Democratic Education

[Havet]

I saw these two videos the other day and they simply put forth exactly what I thought about current systems of schooling and the new alternatives (which I had never heard of) which seem to be heading towards success.

Had you ever heard of democratic schooling? Do you know why the current system is inefficient and immoral? See the videos and share your thoughts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFRT9JKGPcI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-BgFPFb5fU&feature=related

[The Idler]

Haha, democratic schooling is a left-wing idea. Strange to see libertarians try and adopt it. Libertarian schooling would be paying for the best education based on what your parents earn regardless of your intelligence or personal preference. Didn't a libertarian once suggest every child should carry a gun to school for self-defence? Strange notion of democracy.

[Havet]

Haha, democratic schooling is a left-wing idea. Strange to see libertarians try and adopt it. Libertarian schooling would be paying for the best education based on what your parents earn regardless of your intelligence or personal preference. Didn't a libertarian once suggest every child should carry a gun to school for self-defence? Strange notion of democracy.

You're confusing right-libertarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarian) with left-libertarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism)

[Nolan]

I like it. I'm so sick of the current system of humiliation.

[IcarusAngel]

Bertrand Russell had some really good stuff on this. Basically he advocated the "contemplative habit of mind." Children learn best when they are free to pursue their own interests and understand the fundamentals of an issue. Critics imediately counter that they would ignore their weaknesses, which is why you have teachers to help them with their strengths AND help them build on weaknesses.

Modern science has proven Russell correct. Children often have a better learning rate than adults, and pick up language almost flawlessly. One child who was abused and locked in a basement for many years was found to be severely socially retarded, but shouldn't have been. They tried to teach him basics but were largely unsuccessful.

Furthermore, a wide variety of knowledge makes life more enjoyable, which disproves the "ignorance is bliss" philosophy. Because democratic-education would emphasize "calm consideration", "a willingness to call dogmas in question" "and a freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view" it would enable individuals to consider all questions in a tentative and impartial manner. It would thus work much like the scientific method, which enhances an open mindedness to fresh evidence on the part of mathematicians, physicists and philosophers in their attempt to reach truth.

In Praise of Idleness (http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Idleness-B-Russell/dp/0415109248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1263608122&sr=8-1)


I like it. I'm so sick of the current system of humiliation.

The goal of free-market education is to make people ignorant and docile; to make people essentially borderline retarded so they aren't able to challenge Mises etc. Even a little bit of logic is enough to challenge Libertarians; I had a Libertarian tell me all mathematics is reducible to logic, which was disproven years ago, and that Misean axioms are proven because they are logically derived from some ultimate reality.

As Adam Smith's said, the stupidest man possible is one who exists in a society in which the divsion of labor has run rampant. No man can be more ignorant than he.

“In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.” (WN V.i.f: 782)

His remedy for this was public education.

The goal of current capitalistic education, however, is based on the "cult of efficiency" where only the economic benefits of knowledge or the increase in power over others which these may bring are considered. Those who have the time and resources to pursue a democratic education unfortunately fail to do so, preferring instead "vigorous action" that brings greater control but little or no understanding about the wider purposes of life.

Since students are not taught how to evaluate things in education, this leads to unreflective action, which is essential to a consumerist society - the ability of the masses to be brainwashed to buy this or that product instead of analytically considering such products -- if they're needed, who they're controlled by -- and developing bullshit detectors that can help you spot BS when you see it.

A good article on that is shown here:


The secret of American schooling is that it doesn't teach the way children learn -- nor is it supposed to. Schools were conceived to serve the economy and the social order rather than kids and families -- that is why it is compulsory. As a consequence, the school can not help anybody grow up, because its prime directive is to retard maturity. It does that by teaching that everything is difficult, that other people run our lives, that our neighbors are untrustworthy even dangerous. School is the first impression children get of society. Because first impressions are often the decisive ones, school imprints kids with fear, suspicion of one another, and certain addictions for life. It ambushes natural intuition, faith, and love of adventure, wiping these out in favor of a gospel of rational procedure and rational management....

Between 1906 and 1920, a handful of world famous industrialists and financiers, together with their private foundations, hand picked University administrators and house politicians, and spent more attention and more money toward forced schooling than the national government did. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller alone spent more money than the government did between 1900 and 1920. In this fashion, the system of modern schooling was constructed outside the public eye and outside the public's representatives. Now I want you to listen to a direct quote, I have not altered a word of this, it's certainly traceable through your local librarians. From the very first report issued by John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board -- this is their first mission statement:"In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into men of learning or philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, (he's really covering the whole gamut of employment isn't he?) statesmen, politicians, creatures of whom we have ample supply (whoever the pronoun we is meant to stand for there). The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in an perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".



The author and educator shows that it wasn't John Dewey or Horace Mann that shaped public education, but capitalists like Rockefeller. Scary, scary stuff.

I recommend reading this:

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm


Haha, democratic schooling is a left-wing idea. Strange to see libertarians try and adopt it. Libertarian schooling would be paying for the best education based on what your parents earn regardless of your intelligence or personal preference. Didn't a libertarian once suggest every child should carry a gun to school for self-defence? Strange notion of democracy.


Yes, but the leftists dilemma is the fact that there are alternatives that are even worse.

At least with capitalist education you learn something, even though it is "business math" class if you will - education designed for a corporation. But still, some education is better than no education, capitalist or communist (Stalinist etc.) indoctrination included.

The fact that leftists ignore this dilemma and ultimately attacking only 'modern education' means that they will often inadvertently support the Libertarian solution: no education, or anything outside of the Mises institute.

That is, by far, worse than Rockefeller education.


I received a decent education in public school; at high school. We used the Geometry math book by Jacobs; which taught us how to do proofs. That's the only text book I remember by name (and I still think about what I learned and still have my notes) but I remember other books as well. I took some CS courses. I was taught how to do algebra, fractions, in elementary, and so on. I was well prepared for a computer science education at University.

So I learned something, and the fear of Adam Smith's "stupid man," who existed in America and England during the industrial revolution and still exists, who learns only through the division of labor, scares me about educational 'reforms.'

[Havet]

The goal of free-market education is to make people ignorant and docile; to make people essentially borderline retarded so they aren't able to challenge Mises etc.

I think we can agree that we don't have any free-market education, because if we had, we would see an aproximately similar number of democratic schools, cooperatively-funded schools, and traditional private (religious) hierarchical schools.


The goal of current capitalistic education, however, is based on the "cult of efficiency" where only the economic benefits of knowledge or the increase in power over others which these may bring are considered. Those who have the time and resources to pursue a democratic education unfortunately fail to do so, preferring instead "vigorous action" that brings greater control but little or no understanding about the wider purposes of life.

I agree with this. Most of the times when you listen commentators talk to tv they only gauge the performance of an educational reform by the number of people who manage to get a job.


The fact that leftists ignore this dilemma and ultimately attacking only 'modern education' means that they will often inadvertently support the Libertarian solution: no education, or anything outside of the Mises institute.

I think that you should start making distinctions between right-libertarians and left libertarians instead of just using the general term "libertarian".

Right-libertarians (typically minarchists, miseans or ancaps) support only private schools run for profit and some charitable institutions here and there to take care of the rest.

Left-libertarians believe that in a freer environment we would see a lot more democratic schools, as well as cooperatives and communes, with some occasional private schools who specialize in a certain subject.


