Via Robert Shibley at Insty’s place:
One academic who has written about his approach is Professor Asao Inoue, who claims that individualism is an undesirable aspect of “whiteness.” In his courses, students are not graded down for failing to write in standard English. Instead, he has implemented a “labor based” grading system in which students are graded on the basis of the amount of effort they claim to have put in on an assignment.
Why is this out of the Marxist playbook? Marxism postulates that what counts in production is not output, but input; i.e. that the eight hours worked by an assembly-line worker is equivalent to the eight hours worked by the company owner. (Also see: women’s professional tennis prize money “parity” at Wimbledon.)
Of course, anyone with a brain knows this to be false, but in the (Marxist) scheme of “equity”, reality has to conform to the dialectic. Or, to put it into quasi-academic language:
The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction. (American Heritage Dictionary)
I was under the impression that Asian culture places much more emphasis on the group over the individual than European culture so he’s being racist as well as Marxist.
I wonder how much his students pay him? Would he still teach if his salary were halved?
That’s “Labor Theory of Value”, and while it’s central to Marxist economics, it doesn’t originate with him.
Adam Smith sorta started it with his commodity pricing being based on the labor it took to produce it, and David Ricardo tried to make it actually work. Others (mostly Anarchists with a Capital A also espoused it).
It might work with highly fungible, simple goods (maybe various sorts of gravel), but for anything that requires thought or skill it’s straight up insane.
However, in certain kinds of classes in school–physical education is the biggest one–I can see “effort” being the biggest or only thing that matters. Hell, in terms of a good life *effort* in physical fitness is all that matters. Showing up and doing the work.
Other than that, no.
There are places where effort is rewarded, and Mr. B’Livion correctly picked the gym as an example. I claim to my fellow gym rats that I’m always the ass bustingest (Will our grammar Nazi host allow that adjective?) octogenarian in the gym. Since I’m the only octogenarian, my brag is true. But what is my reward? Should I expect Jerry Jones to sign me to a lucrative contract as a middle linebacker for the 2024 season? Not if I’m in touch with reality I shouldn’t. If I had been the hardest working guy in the gym 60 years ago should I have expected a lucrative pro athlete contract back then? Nope, I was a wimp then (and still am), and, while there are rewards for exercise, there are limits to what a wimp can expect. My limited ability limited my reward.
Similarly, when I got my engineering degrees in the sixties, the profs rewarded results as shown on tests, not claimed effort. They were developing competent engineers, not egotistical liars.