BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Allowing universities to be guided by an invisible hand does more harm than good

University degree programmes, unlike other products like televisions or designer shoes, are tools of social mobility: unlike a TV, a good degree will help you to get other good things later in life (like a higher salary). This means that it is important that people have a fairly equal opportunity to access the best degrees. Market forces will make the best universities more expensive than the others, and mean that the best degree places are awarded not to the cleverest, but to those able to afford it. Universities are already elitist despite being open to all and being publicly funded. In the UK class is a major determinant of where you go to university. Oxford University only has 11.5%, and Cambridge 12.6% of its students coming from a working class background compared to an average of 32.3%1. This is a situation that will only get worse as students have to pay for the best private universities. 1 Davis, Rowenna, "Does your social class decide if you go to university? Get the full list of colleges." Guardian.co.uk, 28 September 2010,
Private Universities would risk reducing the quality of university degrees.

New private universities will not have a long standing reputation to keep up. They may not be as well regulated and they will have no social interest beyond simply getting money from their students. This means that they may well offer cheap and poor quality education in order to find a gap in the market. This could damage the reputation of other universities as Dr Paul Greatrix registrar of Nottingham University worries "If there are entrants who are on the extreme end of cheap and cheerful, this will damage our international reputation."1 In systems that are both private and state funded universities there is an immense divide between a few very good elite institutions that charge immense amounts and a much larger number of poorer quality universities. Take the US system, it is well known for its world class Ivy League universities. Its publicly funded universities however do much less well with only the University of Michigan near the top of the world rankings in 20th place. Of the state universities only those that do not face so much Ivy league competition over in California due to distance do well1. Having Private universities clearly creams off the best students and the funding leaving the public universities in a worse position lowering the overall quality of education. 1 Shepherd, Jessica, "What universities think of competing for their admissions." Guardian.co.uk, 28 June 2011.  2 Hotson, Howard, "Don't Look to the Ivy League." London Review of Books, Vol.33, No.10, 19 May 2011. improve this
Private universities would increase the divide between the rich and poor

Funding universities through taxation rather than privately allows poorer people in society to access university education because the government can increase access in three key ways. First, it can subsidise universities to decrease the price, second, it can exert pressure on universities to increase diversity within their student populations (by increasing numbers of people from disadvantaged backgrounds) and third, it can easily control peripheral support structures such as student loan schemes that become difficult to manage under a privatised system. improve this
The introduction of more private universities would increase the quality of education by allowing open competition

Universities can't be guided by an "invisible hand": the conditions in the higher education market are not such that optimum results will obtain from this sort of "free market" idea. There are several reasons why. First, demand for university courses fluctuates, and a low intake for a course one year, and therefore decreased funding, could unfairly penalise other people studying in that department, who are not free to leave (and take their money elsewhere) but simply have to suffer the decrease in quality until the end of their degree course. Second, universities don't operate in a true free-market system: the high start up costs (buildings, libraries) mean that it is very difficult for new universities to enter the market, even if standards in existing ones fall.Thirdly, there will always be those students who are poorer and have to go to the worse universities (if they cannot afford or do not want the burden of a student loan). A poorer student will either get a second rate education and waste valuable time and money or will opt out of higher education all together and accrue none of the benefits, since graduates typically earn more than non-graduates1. 1 Lexington, "Higher education: Is it really the next bubble?" The Economist, 21 April 2011, improve this
Offshoring exploits both individual workers and under developed states.

Investment in offshore outsourcing can easily develop into a form of economic and cultural imperialism. Offshoring encourages first-world governments and businesses to perceive underdeveloped countries as little more than cheap sources of labour and support for developed economies. The discourse that outsourcing creates does not focus on development strategies or the strengthening of weak economies, but on exploitation of the flaws and gaps inherent in the labour markets of developing nations[i]. Moreover, wide-scale exporting of roles dependent on specific forms of linguistic and cultural knowledge forces workers to adopt alien and over-simplified cultural practises – directly echoing the relationships between colonial-era employers and native service providers. [i] “The new masters of management.” The Economist, 15 April 2010. http://www.economist.com/node/15894358
Offshore outsourcing is consistent with existing labour distribution patterns.