I received a decent education in public school; at high school. We used the Geometry math book by Jacobs; which taught us how to do proofs. That's the only text book I remember by name (and I still think about what I learned and still have my notes) but I remember other books as well. I took some CS courses. I was taught how to do algebra, fractions, in elementary, and so on. I was well prepared for a computer science education at University.

I agree, and im willing to bet that EVEN some right-libertarians agree, that public state education is better than no education. What really boggles me is why should it be compulsory? If some education is better than none, you'd expect people to just go out of their free will to school, wouldn't you?


So I learned something, and the fear of Adam Smith's "stupid man," who existed in America and England during the industrial revolution and still exists, who learns only through the division of labor, scares me about educational 'reforms.'

Actually i've heard about an educational reform in Sweden (about 10-20 years ago) that was made and changed the way the public schools were funded:



Swedish law since 1992 mandates that the government separate the financing of schools from the administration of schools

Sweden’s independent schools are now financed on par with municipal schools, so long as they are approved. Since the reform, Sweden has shown the following advances:


- Competition created by this new supply of schools has increased performance in Sweden’s municipal (government-run) schools.

- Most independent schools in Sweden are run by for-profit educational companies, with no detrimental effects.

- There is absolutely no evidence that the new “voucher system” has created a scenario where the rich are supplemented in their private choices. In fact, poorer Swedes choose independent schools at higher rates than do wealthy families.

- Teachers’ unions in Sweden support the reform measures and indicate that they prefer to work in independent schools, where working conditions are better.

"School Choice Works! The Case of Sweden (http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/resources/swedenstudy0103.pdf)" (PDF) por Fredrik Bergstrom and Mikael Sandstrom.


What do you make of this?

[Skooma Addict]

The goal of free-market education is to make people ignorant and docile; to make people essentially borderline retarded so they aren't able to challenge Mises etc. Even a little bit of logic is enough to challenge Libertarians; I had a Libertarian tell me all mathematics is reducible to logic, which was disproven years ago, and that Misean axioms are proven because they are logically derived from some ultimate reality.

As Adam Smith's said, the stupidest man possible is one who exists in a society in which the divsion of labor has run rampant. No man can be more ignorant than he.

“In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.” (WN V.i.f: 782)

His remedy for this was public education.

The goal of current capitalistic education, however, is based on the "cult of efficiency" where only the economic benefits of knowledge or the increase in power over others which these may bring are considered. Those who have the time and resources to pursue a democratic education unfortunately fail to do so, preferring instead "vigorous action" that brings greater control but little or no understanding about the wider purposes of life.

Since students are not taught how to evaluate things in education, this leads to unreflective action, which is essential to a consumerist society - the ability of the masses to be brainwashed to buy this or that product instead of analytically considering such products -- if they're needed, who they're controlled by -- and developing bullshit detectors that can help you spot BS when you see it.

Yes, but the leftists dilemma is the fact that there are alternatives that are even worse.

At least with capitalist education you learn something, even though it is "business math" class if you will - education designed for a corporation. But still, some education is better than no education, capitalist or communist (Stalinist etc.) indoctrination included.

The fact that leftists ignore this dilemma and ultimately attacking only 'modern education' means that they will often inadvertently support the Libertarian solution: no education, or anything outside of the Mises institute.

That is, by far, worse than Rockefeller education.


I received a decent education in public school; at high school. We used the Geometry math book by Jacobs; which taught us how to do proofs. That's the only text book I remember by name (and I still think about what I learned and still have my notes) but I remember other books as well. I took some CS courses. I was taught how to do algebra, fractions, in elementary, and so on. I was well prepared for a computer science education at University.

So I learned something, and the fear of Adam Smith's "stupid man," who existed in America and England during the industrial revolution and still exists, who learns only through the division of labor, scares me about educational 'reforms.'

You need to first understand free market education before you critisize it.

[IcarusAngel]

I think we can agree that we don't have any free-market education, because if we had, we would see an aproximately similar number of democratic schools, cooperatively-funded schools, and traditional private (religious) hierarchical schools.

Free-market education has nothing to do with democracy and freedom. Free-markets are about acquiring resources and allowing individuals to "compete to participate" in purchasing your resources (competition by entering into wage slave contract X to get necessary resource Y [education]).

Don't confuse fascism with freedom.

Democracy is about people having direct control of education. It should indeed be advocated that everybody go to school.


I agree with this. Most of the times when you listen commentators talk to tv they only gauge the performance of an educational reform by the number of people who manage to get a job.

Which is why we should eliminate capitalism.



Left-libertarians believe that in a freer environment we would see a lot more democratic schools, as well as cooperatives and communes, with some occasional private schools who specialize in a certain subject.

Don't generalize. Left-Libertarian could technically include libertarian-socialists. We Libertarian socialists are syndicalists, not free-marketeers.


I agree, and im willing to bet that EVEN some right-libertarians agree, that public state education is better than no education. What really boggles me is why should it be compulsory? If some education is better than none, you'd expect people to just go out of their free will to school, wouldn't you?

The biggest problem you have with education is that its comulsory? That is the one equalizing factor of education.


Actually i've heard about an educational reform in Sweden (about 10-20 years ago) that was made and changed the way the public schools were funded:

Again with the right-libertarian, fascist sources. Sweden uses the state in this system. It is not about corporatist education.

I generally don't support voucher programs because they're elitist and preferential and allow one group of kids to succeed at the expense of the many. It puts a band-aid on a serious problem while opening up new wounds. Terrible idea.


What do you make of this?

It's hard to say because you again do not provide valid sources and make leaps in your logic.

Show what free-market education is.

Show how it is democratic.

Show that it is these 'free-market democratic' reforms that made the difference in Sweden, not the state's interference.

The voucher program in the US is a scam and it violates the constitution. The ruling class shouldn't violate their own laws.

[Robert]

The biggest problem you have with education is that its comulsory? That is the one equalizing factor of education.

And it really isn't compulsory. Many kids are home schooled. If that raises the question of why any education is compulsory at all, home school or otherwise, I'd say it's child neglect not to teach them basic literacy skills.

Presumably no one believes in a right to neglect their kids.

[Havet]

And it really isn't compulsory. Many kids are home schooled. If that raises the question of why any education is compulsory at all, home school or otherwise, I'd say it's child neglect not to teach them basic literacy skills.

Presumably no one believes in a right to neglect their kids.

In many countries it is forbidden to homeschool your own children. You have to bring them to state school, or they are taken away from you. Yeah...

[Havet]

Free-market education has nothing to do with democracy and freedom. Free-markets are about acquiring resources and allowing individuals to "compete to participate" in purchasing your resources (competition by entering into wage slave contract X to get necessary resource Y [education]).

Free-market education has everything to do with democracy and freedom, but you will never admit it, because you like conflating free-market with capitalism, and you believe that the current corporatist society is a result of a free-market, when I have consistently and historically proved how you are wrong.


Don't confuse fascism with freedom.

You just call fascism everything you don't agree with.


Democracy is about people having direct control of education. It should indeed be advocated that everybody go to school.

Advocated? Yes. Forced? No.


Which is why we should eliminate capitalism.

Hey, no quarrel here.


Don't generalize. Left-Libertarian could technically include libertarian-socialists. We Libertarian socialists are syndicalists, not free-marketeers.

