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The first American academics fleeing Donald Trump’s America for France have arrived.
Aix-Marseille University last week introduced eight U.S.-based researchers who were in the final stage of joining the institution’s “Safe Place for Science" program, which aims to woo researchers who have experienced or fear funding cuts under the Trump administration. AMU offers the promise of a brighter future in the sun-drenched Mediterranean port city.
While both France and the European Union have launched multimillion-euro plans to woo researchers across the pond since Trump assumed the U.S. presidency in January, AMU’s initiative was the first of its kind in the country — meaning the eight researchers who were welcomed are the first academic refugees planning to trade the United States for France.
Lower wages and lower research budgets in Europe are very tangible problems.
The reason USA attract so many high level scientists and researchers, is that they throw more money at it.
Despite that, I’m sure most researchers will find that you can do more with less here in Europe, both on research and with your private economy. And quality of life seems to me to be miles ahead compared to USA.
Well the USA is aiming to fix that by cutting a third of all education spending and by dismantling the entire department of education.
Even lower is more than zero.
Cost of living is significantly lower, and the social safety net means you don’t need as much anyway.
My gut feel is wages are so much higher in the US because everyone is responsible for looking after themselves if life turns on them, so you’re obliged to stockpile wealth in case you’re suddenly jobless or have a giant medical or education bill to contend with.
This. People can make more in the US because the country doesn’t give a fuck about it’s people. It’s like gambling the health and wellness of you and your family to horde up some Cash.
as if anyone in America is saving their money 🤣
There absolutely are. There are a lot of people at the top (not even billionaires) that are making tons of money as the working class suffer.
we’re talking about the average person; the idea that the average person in the US is using their higher income as savings to compensate for lack of social programs is delusional imo, I think most people have significant debt and will just fall between the cracks if they lose their job or get sick and can’t work, etc.
Sure. My point wasn’t that. My point is that there are still a not insignificant amount of people that are a part of the professional/managerial class who’s material interests align with that of the ruling capitalist class of billionaires.
There is still a portion of “working” people that benefit enough from neoliberalism that they continue to believe that capitalism is a fair system that benefits hard work.
sure, but it doesn’t feel particularly relevant, those people aren’t that different from less economically privileged working class folks who defend capitalism despite gaining no material benefit from doing so. The upper middle classes that align that way are still exploited in their jobs and victims of the system they align with, and that’s no different than everyone else. Division among the working classes doesn’t help our cause, and those middle upper classes would be some of the most valuable allies in cultivating change if their consciousness was raised, since they at least are not completely empty-handed. Think of people like Che Guevara who had such immense influence - he was precisely one of those middle upper class people whose consciousness was raised when he witnessed the American-backed coup in Guatemala.
I mean the average person in the professional/managerial class is not Che. The entire point is to analyze it from material incentives. That is the tools of dialectical materialism that we have at our disposal.
The material interests of the professional class aligns with the capitalist class. I’m in that class technically. I’m a well paid software engineer that gets a large portion of my pay in stock. I’m doing well.
I know that my material interests are aligned with the success of capital. I have to make a conscious choice to be a class traitor and work against my own material interests. And that’s easier for me. I’m not even a manager or a landlord.
You’re kind of proving my point using an example like Che. He literally was educated into Marxism through personal experience throughout motorcycle diaries.
The average person in the professional/managerial class is not like me and definitely not like Che.
Yeah. The top 1% of incomes is generally $500K - $1M depending on which site I look at.
In the eyes of billionaires, people at that level are just poors that get paid too much to keep them humble, but with respect to regular incomes they are the rich people building investment portfolios in things like stocks and being a landlord to 5-10 units.
focusing on income is distorting, socially and politically some of the wealthiest and most powerful people have the lowest incomes, it’s just not the best lens of evaluating power or wealth.
Very true. It’s like an order of magnitude difference, where 1% income is in the “approaching a million” ballpark, but 1%er net worth is above 10 million.
But relative to the billionaires like I was talking about, they are at about the same tier of “poor person but with class,” lol.
it is people, indeed
We call it savings, not hoarding. But yeah. You need it. If you lose your job here, you’re fucked.
One illness and it’s all gone. House, kit and kaboodle.
To be fair, it’s really one serious illness.
Not really. Could be something entirely fine but requiring monthly medication. If you can’t afford that. You’re fuck.