Failures and defects in outsourced labour and products take longer to detect and are more expensive to remedy. Whilst customer feedback or angry employees may indicate flaws in outsourced support or payroll services, a company may only realise that a component manufactured by an offshore partner is faulty when they take delivery of it. The process of returning the component to its place of origin adds further expense to the costs caused by the delayed completion of a client firm’s product. Offshore outsourcing reduces the amount of control that a client firm can exercise over component manufacturing even further. The expense of sending supervisors to contractor’s factories will increase. In addition, an offshore contractor may engage in outsourcing itself, entering into relationships with dozens of sub-contractors. This practise further limits the client firm’s ability to control the practices used to produce the materials it has ordered. A client may not be provided with complete information on the actions of sub-contractors; inadequate auditing of a lead contract may conceal the existence of sub-contractors. In 2004, the aircraft company Boeing announced that it would use subcontractors (many of them offshore) to build the majority of the components that would make up its new 787 passenger jet. Many of Boeing’s offshore partners produced substandard components that failed to fit together or function properly[i]. Boeing inadvertently became entangled with a number of sub-sub-contractors who had been hired in order to meet deadlines imposed on sub-contractors without Boeing’s authority. When a number of firms engaged in the manufacture of key 787 components came close to financial failure, Boeing was forced to take them over and settle their debts. Boeing had concluded that the cost of bailing out its offshore partners would be lower than the expenses incurred by delaying the launch of its aircraft. Takeovers of failing outsourcing partners by larger firms are becoming an increasingly common occurrence[ii]. While, in the short term, this practice may enable the client firm to maintain production schedules, in the long term the cost of integrating a new subsidiary into a larger business may prove crippling. Moreover, bailing out an outsourcing partner does not provide a guarantee that they will complete the tasks assigned to them in a timely and efficient fashion. Especially in manufacturing dependent industries, but also in other sectors of developed economies, offshore outsourcing is indicative of flawed, short term strategizing that attempts to engineer higher profits by reducing investment in staff and taking unacceptable risks. [i] “The trouble with outsourcing.” The Economist, 30 July 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/21524822 [ii] “Boeing’s woes. Nightmareliner.” The Economist, 03 September 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/21528275
Offshore outsourcing accelerates the development of poorer states citizens.

The educational policies of developing states should not be tailored to the needs of businesses in the developing world. Arguably, cross border trade in commodities and products is as important for nations in the developing world as partnerships with wealthy companies in Europe and the USA. Cross border trade of this type requires skills distinct from those required by established forms of economic production (farming, heavy industry, resource extraction) and those required by the service industry. Development theory encourages poorer states to increase both their workforce’s skill base and the adaptability of their economies. The more flexible an economy, the more resistant it will be to shocks and changes in individual markets. Side proposition’s argument would lead to developing economies exchanging dependence on agricultural and manufacturing activity for a dependence on outsourcing. All forms of economic activity are vulnerable to crises and market failure. Side proposition can do little to prove that the service economy, or skilled manufacturing are inherently more robust forms of economic occupation than farming, craft or semi-skilled manufacture. Side proposition believe that individuals who are trained to serve a service economy will be inherently more adaptable and employable than those trained in fields tied to more traditional forms of economic action. Why should these two areas of expertise be mutually exclusive? The large families and highly integrated communities that are predominant in the most populace developing states should encourage the acquisition of a wider range of skills – the better to ensure that all economic eventualities will yield some form of profit and prosperity.
Offshore outsourcing accelerates the development of poorer states’ infrastructure.

Side proposition’s description of the economic processes underlying off shore outsourcing is overly optimistic, and makes claims about educational and industrial development in the first world that are highly contestable. By shifting production and support services to the developing world, western businesses are, in effect, circumventing protections built into first world employment laws designed to ensure that the demands of the market do not abrogate individual liberty or basic standards of welfare. Limitations imposed on market freedom, such as the minimum wage, are justified by the risk of incentivising businesses to cut wages to such a level that employees are forced into lives of subsistence, with restrictions on their spending power and mobility effectively tethering them to a particular employer or trade. Offshoring presents a direct challenge to the creation of liberal democratic ideas, norms and institutions within developing states. Offshoring favours states that provide a consistent supply of cheap, reliable labour – even if the availability of that labour is a result of poverty or government authoritarianism. An authoritarian state may ban unions, or create unbalanced labour laws that give no protection to employees. Businesses that engage in offshoring have no control over the uses that the taxes paid by their overseas partners are put to. It is frequently the case that undeveloped states will continue to underinvest in infrastructure and public services. Instead, tax revenue will be kept low enough to attract further investment, with takings spent on entrenching the position of undeveloped states’ controlling institutions and social elites. Such practices may ultimately undermine the development process within poorer nations. A diminishing supply of workers will be obliged to taken on the burden of a declining standard of living. Workers will be forced to pay for increasingly costly educational and medical services in order to meet the needs of their families and extended families. Payment of bribes will become common. Without sensible reinvestment of tax revenues, workers are likely to become dependent on foreign in order to meet their domestic needs. Eventually, excessive growth in dependency may push an economy into competitive decline, as the state fails to maintain the size or education standards of its working population.
Outsourcing reduces businesses’ control over their supply chains. Offshoring firms are difficult to manage and cannot easily be held to account for failings and errors.