Left-libertarian does include libertarian socialists and a more "propertarian" branch (within rational limits) comprised of agorists, geolibertarians and mutualists.


The biggest problem you have with education is that its comulsory? That is the one equalizing factor of education.

Yes. I do not see why my future children should be coerced into state school instead of being home-schooled.


Again with the right-libertarian, fascist sources.

Idiot, just because you don't agree with it DOESN'T mean its fascist. Educate yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist), for crying out loud...


Sweden uses the state in this system. It is not about corporatist education.

Read the fucking article before you comment on it, kay?


I generally don't support voucher programs because they're elitist and preferential and allow one group of kids to succeed at the expense of the many. It puts a band-aid on a serious problem while opening up new wounds. Terrible idea.

I agree that it only puts a band aid, but i don't agree that it opens new wounds.

Would you care to prove how voucher programs are elitist and preferential and allow one group of kids to succeed at the expense of the many, or are you just going to keep throwing empty sentences?


Show what free-market education is.

Show how it is democratic.

Free-market education is any education that is not compulsory (freedom to trade goods and services), including paid for private schools, paid for cooperative and democratic schools and free "charity" schools.


Show that it is these 'free-market democratic' reforms that made the difference in Sweden, not the state's interference.

I did not say that these reforms where either free-market or democratic. I just presented them to see if you had any more evidence about them besides the one I had already collected.


The voucher program in the US is a scam and it violates the constitution. The ruling class shouldn't violate their own laws.

Proof that it violates the constitution? Where does it even say in the constitution that the State should pay for ANY education?

[The Idler]

I think we can agree that we don't have any free-market education, because if we had, we would see an aproximately similar number of democratic schools, cooperatively-funded schools, and traditional private (religious) hierarchical schools. I agree with this. Most of the times when you listen commentators talk to tv they only gauge the performance of an educational reform by the number of people who manage to get a job.I think that you should start making distinctions between right-libertarians and left libertarians instead of just using the general term "libertarian". Right-libertarians (typically minarchists, miseans or ancaps) support only private schools run for profit and some charitable institutions here and there to take care of the rest. Left-libertarians believe that in a freer environment we would see a lot more democratic schools, as well as cooperatives and communes, with some occasional private schools who specialize in a certain subject. I agree, and im willing to bet that EVEN some right-libertarians agree, that public state education is better than no education. What really boggles me is why should it be compulsory? If some education is better than none, you'd expect people to just go out of their free will to school, wouldn't you? Actually i've heard about an educational reform in Sweden (about 10-20 years ago) that was made and changed the way the public schools were funded:



Swedish law since 1992 mandates that the government separate the financing of schools from the administration of schools

Sweden’s independent schools are now financed on par with municipal schools, so long as they are approved. Since the reform, Sweden has shown the following advances:


- Competition created by this new supply of schools has increased performance in Sweden’s municipal (government-run) schools.

- Most independent schools in Sweden are run by for-profit educational companies, with no detrimental effects.

- There is absolutely no evidence that the new “voucher system” has created a scenario where the rich are supplemented in their private choices. In fact, poorer Swedes choose independent schools at higher rates than do wealthy families.

- Teachers’ unions in Sweden support the reform measures and indicate that they prefer to work in independent schools, where working conditions are better.

"School Choice Works! The Case of Sweden (http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/resources/swedenstudy0103.pdf)" (PDF) por Fredrik Bergstrom and Mikael Sandstrom.


What do you make of this?

Yes, democratic schools are a good thing and we need them, but they will need public funding, they will not naturally arise in a free market. Tertiary education is a good example of a free market and there are no democratic schools/curriculum there. All education is short-term unprofitable (without private tuition fees) and needs public funding if pupils are to have equal access. I agree that beyond literacy and numeracy any more public control of curriculum (but not funding) should be extremely limited, but that does not make me a libertarian (left or right). Democratic schooling should be implicit in any genuine form of socialism. If Sweden can fund public-controlled curriculum with private money, great, but public funding isn't the problem, its a democratic curriculum that is the problem. Vouchers systems use public funding for private curriculum which is even worse.

[革命者]

Teaching practices now are very effective for eproducing capitalism, and likewise it can be used for socialism. It's a matter of what you teach, not how. It has to be compulsory for you need education (or a good bringing-up) to appreciate education, sadly; society is cynical about most knowledge; it's just the postmodern era we're living in.

Maybe you should read some critical literature on administrative progressivism and social constructivism, developed by the behaviourists Thorndike and Vygotsky. Both came from (countries at) different ends of the political spectrum, but both wanted to train individuals into (too) specific societal roles, disregarding the possibility of them needing expert guiding (Vygotsky) or cognitive skills for intellectual self-realisation or to more easily use new skills (Thorndike). These ideas exist in education since educational "scientists", pedagoges, sociologists, management "scientists" and (educational) psychologists were educated these ideas, and after graduation were employed by the public sector or by consultancy firms implementing change within schools.

These people destroy education and consequently our civilisation. They make them into obedient workers unaware of the things and thoughts that led to the society they live in; they can't adept to change and can't think for themselves.

I haven't watched the YouTube-video.

[IcarusAngel]

Free-market education has everything to do with democracy and freedom, but you will never admit it, because you like conflating free-market with capitalism, and you believe that the current corporatist society is a result of a free-market, when I have consistently and historically proved how you are wrong.

Most historians and political-scientists noticed when the free-market was allowed to run rampant there was an even greater consolidation of resources, a weaker public participation in civic engagement (voting, building communities, etc.), and less social mobility for the working class. (Krugman et al. have discussed this a lot.)

Even most working people are somewhat aware of this, and the democrats practically have run on that platform from time to time.

The free-market is about individuals owning private property and forcing everybody else to pay a fee.

You don't even advocate capitalism, though, in that you advocate people "voluntarily" donate their time to establish certain goods and then you allow them to be privatized, which is actually slavery since people are kept so poor in your version of free-market. You might as well just tell everyone to be a slave to a corporation, at least that is called "capitalism," not slavery.



Advocated? Yes. Forced? No.

So people should be ableo to send their kids to work and not get an education, as it was during the Gilded Age when children made up more than a quarter of the work force?

Welcome to the antiquated theories of child abule of another market fascist.

Of course you don't want people to have an understanding of history, logic, math, reason, as then they wouldn't be able to properly refute your numerous errors of logic, fallacious sourcing techniques, etc.


Left-libertarian does include libertarian socialists and a more "propertarian" branch (within rational limits) comprised of agorists, geolibertarians and mutualists.


Yes and Libertarian socialists do not advocate replacing capitalism with "free-markets" - they are closer to traditional anarchists who favored replacing it with worker cooperatives that are democratically run.



Yes. I do not see why my future children should be coerced into state school instead of being home-schooled.

Yes, home-schooling where you can be indoctrinated into believing the earth is 6,000 years old or drowned in the bathtub and murdered by your fundamentalist parents.


Idiot, just because you don't agree with it DOESN'T mean its fascist. Educate yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist), for crying out loud...


Actually Friedman supported fascist dictatorships and his economic experiments in Latin America led to 10 to 20 million deaths. Free-markets just don't work.



Read the fucking article before you comment on it, kay?


I'm not reading anything from a free-market institutions. I hear enough free-market theory from conservatives on TV.



