Matt Sinclair has an interesting post up, in response to Will Hutton’s article, on the role of universities in promoting America’s hegemonic position. In short, Matt says that non-Western countries lack (in short) the cultural situation that allows Socratic method to flourish and that good academia attracts good academics.
To an extent, Matt is right, but he is mistaking symptoms for cause. If we look at the second point, which he refers to as network effects, we see the role of complex sequencing. Setting up a new university today is not the same as the creation of the Ancient universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Saint Andrew’s – the redbricks or even the plate glass universities. In the case of the American universities, a couple of hundred years of building up endowments means that promising academics in countries that do not have the traditions of freedom of speech and academic dialogue of the US are likely to end up overseas, hampering the development of an autoctonous academia. This explains Matt’s first point on cultural differences. Although I disagree with what seems a slightly Whiggish interpretation of history when Matt talks about cultural differences, the brain drain may result in reinforcing hostility to free speech. Geographic congregation for some skilled trades was noted by Adam Smith; this is a modern form of it.
There are other reasons that are essentially a result of complex sequencing. The de facto international language is English, which gives the US, along with a few other countries, a big head start.
xD.