Greater risk will simply oblige companies to be more diligent in screening and selecting the outsourcing firms that they choose to do business with. While examples such as the construction of the Boeing Dreamliner serve to demonstrate how outsourcing can go wrong, they do not undermine the value of the idea itself. Indeed, an increased emphasis on closely supervised and responsible outsourcing will only serve to bolster the business of firms offering legal and auditing services (some of which are off-shore operations themselves)– and a slight increase in transaction costs is not likely to deter the majority of companies who have already observed the benefits of outsourcing reflected in their annual accounts. It should also be pointed out that all sensibly run businesses should attempt to guard against the risks inherent in adopting new practices or forming new relationships by taking out insurance. Many insurers and underwriters are gearing up to assess and cover the costs of a collapse in the relationship between a businesses and an outsourcing partner. If the worst happens and a company is forced to pull out of an offshoring agreement, it will be able to use the money that it receives from its insurer to bring troubled back-office operations or subcontracted tasks back in-house. Increased competition within the outsourcing market, from both offshore and domestic businesses, will have the effect of forcing outsourcing firms to increase the quality and reliability of their services above the standard offered by their rivals[i]. Competition is likely to result in a net improvement of the standard or service available throughout the outsourcing industry. [i] Drezner, W D. 26 July 2007. http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/003414.html
Offshoring exploits both individual workers and under developed states.

It must be remembered that the offshore manufacturing and service sectors are relatively young. Workers have not yet had the opportunity to develop coherent collective bargaining strategies. It takes time for those involved in an industry to learn how to act as advocates for their own and their colleagues’ interests. Once these skills have become commonplace throughout the offshoring industry, workers will be better equipped to form unions and to hold their own governments to account over the lacunae and lax policy making identified by side opposition. Side opposition have adopted a somewhat orientalist line of argument by suggesting that developing economies are inherently weak and easy to subvert. In jurisdictions such as India quite the opposition is true; governments eager to control the effect of globalisation on domestic markets have adopted policies that inhibit the involvement of foreign firms in their economies. Businesses and politicians- both local and foreign- expend a great deal of political capital in order to make developing states accessible to the offshoring industry – often on terms that require workers’ welfare to be strictly monitored.
Offshore outsourcing accelerates the development of poorer states citizens.

Offshore outsourcing incentivises wider engagement with education in developing states, for longer periods of time. While- even more so than in the wealthy world- education is seen by citizens of developing nations as offering a path out of poverty or subsistence-level economic activity, worries about property rights, the breakdown of families and communities and the acquisition of essential skills may lead to schooling becoming a lower priority for older children and young adults. The connection between education, skills acquisition and improvements in income and living standards are not immediate. There is little impetus for workers and parents to pay for forms of education that are not directly linked to the sorts of economic activity that are predominant in their communities. In developing states that lack a growing service sector, the value of a qualification in science, accounting or computing cannot be immediately realised. This situation may prevent social mobility in one of two ways. Firstly, a child who is only educated to a certain standard, or who is encouraged to gain knowledge that is relevant only to a certain field, may be unable to adapt to changes in his economic circumstances later in life. A worker with training in computing will be able to compete for a much wider range of jobs than someone who only has a basic education that only focused on literacy. Secondly, although it may be possible to educate a teenager on the finer points of irrigation engineering or vehicle maintenance, the utility of those skills will still be limited by environmental factors. A teenager trained to construct a modern irrigation system will still find that his father’s farm fails when it is caught up in a drought or crop blight. By linking education to “traditional” economic activities, families are unable to take advantage of alternative sources of trade or income. Where a state fosters a healthy service economy, and offers additional benefits to foreign firms who employ its businesses as outsourcing partners, demand for highly educated workers will increase.
Offshore outsourcing accelerates the development of poorer states’ infrastructure.