I agree that it only puts a band aid, but i don't agree that it opens new wounds.

Would you care to prove how voucher programs are elitist and preferential and allow one group of kids to succeed at the expense of the many, or are you just going to keep throwing empty sentences?


Of course voucher programs are failures. Rather than sending kids to public schools they go to private schools, but they do not provide the parents with enough money to go to the elite private schools. They thus end up going to "private schools" that are no better than public ones (in fact, there are many public schools that outcompete the best private ones), and you end up creating a whole system of second rate private schools that the poor kids can't even get into while defunding public education, which is free.

That is why I'm opposed to vouchers. Second of all it allows the private sector to have too much input, to the point where corporations like Exxon, Mercedes-Benz USA, and coca-cola start having input in the classroom. These companies have set up "experiments" in low funded public schools that are based on surveying techniques and the economics of corporations, and NOT real learning. Exxon mobile's environmental propaganda includes the belief that deforestation is a good thing.

So yes, a privatized system is even worse, and it certainly isn't democratic given that large actors, not the public, get to manipulate the vote.


Free-market education is any education that is not compulsory (freedom to trade goods and services), including paid for private schools, paid for cooperative and democratic schools and free "charity" schools.

All free-markets are compulsory and are slavery. There isn't even a single theory in political science that says that free-markets do NOT require force to implement, namely, the tyrannyof private property.



Proof that it violates the constitution? Where does it even say in the constitution that the State should pay for ANY education?


The US shouldn't fund private schools, which are run by religious institutions. That violates the bill of rights. Also, favoring one industry over another, which is what happens in capitalism, should probably violate the commerce clause.

[ComradeMan]

Most education is indoctrination. A true educator would hand a child a book and ask them what they think and talk about it.. Some things obviously need to be taught like reading, writing and maths but I believe the rest should be guided. A teacher should be someone who helps a child to learn, not an instructor.

[Havet]

You know what IcarusAngel? You're so full of shit i'm not going to even bother replying. Your constant strawmans and non sequiturs are laughable. You never argue with logic or with sense (and i'm not saying this just because i don't agree, i'm saying this because of what you say and how you say it).

You're pretty much the definition of a troll. Have fun with your popular beliefs, although they will only get you so far.

[Havet]

Teaching practices now are very effective for eproducing capitalism, and likewise it can be used for socialism. It's a matter of what you teach, not how. It has to be compulsory for you need education (or a good bringing-up) to appreciate education, sadly; society is cynical about most knowledge; it's just the postmodern era we're living in.

I don't get it, why does education have to be compulsory?

I was not forced to learn about electromagnetism in order to appreciate it, i discovered it on my own.

There are subjects which should be minimum requirements, but I think that for everything else the child doesn't need to be coerced into anything, it just needs a guide for when he/she is confused and has some questions.

By the way, it might be of interest for you to really watch the two videos.

[Havet]

Yes, democratic schools are a good thing and we need them, but they will need public funding, they will not naturally arise in a free market. Tertiary education is a good example of a free market and there are no democratic schools/curriculum there. All education is short-term unprofitable (without private tuition fees) and needs public funding if pupils are to have equal access. I agree that beyond literacy and numeracy any more public control of curriculum (but not funding) should be extremely limited, but that does not make me a libertarian (left or right). Democratic schooling should be implicit in any genuine form of socialism. If Sweden can fund public-controlled curriculum with private money, great, but public funding isn't the problem, its a democratic curriculum that is the problem. Vouchers systems use public funding for private curriculum which is even worse.

Of course all schools must be funded, but I do not understand why there should be an institution with a monopoly of force who coerces people into funding schools. People should join together naturally, pool resources and fund their own schools, and we would see far more democratic schools, private schools and cooperative schools. Just because it is a free-market doesn't mean it has to be profitable at the expense of someone (take cooperatives for example)

[Robert]

Also, favoring one industry over another, which is what happens in capitalism, should probably violate the commerce clause.

Equal protection, actually, but who's counting?

Looks to me like there are some home schooling success stories (http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200312/200312040.asp)
and some public school disasters. (http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2009/dec/23/data-app-best-and-worst-public-schools/)

No doubt there are good and bad of both types.

Note that "When [Texas public] schools missed the mark in particular subjects, it overwhelming happened in science, math, or both." http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2009/dec/23/data-app-best-and-worst-public-schools/

[IcarusAngel]

You know what IcarusAngel? You're so full of shit i'm not going to even bother replying. Your constant strawmans and non sequiturs are laughable. You never argue with logic or with sense (and i'm not saying this just because i don't agree, i'm saying this because of what you say and how you say it).


You don't want to argue with it because you know that I have the sources on my side, you do not. Even Adam Smith said that free-markets, left to run rampant, would harm society overall.

All political science sources note the free-market leads to consolidation of resources.

You have no sources on your side - whether it be discussing global warming, or discussing free-markets, or computer programming - and so when you lose the debate you run away or start throwing ad-hominems out like a coward.


You're pretty much the definition of a troll. Have fun with your popular beliefs, although they will only get you so far.

Well, hopefully they will get me farther than fascist beliefs and extremist, idiotic beliefs like those promoted at the von Mises institute.

[IcarusAngel]

People should join together naturally, pool resources and fund their own schools, and we would see far more democratic schools, private schools and cooperative schools. Just because it is a free-market doesn't mean it has to be profitable at the expense of someone (take cooperatives for example)

This is technically what DID happen. People got together, decided a government should act on behalf of the people, and funded it.

By your logic the government is voluntary. It certainly would be more voluntary than one or two private corporations who controlled the resources, and have absolutely NO PUBLIC INPUT whatsoever.

Furthermore, what you purpose violates the United States constitution (no government acknowledgement of religion of ANY kind) and is a biased funding of privatized institutions.

[IcarusAngel]

Equal protection, actually, but who's counting?

Looks to me like there are some home schooling success stories (http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200312/200312040.asp)
and some public school disasters. (http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2009/dec/23/data-app-best-and-worst-public-schools/)

Yes and the Texas woman who drowned her five kids to death was also an avid proponent of home-schooling. The reality is that home-schooling puts a huge burden on the parents - usually the woman - to raise the kids, a burden I wouldn't want to put on women.

Actually public schools are very liberating to women in the sense that it gives them time off, and public 'babysitting' should exist in any society in some form.

You're also forgetting that not everybody has access to home-schooling, while technically everybody has access to public education.

[Robert]

You're also forgetting that not everybody has access to home-schooling, while technically everybody has access to public education.

I didn't "forget." And I think the reference to Andre Yates is intriguing but reckless. It's impossible to know whether she would have snapped anyway.

That said, I think home schooling is in general a very bad idea. But if I were living in an extremely bad school district and/or my kids were being seriously bullied, then sure, it would have to be considered. At a minimum these home schoolers should b grouped with other home schoolers.


public 'babysitting' should exist in any society in some form.

If that means all parents deserve an occasional break from each other, fine by me. But "public"???

[革命者]

Electromagnetism is not the only (or foremost) thing you should learn. You should for example learn about economics and philosophy, read Marx as well Smith, or better yet, have a teacher teach you about them, making you interested in things that matter but which you had not discovered on you own; things that are new and give you new insights, not only following in the footsteps of those around you when it comes to your interests or being interested in discovering things at all; the latter case is certainly not uncommon.

