedom House, a major international non-partisan organization, annually ranks freedom in every country. The Freedom House data shows that in 1995, 70 percent of majority-Muslim nations were not free, 28 percent were partly free, and two percent were free. But, in 2005, 50 percent were not free, 43 percent were partly free, and seven percent were free - a 50-50 tie between the past and the future.

More promising, in 2005, 610 million people lived in majority-Muslim free or partly free countries and 509 million people lived without freedom as ranked by Freedom House.

Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country - 88 percent of its population, or 213 million people, is Muslim. Indonesia is a liberal democracy, as ranked by Freedom House. According to the CIA World Factbook, Indonesia has a republic, universal suffrage, legal structures based on Roman-Dutch law and freedom of religion.

India has the world's third largest Muslim population with 144 million. Freedom House ranks India as a liberal democracy and one of the freest countries.

Bangladesh has the world's fourth largest Muslim population - 88 percent of its population is Muslim. Freedom House ranks them as an electoral democracy, or partly free. Bangladesh has a parliamentary democracy, universal suffrage, a legal system based on English common law, and freedom of religion.

The most progressive and promising Muslim country is Turkey. It houses the world's sixth largest Muslim population with 99 percent of its people practicing Sunni Islam. Kemal Atatürk, Turkey's first president, aggressively secularized the country with the hope to "raise Turkey to the level of modern civilizations."

Turkey is the geographic and symbolic gateway between the Middle East and the West. Today they have a parliamentary democracy, universal suffrage, civil law based on European systems, freedom of religion and abolished caliphates, or Muslim leaders claiming to be representatives of God.

*(The next paragraph originally appeared in the Daily Illini listing countries with significant Muslim populations, but I neglected to list many majority-Muslim countries. The list of majority-Muslim countries that are ranked as partly free or free by Freedom House are: Afghanistan, Albania, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Turkey, and Yemen. I feel that this is a better list and should have been the one printed, not the one below)*

Countries with significant Muslim populations that are ranked by Freedom House as either an electoral democracy or a liberal democracy include: Albania, Bangladesh, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Ghana, Greek Cyprus, Guinea-Bissau, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Turkey and Zambia.

Progressive Muslims, including political scientist Ahmad Moussalli, argue that not only is the Qur'an anti-authoritarianism, but it is pro-democracy. Moussalli points to the concepts of "shura (consultation), ijma' (consensus), al-hurriyya (freedom) and al-huqquq al-shar'iyya (legitimate rights)."

Muhammad's life lends credence to democracy. In 622 A.D. he authored the Medina Constitution that granted equal rights to all Muslims and Jews; "To the Jew who follows us belong help and equality. He shall not be wronged nor shall his enemies be aided."

The problem lays with the Arab countries, which have histories and economies that tend towards fundamentalism and Sharia. The Arab world is a snapshot of how the West used to look, with religion dominating society.

The region, not the religion, has produced terrorists. The problem is not a matter of abstract religious interpretation. Rather, it is more concrete. The problem is caused by poverty, history and geography - things that we know we can overcome given time. Furthermore, Islamic democracy does not necessarily have to be Western-style, just as Japanese and Indonesian democracy looks different than ours.

Many claim it is Western hubris to believe democracy can be successful in the Muslim world. The opposite is true. It is Western-centric and arrogant to believe that Islamic people are condemned to theocracy, violence and poverty. It is myopic to think that Islam is the world's only faith that is incapable of democratic governance and social modernity.

Muslims are fully capable of entering the democratic world, in fact, most of them already have. The innate desire to be free spans cultures and faiths. Democracy is not a Western idea, it is a human idea.

Billy Joe Mills is a senior in LAS. His columns appear on Mondays. Rohrscheib believes he is God's chosen messiah of the University. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.

Outsourcing Lies and Fear

Comprehensive analysis by Greg Mankiw himself, which unfortunately I did not discover until after writing my article.

This article was published in the Daily Illini on March 6, 2006.

Around the time of the last election, President Bush's Chief Economist, Gregory Mankiw, said outsourcing "is probably a plus for the economy in the long run." John Kerry indignantly responded the next day, "Unlike the Bush Administration, I want to repeal every tax break and loophole that rewards any Benedict Arnold CEO or corporation for shipping American jobs overseas."

Protectionist sentiments from the left and the right are the true threat to American prosperity and dominance, not globalization itself. Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, many traditionalists and politicians use outsourcing as a scare tactic to sell books or win votes.

But, let us look at basic economics and the data behind outsourcing.

Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote a best-selling book entitled, "Globalization and its Discontents." He describes the various groups of the world that are unhappy and bewildered in the globalization game.

But, in 2003, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 38,000 people in 44 major countries entitled, "Globalization with few Discontents?" Majorities averaging 80 percent in every country, and 78 percent of Americans, describe increased globalization as either "very" or "somewhat" good for their country. What explains these surprising findings?

The most widely cited statistics on outsourcing come from a 2002 Forrester Research study. It projected that a scary 3.3 million jobs would be outsourced from America between 2000 and 2015, averaging about 220,000 per year. That sounds like an insurmountable figure. Imagine 3.3 million decent and hard-working Americans bumming the streets due to the ruthlessness of evil corporate profit-seekers. The study also showed that one-sixth of those jobs would be white collar IT jobs.

We need a more complete picture and perspective of American labor economics to understand the impact of 3.3 million lost jobs. The entire U.S. economy employs 137 million people. One essential part of the labor markets is the constant cycle of creation and destruction. According to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), it is startling to note that between 1993 and 2002 a total of 310 million jobs were destroyed. But do not fear, 327.7 million were also created for a net increase of 17.7 million.

Compared to the robust U.S. economy, 3.3 million lost jobs spread over 15 years is paltry. In fact, 3.3 million is just 1 percent of the total losses from 1993 to 2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that even with increased outsourcing the economy will still show a net creation of 22 million new jobs between 2000 and 2010. Current unemployment is at a historically low level of 4.7 percent.

The accounting of outsourcing shows a net benefit to America, "MGI estimates that as much as $1.46 in new economic value is created for every dollar spent by American companies offshore ... America, meanwhile, achieves a benefit of at least $1.13 for every dollar spent." Even so, MGI estimates that 90% of U.S. jobs are of a nature that they cannot be done elsewhere.

MGI estimates that U.S. firms save 58 cents for every dollar they spend offshore. Just 5 percent of the wealth created by outsourcing would be needed to re-tool displaced workers for new jobs.

Every U.S. consumer also benefits from lower prices and the ability of companies like Wal-Mart to thrive. When consumers save it gives them greater disposable income to foster demand of even more goods and services, which leads to U.S. firms hiring more workers.

It is logical to assume that globalization is leading to a diminished U.S. presence in the world. But in 1978 American gross domestic product was 25.6 percent of the world's total GDP. Today, American GDP is 30.7 percent of the world total. Every time a trade occurs it creates more wealth for both countries - it is a positive-sum, not a zero-sum game.

The ability of the common American worker to evolve, learn and compete is unmatched. When competition looms we should not fear it but embrace it with the confidence that American workers have always been world's best.

Billy Joe Mills is a senior in LAS. He ate U.S. grown SpongeBob baby carrots while writing this column. His columns appear on Mondays. He can be contacted at opinions@dailyillini.com.