Offshoring spurs the development of poorer states. Offshoring relies on the existence of a basic industrial base and certain essential forms of state infrastructure, including an education system. These facilities are likely to be partially or wholly absent in a developing economy. The readily available capital that is located in the developed world, along with the example provided by other developing states that have successfully engaged in offshoring projects incentivises investment in service infrastructure and high quality education. Many contemporary development strategies focus on developing a state’s industrial and agricultural sectors before its service economy. Expansion of developing states agricultural sectors is already proving to be a politically contentious issue, thanks to the generous and entrenched subsidies that farmers in the developed world are provided with. Resource extraction from developing states is not possible without ceding control of land and hiring of employees to wealthy supermajor oil firms, which exercise an effective monopoly over skilled geologists, miners, scientists and oil drilling experts. Under these circumstances, a conservative approach to development is likely to take an extremely long time to substantially improve economic prosperity and living standards within a poor state. However, an immediate focus on the service sector may allow a state to “leap frog” these developmental stages[i]. Offshoring provides businesses within a developing state with access to foreign markets far larger than those in their native economy may contain. This will allow offshoring businesses to take advantage of economies of scale and capital inflow in order to develop with greater speed. A state’s political culture will also stand to benefit from increased outsourcing. Offshore businesses will demand increasingly accountable, predictable and non-arbitrary forms of national governance. A level of reliability and foreseeability is essential in any system of civil law; so is a restrained, stable government that is prevented from using its power to expropriate private assets or spend tax revenue capriciously. [i] “Strengthening India’s offshoring industry.” McKinsey Quaterly, August 2009. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strengthening_Indias_offshoring_industry_2372
Outsourcing reduces businesses’ control over their supply chains. Offshoring firms are difficult to manage and cannot easily be held to account for failings and errors.

Companies that rely on directly hiring new employees to cover their back-office, estates and maintenance needs will not run the risk that the cost efficiency of those services might suffer as a result of union action or state regulation of pay. Companies that rely on outsourced offshored labour to fill back-office and administrative roles expose themselves to the risk that those relationships will be undermined, damaged or abused by legal disputes or negotiation failures. When a dispute develops between a business and a worker that it employs directly, the consequences of that dispute- in terms of lost productivity and lost profits- will usually be limited by the nature of the role that the employee occupies. It will be relatively cheap for a multinational firm to settle a dispute with a sacked cleaner. In addition, the loss of a single cleaner from a large facilities department will not compromise a company’s ability to do business. The situation is quite different when the services and productivity of an entire company department are dependent on a relationship with an outsourcing firm. The collapse of the relationship between the media firm BskyB and its outsourcing partner EDS resulted in combined legal costs of $70,000,000 and a court case that lasted for almost five months[i]. A dispute over the terms of a contract or a crisis within the state in which an offshore outsourcing service is based can cut a company off from the workers and systems that it has hired. If a company has transferred all responsibility for its payroll or customer support operations to an offshore location, it will be completely paralysed by disagreements or emergencies of this type. Ordinarily, the equity value and insurance liabilities of businesses could only be directly threatened by large scale union action, a failed product launch or the departure of a senior manager. However, the web of high dependency relationships that a business must enter into to remain competitive has now grown. By decentralising their authority and giving up their right to regulate relationships with its labour force on a one-to-one basis, businesses have exposed themselves to a greater amount of risk. [i] “The trouble with outsourcing.” The Economist, 30 July 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/21524822
There is ample precedent in the form of other “sin” taxes

Choosing to introduce a new policy based on experience with a different, seemingly similar case, is not a good idea. Tobacco and fatty food are vastly different things for a couple of reasons. An obvious one is the fact that fat is in fact necessary nourishment, even the trans-fat kind. Cigarettes on the other hand have absolutely no value to a persons’ health – their detrimental impact is quite infamous. A different one is the importance of dosage. While smoking is harmful in all doses, indulging in larger amounts of fatty food isn’t. Consuming what we consider “junk food” in moderation has no ill effect on health.[1] This results in legislating for any kind of fat tax much more difficult as the tax needs to allow consuming fat in moderation while preventing excess. [1] Roberts A., Let Them Eat Cake (Why Junk Food Is OK For Kids, In Moderation), published 5/9/2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-roberts/why-junk-food-is-ok-for-kids_b_858326.html, accessed 9/12/2011