It gives you a fair and equal change of self-realisation, and you are unlikely to understand that at a young age. And that's when you have the most chance of laying a good foundation to further your knowledge and chances in society, and not to stay behind on others.

There are more things I wrote on these topics in the other forums.

And I will watch the videos once I am behind a computer capable of showing them.

[Nwoye]

Schools are the same as prisons: They take individuals detrimental or at least not beneficial to society and instill them with the values and skills necessary to make them productive members of society, literally citizens who produce wealth. Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in its hands and at whom it is aimed. In modern times it's the bourgeoisie who holds the weapon against the proletariat and its effects are to repreduce the material conditions necessary for the perpetuation of capitalism. Democratically run schools (which I and I think other people here would love to see) stands in direct opposition to these goals, and as such the education system remains unchanged.

[IcarusAngel]

The educational system is changing: it's becoming more corporatist; so it's actually getting more free-market like. It's getting worse in many ways.

What do you think happens when you live in a society in which the most powerful actors are corporations and you begin to privatize it? It'll turn to America's college system, who receive millions of dollars from govt, and yet continue to raise prices. Except it won't even have the wonderful resources of the colleges.

Democracy and free-markets are compatible only in the sense of social democracy, which is not being advocated here by anybody but Robert and I - which is weird.

[Robert]

There are more things I wrote on these topics in the other forums.

Well, good. Thank you, I guess. But are you any more qualified than me or the other posters here to opine?

Organized Confusion, I can tell you put some energy into your post, but what it makes me really think is this: once you get this "Bourgeoisie versus proletariat" mindset, there must be very little in the way of any institutions that one can favor, right? Pro sports, church, home schools, public schools, religious schools (yikes! right?), mainstream political parties, and on and on. They're all manifestations of some massive exploitative machine. Frankly it makes you guys sound extremely pissed off 90% of the time. Whatever, it's your life.

Also I note that you actually may be more aligned with Hayenmill than Icarus on this. If it so perpetuates Bourgeois ideals, you presumably can't support compulsory public education(?)

[革命者]

Prisons take away freedoms by definition, while schools can give you the freedom to think for yourself.

A democratic State should dictate what is taught in schools, to give society the people it needs. All people are shaped by the knowledge they acquire and a selection of all available knowledge is always made for them, by others. At least give all people the chance to acquire the knowledge they need to make unbiased and critical analysis of the society in which they'll function, to understand, criticise and improve it.

[Robert]

The educational system is changing: it's becoming more corporatist; so it's actually getting more free-market like. It's getting worse in many ways.You disapprove of the status quo, but you also disagree with Hayenmill that it should be optional. What's left?

Do you want to ... reform it?

[革命者]

Well, good. Thank you, I guess. But are you any more qualified than me or the other posters here to opine? No, but it just might further clarify the points I made here.

[IcarusAngel]

I didn't "forget." And I think the reference to Andre Yates is intriguing but reckless. It's impossible to know whether she would have snapped anyway.

That said, I think home schooling is in general a very bad idea. But if I were living in an extremely bad school district and/or my kids were being seriously bullied, then sure, it would have to be considered. At a minimum these home schoolers should b grouped with other home schoolers.

I agree with you. I'm not opposed to allowing kids to be homeschooled. Interestingly, Jacobs' book that I mentioned earlier is quite popular with home schooled students:

http://homeschoolchristian.com/curricula/reviews/geometrybyjacobs.php

(Unfortunately I've heard the third edition was dumbed down a lot, and the proofs mostly removed.)

Perhaps home-schooled children and public school children could share resources? Take the same tests? etc.?


If that means all parents deserve an occasional break from each other, fine by me. But "public"???

"Among Russell's other democratic proposals is a series of arguments for the emancipation of women, particularly working-class women, from the slavery of housework. While he applauds the fact that a growing number of professional women were finding employment outside the home in the 1920s, only socialist reform would enable working-class women to enjoy the same opportunities. In 'Architecture and Social Question', he argues that the social isolation of working-class families in dingy, over-crowded and often unhealthy quarters hinders women from participating in social and economic life. Publicly funded apartment buildings in which a communal kitchen, dining room and leisure centre, as well as a sunlit quadrangle and nursery school, were provided would enable such women to work for a living and enjoy a certain leisure time away from their families. [1] Moreover, their children would be carefully looked after, well fed and given the freedom of movement necessary to lead healthy and inquiring lives. Russell seems to have in mind here the kind of school which he and Dora Russell ran for several years at Beacon Hill, with its ideals of 'fearless freedom' and peaceful co-operation. Although he came to think of the school as a failure, Russell did not abandon all of its ideals."

[1] Russell acknowledges that considerable resistance to this idea would come from wage earners themselves but beleives that wome's determination to earn a living and gain more leisure time ensures their increased independence.

What's wrong with that?

In fact, Hong Kong ran and still runs numerous public housing projects. Public housing is something that the state could be justified in doing, because everybody should have a home so that they voluntarily enter into the work force.

Interestingly, Chomsky was educated at a Deweyite school, and at public school, where he outperformed most other students. He remembers the Deweyite school. Berlinski has described Chomsky's contributions "as big as Galileo's" so he's at least one success story from there.

[Robert]

At least give all people the chance to acquire the knowledge they need to make unbiased and critical analysis of the society in which they'll function, to understand, criticise and improve it.

Great post. I know no one who disagrees.

Do you feel that you already have this system in the Netherlands?

[IcarusAngel]

You disapprove of the status quo, but you also disagree with Hayenmill that it should be optional. What's left?

Do you want to ... reform it?

To be honest it's another issue best left until after the revolution.

Certainly I oppose "free-market" reforms that people like hayenmill purpose - when in fact when we had privatized education it was a disaster and necessitated the need for public education in the first place.

The American radical tradition has supported public schools: Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson come to mind (see his writings where he suggests people should be educated through college, and his beliefs that ignorant opinion [such as hayenmill's opinions] may be tolerated provided that reason is left free to combat it.

It was also advocated by enlightenment thinkers from Smith to Rousseau (who was the first to suggest women should be educated) that people should be receive an education.

And socialists have generally supported it. The book "Mathematics for the Millions" (get it? mathematics for the people in other words) and other books were designed to get socialists as educated as possible.

Hayenmill has written mountains upon mountains of nonsense on this forum that is never corrected: that computers were invented by "capitalists" and that free-market education outcompetes state education blah blah blah, without a single piece of social theory to back it up.

[革命者]

Great post. I know no one who disagrees.

Do you feel that you already have this system in the Netherlands?This improvement of society includes education. Since we have publically-funded education, we have improved the chances of many, but certainly not for all and for all equally.

[Robert]

Perhaps home-schooled children and public school children could share resources? Take the same tests? etc.?Sure, and I think they do (take the same tests). All of these home schooling parents know the story and, yes, the probable lesson of Andrea Yates. They do get together, though probably not enough.

Just ran across some interesting observations of some Catholic writers on education that are apropos:

Catholic and Western tradition have always held that education is communal. Since man is a political or social animal -- as Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Thomas Aquinas tell us -- we must never neglect the communal dimension of education. Nothing short of complete family engagement -- father, mother, and child -- in the learning process will secure a proper education.

....

