Why radicals in the professorate?

Neil Gross in the NYTimes:

But there’s reason to believe widespread reliance on adjunct faculty may encourage the very radicalism conservatives fear. Social scientists have found that when aspiring intellectuals face highly restricted employment opportunities, they often take refuge in extreme politics. In a 1996 study, the sociologist Jerome Karabel sought to identify the circumstances under which intellectuals, from would-be academics to writers and artists, embrace or rebel against the status quo. “Especially conducive to the growth of political radicalism,” he wrote, “are societies in which the higher levels of the educational system produce far more graduates than can be absorbed by the marketplace.”

Frustrated that their long investments in education and cultural cultivation haven’t paid off, intellectuals in such societies train their anger — and ideas — at the economic and political systems (and social groups) they hold responsible. Professor Karabel cited the example of Germany in the 1930s, when a slow-moving academic labor market increased the appeal of Nazism for a surprising number of underemployed intellectuals.

The same situation can breed support for radical movements of the left. Poor job prospects for American thinkers during the Depression helped draw many into socialism or communism. More recently, the sociologist Ruth Milkman found that well-educated millennials were overrepresented among Occupy Wall Street activists. These young people had spent their lives diligently preparing to enter the knowledge economy and became disillusioned when, after the financial crisis, it all seemed to be crashing down.