We have people rationing insulin in this country for Christ sake.
Well, sure, if we’re gonna bring in the do you have insurance factor, then it becomes a whole different game. If you don’t have insurance, I don’t even know. Death is probably imminent…
EDIT: Who is downvoting me? Fans of American health insurance corporations? Our system is trash, why are you mad at me?
Even with insurance. I had to take an ambulance ride once only to literally end up hanging out at the hospital with the nurses who put me on a saline drip and otherwise just chatted with me because it was a nice break, and the ambulance cost me $600 AFTER insurance.
The average American has less than $300 in their bank account.
There are plenty of people whose policies get cancelled or there insurance companies refuse to cover stuff.
For a lot of people in this country it’s hording. But I get what you mean.
Absolutely free healthcare and education are big parts of doing more with less, and quality of life.
But it’s also easier to buy a house or apartment, and quality food is cheaper, and paid holidays and on and on.
We have so many privileges Americans don’t have it’s crazy.
While that is true, academic wages are still laughably low in Europe, even compared to wages here.
You can earn more after 5 years in the industry than as a full professor in academia. We should pay academics more.
It was one of the reasons I left academia. I doubled my pay within two years.
I agree, but don’t forget that every year, things get harder because everything is trying to find more ways to take that extra money from you. From schools, companies, and government they are all figuring out ways to come up with new mandatory requirements for stuff that normally ends up being a new fee or payment on top of what you used to need. For example when you are in school, you probably need way more certifications in things which costs more money either by a 1 time fee or sometimes yearly fees and a lot of this never existed 20-30 years ago. I feel like we pay for literally everything, and it all keeps going up as well. It’s hard to get ahead when everyone wants a piece of your pie.
Attracted
That’s what we thought last time under Trump. But it turned out most scientists go for the higher wages and budgets in USA.
You seem to be using the present tense there rather than the past tense. Are you sure that’s still true. I was under the impression the Bibulous Bumbling Bill had slashed research budgets (among other things like medicaid) in order to fund billionaire tax cuts.
Not to mention the attempts to proscribe what can be researched that Harvard is currently litigating
Yes.
A lot of the highest paying research is corporate. And despite the shit Trump is doing, the wages are still higher at for instance universities too.
I have no idea how you can even doubt that, despite Trump is targeting everything that might be humane or to save the earth. Everything that has potential profits will probably receive more. Because USA has become very unattractive in many ways.
I feel like it’s very strange to not even mention the fact that many, many of these researchers have completely lost, or will lose the grants for the research that is the entire reason for their being in the field in which they are. They literally cannot do what they are there to do anymore. in addition, many additional folks are no longer allowed to work on or publish their projects because they are centered on or use some of Trump’s no-no words. There is way more than just salaries causing the brain drain out of the US right now.
Please expand on how the highest paying research is corporate, and how that proves your point. It sounds very much like the hand-wavy stuff people say before they start yelling because they have no argument, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. Are you yourself a researcher?
WTF?
The article even state this fact as a barrier to attract scientists to Europe from USA.
But here you go:
https://www.coursera.org/articles/research-scientist-salary?campaignid=20858198824&adgroupid=&device=c&keyword=&matchtype=&network=x&devicemodel=&creativeid=&assetgroupid=6490027433&targetid=&extensionid=&placement=&gad_campaignid=20854471652
Everybody who has followed this issue even superficially knows this!!
Universities in USA also pay more, because they are very commercially oriented, and American universities compete on prestige, and they have more money than other universities around the world.
Try to look it up, and find info to the contrary if you don’t believe it. This is freaking common knowledge!
It has only been 6 months. The effects of this administration will not appear in tables of budgets and salaries yet. Although in simple terms it will probably still look ok, it is far less attractive.
Cost of living matters too. From simple things like how much broadband costs (uk: £30 pcm, usa: $78 pcm) to an ambulance ride (uk: free, usa:$2000). The higher salary is an illusion.
I also note that every company in your list is a tech company. Researchers in other fields are probably not going to be as lucky.
Buying in instrumentation is also now more expensive due to tariffs so your research budget was effectively cut as well as being actually cut. Scientists with approved grants for equipment have had them revoked. Universities are advising not spending funds to provide contingency funds.
Of course it does, the article also mention that, did you even read the article?
Yes I did. Your point is simply “but… more money!!!” Ignoring that bigger numbers are not the whole story.