The common approach to homeschooling today is inherently dangerous, because it may go against what our entire Western tradition and the Catholic Church herself teach about the education of the young -- that education should not be done in the home, at least not for long, except during a time and place of crisis. (emphasis in the original --R)

....

Let us consider three Church pronouncements. First, Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical on education, Divini Illius Magistri:

Education is essentially a social and not a mere individual activity.... The family is an imperfect society, since it has not in itself all the means for its own complete development; whereas civil society is a perfect society, having in itself all the means for its particular end.

The Second Vatican Council's document on Education, Gravissimam Educationis, affirms this social goal of education:

Education, the fathers wrote "is directed toward the formation of the human person in view of his final end and the good of that society to which he belongs and in the duties which he will, as an adult, have a share."

Most recently, the Church's Compendium of Social Doctrine states:

Parents are the first educators, not the only educators, of their children. It belongs to them, therefore, to exercise with responsibility their educational activity in close and vigilant cooperation with civil and ecclesial agencies.

The Compendium goes on to describe the "primary importance" of parents working with "scholastic institutions" in the education of their children.

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6871&Itemid=48

I am actually a little surprised that the article does not express more hostility to the extreme secularity of U.S. public schools, thought the article is mostly directed at Catholic home schoolers.

[Nwoye]

Well, good. Thank you, I guess. But are you any more qualified than me or the other posters here to opine?

Organized Confusion, I can tell you put some energy into your post, but what it makes me really think is this: once you get this "Bourgeoisie versus proletariat" mindset, there must be very little in the way of any institutions that one can favor, right? Pro sports, church, home schools, public schools, religious schools (yikes! right?), mainstream political parties, and on and on. They're all manifestations of some massive exploitative machine. Frankly it makes you guys sound extremely pissed off 90% of the time. Whatever, it's your life.
well yeah I mean all leftists are just angsty teens amirite.


Also I note that you actually may be more aligned with Hayenmill than Icarus on this. If it so perpetuates Bourgeois ideals, you presumably can't support compulsory public education(?)
I'm not sure. There is of course a difference between public education in a capitalist society and public education in a communist one, the latter being something everyone here supports.

[Robert]

well yeah I mean all leftists are just angsty teens amirite. You said that, not I. http://www.smiley-faces.org/smiley-faces/smiley-face-angel-006.gif


There is of course a difference between public education in a capitalist society and public education in a communist one, the latter being something everyone here supports.

Yes, everyone here but me. But hardly anyone who is not here does support it. And you presumably want democracy, and so ... where are we going with this?

[Skooma Addict]

You don't even advocate capitalism, though, in that you advocate people "voluntarily" donate their time to establish certain goods and then you allow them to be privatized, which is actually slavery since people are kept so poor in your version of free-market. You might as well just tell everyone to be a slave to a corporation, at least that is called "capitalism," not slavery.

In a free market real wage rates will increase because increased capital accumulation leads to a higher productivity of labor.



So people should be ableo to send their kids to work and not get an education, as it was during the Gilded Age when children made up more than a quarter of the work force?

Well you certainly shouldn't get to decide what is best for other parents kids. Work experience is far more valuable than many degrees when it comes to the real world. Working as an apprentice as a teenager and acquiring a skill is a great path for many people to take.



Of course you don't want people to have an understanding of history, logic, math, reason, as then they wouldn't be able to properly refute your numerous errors of logic, fallacious sourcing techniques, etc.

Yea, it is all a big conspiracy theory. All proponents of a free market in education gather once a year to discuss how we can prevent people from understanding history and logic.


By your logic the government is voluntary. It certainly would be more voluntary than one or two private corporations who controlled the resources, and have absolutely NO PUBLIC INPUT whatsoever.

Luckily there is no reason to believe that one or two corporations would control the resources in a market society.


Yes and the Texas woman who drowned her five kids to death was also an avid proponent of home-schooling.

:rolleyes:

[ComradeMan]

The whole problem with this argument is that we need to define what education is for?

What is education?

Is it "educating" to become a productive, creative and contributing member of society?

Is it a vocational experience aimed at work alone?


Is it something else, purely cultural and academic?


What is the purpose of education?

[Havet]

What is the purpose of education?

I'm afraid that the answer to that question is subjective, ie: dependent on what one wishes to achieve.

I think that education should be the development of independent and critical thought.

And you can't force critical thought on people. They must have incentives to discover it naturally.

[IcarusAngel]

In a free market real wage rates will increase because increased capital accumulation leads to a higher productivity of labor.

Unsupported by empirical evidence which is why you and hayenmill have to used far-right, idiotic Libertarian sources to support your belief. The fact is that governments, communities, and so on generally have outperformed the free-market in getting things done. The market works best when then government does most of the hard work, such as creating the conditions for society and laying the foundations in any given field, and then the market takes over to make a couple of bucks.

However, even "social markets," if you will, are exploitative, and should be opposed.



Well you certainly shouldn't get to decide what is best for other parents kids. Work experience is far more valuable than many degrees when it comes to the real world. Working as an apprentice as a teenager and acquiring a skill is a great path for many people to take.

And yet all degrees are more valuable than your degree, business, which you do not even have yet.

[IcarusAngel]

Yes, everyone here but me. But hardly anyone who is not here does support it. And you presumably want democracy, and so ... where are we going with this?

Yep, and hardly anybody supports the "free-market implementation" of schooling either, where only the rich go to school, so don't get so cocky.

Most people don't even like the CORPORATE influence on schools, and yet schools should be taken over by corporations?

Most people have no problem with "communists" or "atheists" teaching their kids at college - I've cited the statistics. So it's not like 'capitalist' mode of mass indoctrination will take place any time soon.

The free-marketeers here - trolls like hayenmill, "racialist" Olaf - get mad exactly because they don't understand why more people don't support their versions of free-markets. The reason is there is no evidence. That is why Mises railed against the scientific method and made up principles, because he knew that eventually empirical evidence would start contradicting him.

There is evidence though that methods used where everybody is equal and has an input, where private property doesn't exist, such as the scientific method and early computer software, DO WORK, so we just need to extend those principles to society in order to advance.

[Skooma Addict]

Unsupported by empirical evidence which is why you and hayenmill have to used far-right, idiotic Libertarian sources to support your belief. The fact is that governments, communities, and so on generally have outperformed the free-market in getting things done. The market works best when then government does most of the hard work, such as creating the conditions for society and laying the foundations in any given field, and then the market takes over to make a couple of bucks.

However, even "social markets," if you will, are exploitative, and should be opposed.

Well my statement actually isn't unsupported by emperical evidence. The productivity of labor is increased with higher capital accumulation, which means higher wage rates. This is very easy to emperically verify. I also do not think that the government has outperformes the market. All the money that the governemnt taxes to fund its projects is money that could have been better spent elsewhere.


And yet all degrees are more valuable than your degree, business, which you do not even have yet.

Well that is just your opinion. A business degree is the most valuable for me. I am not sure what this has to do with anything though.

[Havet]

Well my statement actually isn't unsupported by emperical evidence. The productivity of labor is increased with higher capital accumulation, which means higher wage rates. This is very easy to emperically verify.

Actually i'd like to see empirical proof of this.

