I missed the original post, but if it implied that independent contractors get a free ride, it was dead wrong. I actually remember this, but I will quote from a law dictionary out of an abundance of prudence.

Independent Contractor: A contractor who carries on an independent business and contracts to do a piece of work according to his or her own methods without being subject to the control of the employer except as to the product or result of the work.

I think the important distinction is between "methods used" and "result obtained".  If I hire someone to fix my plumbing, I better be satisfied if the results are what I want. If I try to dictate the methods used, I will deserve what I am likely to get.

My take on Butko's comments is that he was saying to Thames: "back off or I'll take my grant-receiving, highly productive research somewhere else," which is exactly what labor is supposed to do in a "capitalist" system.

quote:

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Originally posted by: LVN
"Thank you, formerprof, that is exactly the sort of sensible analysis I was hoping to evoke.  The topic was getting lost on another thread.  The doctor/professor analogy is not perfect, but it's the only one I had any experience with.  However, the university concept actually grew out of the practice of very independent scholars holding their own classes, did it not?  It's been years since Medieval History, someone else can fill this in."

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Like most analogies, the one linking university professors to independent contractors eventually breaks down, useful though it may be in the short run. 

Universities are unique institutions, so analogies to other institutions will never quite fit. 

See e.g. the relevant paragraphs on the origins of universities in the "Schools" entry from the landmark 11ith edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica at  http://91.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SC/SCHOOLS.htm. 

I now see that the "schools" listing is less helpful than the "universities" listing, which includes the following paragraph:

The university, in its earliest stage of development, appears to have been simply a scholastic gilda spontaneous combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the analogy of the trades gilds, and the gilds of aliens in foreign cities, which, in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, are to be found springing up in most of the great European centres. The design of these organizations, in the first instance, was little more than that of securing mutual protectionfor the craftsman, in the pursuit of his special calling; for the alien, as lacking the rights and privileges inherited by the citizen. And so the university, composed as it was to a great extent of students from foreign countries, was a combination formed for the protection of its members from the extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident in medieval times to residence in a foreign state. It was a first stage of development in connection with these primary organizations, when the chancellor of the cathedral, or some other authority, began, as we shall shortly see, to accord to other masters permission to open other schools than the cathedral school in the neighborhood of his church; a further stage was reached when a licence to teach--granted only after a formal examination--empowered a master to carry on his vocation at any similar centre that either already existed or might afterwards be formed throughout Europe.

See at http://88.1911encyclopedia.org/U/UN/UNIVERSITIES.htm. 

Note that the difficulty of explaining our role to the present community is somewhat foreshadowed by the description of the original institution for protection again "extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident . . . to residence in a foreign state."  To the extent that we are Res Publica Litterarum, the analogy there still works.

Sigh.