One of the reasons why I hauled out the MFA example is because it seems like such an egregious example to me of the “getting made” scenario. I should have added that, depending on the field, tenure’s value to the work being done seems (at least in my mind) to be in flux. So I think we generally agree.

But what I would also say is that, given current conditions, tenure and all of its benefits, which supposedly protect the marginal, are part of the reason why jobs for full professors are becoming so scarce. Which could be, in itself, considered a marginalizing effect. We’re talking about a generation of academics, after all, who will be subjected to pseudo-employee status for much of their early careers, partly because it’s become too expensive to keep them on full salaries and benefits. That, too, has consequences for the research and study that forms our knowledge base. (Though, again, probably not as dramatic an effect as hardcore advocates would argue, at least not in every case).

While I think its useful to sometimes debate the big trends and what they portend for people’s well being, it might be more important/productive to discuss specific policy proposals and what their likely effects are.

Basically, I do agree with you that there is a cost/benefit equation here, but the upsides to me seem generally unconvincing and the downsides grave. I wouldn’t advocate for a return to the 50s, obviously, but I think that it’s unacceptable to cast the global workforce into a state of precarity. Of course, I am quite aware that some people (especially people with a great faith in markets) will see the cost/benefit equation differently than I do.

My understanding is that the reason the post-WWII era had better job security was that firms were more profitable. Why were they more profitable? Because 1) they faced less foreign competition because foreign countries were educationally and technologically behind the U.S., and perhaps because they suffered more from the war.
2) they had more monopoly power within our borders as well

There are probably other reasons as well. The good news is that the economic competition that made our jobs less secure than they once were has also provided all sorts of comforts that were not available in the past. More living space, better access to information and education, many new forms of entertainment, lower priced and more diverse food and culture, new medicines, work that is more interesting for some (surely less interesting for others, hard to say about the net effect). I’m not saying that government should do nothing to ameliorate the downsides of economic competition, but if we only pay attention to the downsides then we will probably take actions with unintended consequences.

Do we agree here? or only mostly?

Like you, I’m not so sure that the work coming out of academia is uniquely, or even especially, worthy of the “protection” of tenure, at least no more than any other kind of work. That it would be defended by academics and their advocates is not surprising, of course, but I think that the rhetoric used to defend it (that academia must be this uniquely preserved/protected zone, and that tenure is key to that effort) is often overblown and overtly self-serving.

At the same time, inasmuch as many academic jobs in America are actually public sector jobs, I don’t see why university faculty–not to mention K-12 public school teachers–should be subject to a different set of employment practices than, say, police officers. Police officers can do all kinds of crap and leave with their jobs intact. And yet one only needs to turn on the TV or read a newspaper these days to hear certain segments of the public criticizing tenure for teachers on public payrolls. Granted, K-12 teachers are a far easier target than professors, so I don’t think the “plight” of the latter (largely imaginary) can be so easily rolled up into that of the former (pretty obvious/evident). But still, I think it’s worth taking into account.