As far as my understanding of history goes, corporate privilege has allowed productivity to increase but wages to remain constant or to devalue due to inflation.

http://i46.tinypic.com/358w2lx.jpg

[Skooma Addict]

I will explain how I can emperically verify my clam and then ill respond to your graph. All you need to do is look at countries with relatively high capital accumulation (western europe, America) and compare it to countries with relativly low capital accumulation (India, Pakistan) and you will see the differences in the wags of the workers. In a free market, if your not paying a worker a wage which correspends to their DMVP, then it becomes profitable for someone to offer the worker a higher wage.



http://i46.tinypic.com/358w2lx.jpg


This graph makes perfect sense. Notice how the change sarts to become bigger a little before 75. Money is not neutral, and when the government prints new money, it enters the economy through the financial system which gets to use it first and then it trickles down to the lower classes. The financial system then booms and the rest of the sectors (well, most) performs worse than would have been the case. The emergance of this gap in the early 70s is no suprise.

However, there is one other thing that is very imortant. I have seen quite a few graphs like this before, and so far they have all calculated real wage rates incorrectly. We have to include non-wage compensation in the statistics. This includes a better workng environment. By the way, even Krugman does not think there was wage stagflation between the 70s and the 90s.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm

Can you provide for me the source of this graph so I can see how they calculated real wages?

[Havet]

I will explain how I can emperically verify my clam and then ill respond to your graph. All you need to do is look at countries with relatively high capital accumulation (western europe, America) and compare it to countries with relativly low capital accumulation (India, Pakistan) and you will see the differences in the wags of the workers. In a free market, if your not paying a worker a wage which correspends to their DMVP, then it becomes profitable for someone to offer the worker a higher wage.

I have some questions. Could you define DMVP?

How can you extrapolate an hypothetical situation (for which it is rational to belief we should expect it) that in a free market it becomes profitable for someone to offer a higher wage if workers do not get the corresponding "DMVP" if, in the real world, forceful standards and redistribution have led some countries to pay even less than the "DMVP" by swifting the jobs to poorer countries like India and Pakistan? Clearly it wasn't profitable to pay more, it was profitable to pay less.


However, there is one other thing that is very imortant. I have seen quite a few graphs like this before, and so far they have all calculated real wage rates incorrectly. We have to include non-wage compensation in the statistics. This includes a better workng environment.

If we are trying to caracterize a free market, how could we know if working environments improved if, at some point, most governments forced a standard?


Can you provide for me the source of this graph so I can see how they calculated real wages?

I checked my source (a video) but i found no source. I googled it but found no source. Don't worry, i've placed a comment asking the guy who made the video to post its source, so if there IS a source, i will show it to you soon.

[Skooma Addict]

I have some questions. Could you define DMVP?

DMVP stands for discounted marginal value productivity. It is a workers marginal value productivity (MVP) discounted by the market rate of interest.


How can you extrapolate an hypothetical situation (for which it is rational to belief we should expect it) that in a free market it becomes profitable for someone to offer a higher wage if workers do not get the corresponding "DMVP" if, in the real world, forceful standards and redistribution have led some countries to pay even less than the "DMVP" by swifting the jobs to poorer countries like India and Pakistan? Clearly it wasn't profitable to pay more, it was profitable to pay less.


Many countires do not interfere extensively with their labor markets. America is not one of those countires. Much of the reason why jobs are being sent oversees is because some companies are prevented by the government from lowering wages (or preventing an increase) in order to match DMVP. Then there is the fact that places like China are booming economically, and that will naturally lead to an increased demand of skilled labor. Preventing a flow of labor to China just isn't going to happen. Finally, there are other smaller factors that come into play. For example, if a new distrobution center is being established oversees, then it may be profitable to reallocate labor just to lower transportation costs.

In a free market, if I am paying a worker 10 dollars an hour when they should be earning 20 dollars an hour, then a competitor can come along, offer the worker a higher wage, and then profit. This would continue until the worker earns their DMVP. Now it doesn't always run that smoothly, but the incentive structure is all there.


If we are trying to caracterize a free market, how could we know if working environments improved if, at some point, most governments forced a standard?

Im having trouble figuring out what you mean here. Can you rephrase the question?

[Havet]

Im having trouble figuring out what you mean here. Can you rephrase the question?

Many governments forced a better environment standard through laws and legislation, so how can we differentiate between what was actually achieved by natural trade and what was imposed by governments?

[Skooma Addict]

Many governments forced a better environment standard through laws and legislation, so how can we differentiate between what was actually achieved by natural trade and what was imposed by governments?

Sometimes it is obvious and sometimes it is very difficult to tell. Although what we do know is that when the government forces better working conditions, the marginal worker will more than likely lose his job.

[The Idler]

Of course all schools must be funded, but I do not understand why there should be an institution with a monopoly of force who coerces people into funding schools. People should join together naturally, pool resources and fund their own schools, and we would see far more democratic schools, private schools and cooperative schools. Just because it is a free-market doesn't mean it has to be profitable at the expense of someone (take cooperatives for example)
They already do what you describe with tertiary education and there aren't any democratic or co-operative tertiary education institutes, in fact tertiary education favours the rich. Why would it be any different with primary or secondary education?

[Havet]

They already do what you describe with tertiary education and there aren't any democratic or co-operative tertiary education institutes, in fact tertiary education favours the rich. Why would it be any different with primary or secondary education?

How do you know that tertiary education favors the rich?

The reason why there isn't any democratic or co-operative tertiary education is because the concept of democratic education is relatively knew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School) (when comparing to other historical alternatives to democratic education).

[ComradeMan]

I'm afraid that the answer to that question is subjective, ie: dependent on what one wishes to achieve.

I think that education should be the development of independent and critical thought.

And you can't force critical thought on people. They must have incentives to discover it naturally.


Okay, I hear you... but what do you wish to achieve with education in your ideal society then?

[Old Man Diogenes]

I saw these two videos the other day and they simply put forth exactly what I thought about current systems of schooling and the new alternatives (which I had never heard of) which seem to be heading towards success.

Had you ever heard of democratic schooling? Do you know why the current system is inefficient and immoral? See the videos and share your thoughts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFRT9JKGPcI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-BgFPFb5fU&feature=related

Thanks, very inspiring video. :thumbup:

[IcarusAngel]

Lol. Check out that mini-ramp at Summerhill school.

College favors the rich because only the rich can pay for school and not have it affect their lives. The poor and middle-class have to take out loans and do god-knows what else to pay for school. Stafford loans and government grants are the best, private loans are a nightmare. I was at a job interview the other day and the guy said he was worried that he wouldn't get a job because he defaulted on student loans (many companies and local govts now check out your financial record).

The rich also can afford the tutors and so on that the other kids cannot. Text books are also a rip-off.

College is a huge rip-off and basically explains why education should always be free.

[ComradeMan]

Lol. Check out that mini-ramp at Summerhill school.

College favors the rich because only the rich can pay for school and not have it affect their lives. The poor and middle-class have to take out loans and do god-knows what else to pay for school. Stafford loans and government grants are the best, private loans are a nightmare. I was at a job interview the other day and the guy said he was worried that he wouldn't get a job because he defaulted on student loans (many companies and local govts now check out your financial record).

The rich also can afford the tutors and so on that the other kids cannot. Text books are also a rip-off.

College is a huge rip-off and basically explains why education should always be free.


By school are we talking about University here? By school I mean 5-18.
(PS I do think university education should be universal, equal, of a high-standard and free).

