Could be. Another possible explanation is that there is a large marketplace for anti-market thinking and that those who believe in the market are not competitive in that marketplace... ;)
A long-standing complaint of the political right is that academia displays a strong liberal bias. In a recent op-ed, Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle discusses two recent studies that document the overwhelmingly prevalence of Democrats among academics...
[T]he disproportionate share of Democrats is not in serious dispute. And no one who has spent time in academia would find any reason to think otherwise.
The facts raise an interesting question, however, and one that should trouble right-wing critics of the current situation: why is liberal dominance of academia a problem given that it represents a market outcome? That is, if liberal academics are so bad, why does the market support so many of them? Why is there not a demand for conservative universities? If one believes markets do things right, in what sense is the liberalism in academia excessive?
A possible response from conservatives might be that higher education is not a competitive market; a substantial fraction of higher education is owned and operated by state governments. This line is not persuasive, however, since many of the most successful colleges and universities are private, and they are every bit as liberal as their government counterparts.
So free-market critics of the liberal "bias" in academia need to think through their criticism. In what sense is Democratic predominance a problem? And what "market failure" is responsible?
Perhaps the truth is that many conservatives do not really believe in competition; instead they want conservative ideas imposed because these ideas are not doing well in the marketplace.
P.S. -- Arnold Kling shares his thoughts.
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