[Havet]

Okay, I hear you... but what do you wish to achieve with education in your ideal society then?

What do I wish to achieve? The development of science, industry and art to levels never before imagined (something along transhumanism and technocracy)

[IcarusAngel]

By school are we talking about University here? By school I mean 5-18.
(PS I do think university education should be universal, equal, of a high-standard and free).

I was talking about how when you treat education like a commodity - costs go up and yet quality does way down. This is what has happened to many college students. Many people have college degrees. About half of the people who attend college don't graduate, leaving them with moutains of debt, and in a worse situation than if they had invested. Many of the people who go go into majors like "communications," "criminal justice" and "business" where they don't learn anything useful. A lot of those fields require much more expertise to get anywhere, that you do not get in college. etc.



I cannot think of a more misleading statistic. Colleges are very good at using statistics to their advantage. The fact is that the pool of kids who go to college are much more  are much brighter, have better family connections, are much more motivated, than the pool of kids who don't go to college. So you could lock those kids into a closet for four years or five years, and they will, over their lifetimes, earn a lot more.
Compounding that, the trend is even greater today. We're sending an ever higher proportion of kids to college, digging ever deeper into the barrel, very low achievers in high school. At the very same time as American employers are off-shoring ever more jobs, part-timing ever more jobs, using many more automated systems instead of people.

So you've got ever more college graduates  even if you do graduate, and as I said, most of these kids from the bottom 40 percent of their high school class don't graduate  at the very same time as there will be fewer white-collar jobs. I looked at the very latest statistics that just came out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The really fastest-growing jobs are those in the service sector, those very low-paying jobs that one could do as a high-school dropout.



Exactly, and that is the saddest thing of all, because there's a Grand Canyon of difference between what is touted in the view books and brochures and websites of colleges and the reality. A Pew study in 2006 found that 50 percent of seniors - now, these are not the ones who dropped out, these are the ones who made it to senior status - scored below proficient in understanding arguments in a newspaper or being able to compare credit-card offers.

This is even more startling to me. A full 20 percent of these four-year grads, these bachelor-attempting, four-year-college-senior students scored at what they call the "basic level" in math, which means they could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station. This is after, you know, four or five or six years, a 100,000 or more. This is a national travesty.




That's what happens when you trust the free-market to fix everything.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90374583

[ComradeMan]

What do I wish to achieve? The development of science, industry and art to levels never before imagined (something along transhumanism and technocracy)

So do you take a futurist approach to things?

Techogaianism as opposed to Eco-anarchism?

[The Idler]

How do you know that tertiary education favors the rich?

The reason why there isn't any democratic or co-operative tertiary education is because the concept of democratic education is relatively knew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School) (when comparing to other historical alternatives to democratic education).
Free markets favour the rich and powerful, including in tertiary education, just look at what sections of the population continue in tertiary education. Primary and secondary education favour the rich and powerful much less so, much in proportion to how publicly funded the sector is.

The reason democratic education isn't prevalent isn't because its new. It's because the current system has its rich and powerful elite (headmasters, principals, school governors, parents associations) who do not want to democratise schools and prefer curriculum to conform to their own interests.

[Havet]

Free markets favour the rich and powerful, including in tertiary education, just look at what sections of the population continue in tertiary education. Primary and secondary education favour the rich and powerful much less so, much in proportion to how publicly funded the sector is.

You actually didn't explain how


The reason democratic education isn't prevalent isn't because its new. It's because the current system has its rich and powerful elite (headmasters, principals, school governors, parents associations) who do not want to democratise schools and prefer curriculum to conform to their own interests.

I agree, that too. And the current powers-that-be have every interest in keeping it this way.

[Havet]

So do you take a futurist approach to things?

Techogaianism as opposed to Eco-anarchism?

No no no, i don't buy any of that gaia new age bullshit.

I mean real technological progress. See transhumanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) and technocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement)

[Robert]

Hayenmill, are you sure you don't just want a hot girlfriend with amber eyes that will live forever?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/70/H%2B_Cover_1.jpg/180px-H%2B_Cover_1.jpg

[Havet]

Hayenmill, are you sure you don't just want a hot girlfriend with amber eyes that will live forever?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/70/H%2B_Cover_1.jpg/180px-H%2B_Cover_1.jpg

Yeah, that too. It comes with the package ^^

[ComradeMan]

No no no, i don't buy any of that gaia new age bullshit.

I mean real technological progress. See transhumanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) and technocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement)


Trechnogaianism is part of transhumanism.:)

Have you ever read up on extropianism?

[Havet]

Trechnogaianism is part of transhumanism.:)

Have you ever read up on extropianism?

Ah, sorry, i misunderstood the term techogaianism. I had never heard of it before (i'm very new into transhumanism).

By the wikipedia article, it sounds okay to me.

I had also never heard of the term extropianism. Again, by the wikipedia article, it seems to be the "glue" that holds together transhumanist thought with action.

[Liberateeducate]

Look up the book "Instead of Education: Ways to help people do things better" by John Holt. a pretty good read.
also, I enjoyed the book "The night is dark and I am far from home" by Johnathan Kozol

[Liberateeducate]

One of my favorite educators is Rich Gibson, he wrote in his article
"Against racism and Irrationalism: toward an integrated class struggle in schools and out"

"school workers do not have to be missionaries for the ideology of capitalism or its sword and shield (racism), although taking the chance to transcend our current conditions is risky business. The risk is worth it; it gives meaning to the privilege of time on the planet. There is urgency to my message. Inside a powerful nation promising perpetual war to the world in the midst of rising inequality, segregation, racism, imperialism, and nationalism, time is short."


thats the whole article is online free if you search for it

He finds also that 90% of the teachers in america k-12 are white and self proclaimed middle class, which shines some light on who feels disenfranchised the most in public schools today, the poor/marginalized classes and races.

In her book, Unequal Childhoods, Annette Lareau, also shows through a study how children of poor/working class backgrounds enter a structure of education that is larger middle/upperclass and strongly values a set of principles/methods that middle class/upper class parents only have access too. Kids regardless of how hardworking they are, or how they "pull up their boot straps" if they come from a poor/working class background will still be seen largely as uncaring or designated as the "other", because white middle class teachers depict their norm of what a good student is off the ability for middle/upperclass students ascribe to their norms/values, which they can do easily because they come from a family background which values kids to speak up, ask questions, and they have access to parents with high educational backgrounds who can help them at any point. So the teachers see these kids as inherently intuitive and intelligent, not seeing the class disparities that allowed that child to come to school with a set of prerequisites needed to succeed.

[The Idler]

You actually didn't explain how
If you can afford tuition fees for university you can go.
If you can't afford tuition fees for university you can risk taking out a loan (and not being able to repay it) or not go.

[Havet]

If you can afford tuition fees for university you can go.
If you can't afford tuition fees for university you can risk taking out a loan (and not being able to repay it) or not go.

Then you can properly state that life favors the rich

If you have the resources, you can live
If you don't have the resources, you can risk taking out loans (and not being able to repay them) or die.

[The Idler]

Then you can properly state that life favors the rich

If you have the resources, you can live
If you don't have the resources, you can risk taking out loans (and not being able to repay them) or die.
No because tuition fees aren't an a priori assumption. Free tertiary education can be and has been provided.