Education and information is one of the great equalising forces of our society and should therefore be available to all who desire it. To limit education is to limit opportunities. Not all people are born equal, that’s a fact; but we should still strive to give everybody equal opportunities as long as the costs do not outweigh the benefits.
To restrict education is to restrict those of great potential but little wealth from adding their full value to society, as a result society is poorer and – in effect – we are all hurt.
To believe that capitalism is the cure all and end all is silly, it is not perfect, nor is it ever going to be. We should never put our full faith in any one system but should always by looking for alternatives. To modify a famous quote by Winston Churchill, Capitalism is the worst system except for every other system we’ve ever tried. (For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, the original quote was about democracy, not capitalism).
I’m not saying that the socialist model used in Europe is necessarily better. Obviously the investment in education and research is greater if the returns are greater and this is one of the reasons why in many ways the top educational facilities in America are envied the world over. On the other hand, I refuse to believe that a system that restricts access to research to the rich and those that are members of established institutions is the right way to approach education and the spread of information.
Though admittedly there seems to be a correlation between intelligence and wealth, this is a weak correlation at best and even if the correlation was strong then that would still not prove anything, as it might be that wealth allows people more access to learning, thereby raising average intelligence (besides, there are as yet no intelligent measurement systems that can truly be trusted).
In purely capitalist societies, such as the United States, social mobility is actually lower than in socialist states (in other words, if you want to live the American dream it is better to go socialist states like Sweden, Denmark and, yes, the Netherlands). I believe, though this is conjecture, that the reason for this is largely in the accessibility and differences in quality of educational institutes.
Ultimately, dollar for dollar, education is one of the best ways to raise people’s chances to take care of themselves. It is better than social welfare, it is better than charities and it is better than armed intervention. It is also one of the best ways to reduce crime rates, raise social awareness and improve people’s understanding of government policies.
This does not mean I’m advocating that every person should be educated. That is ultimately a choice that every person should make for themselves. What it does mean is that I believe every person should have the opportunity to receive a good education and any system that does not allow this – like a purely capitalist system – is ultimately sabotaging itself.
Even one of the most purely capitalist systems I have encountered, namely the system in Singapore, realises this and heavily subsidises education. Singapore does not need to spend a great deal of cash on social welfare, law enforcement or other systems to aid its population. What is more, they don’t feel the need to use protectionist measures to safe guard their people. Instead, they retrain the people to fill a needed niche – thereby keeping their people working and their country relevant.
We all know the adage by now, ‘give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.’ The best way to teach a man is to give him access to places where he can learn.
Counting Music in Circles
2 years ago
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NoNameNecessary you have ruin my Saturday night. While reading this I became convinced that your sole objective was to get me riled up. I must confess I am very disappointed. 7 years ago you left NL to travel the world, broaden your horizons as it were and to learn from all the peoples of the Earth. Yet today you are still proclaiming, wrongly, the same socialist dribble you were 9 years ago when I knew you in NL. I am not sure where to begin with this so I will try to proceed from the concepts I hold dear and work my way towards specifics.
ReplyDeleteAll men are created equal. To quote my founders, who were imminently more eloquent:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
To assert that all men are not created equal is to begin a journey upon a road that leads to the devaluation of human life. To judge men's equality on wealth, IQ, or social status was rightly not the purpose of my founders and should not be the measure today. This is the lie, delusion and evil of socialist thought and agenda. Rather, men are to be determined equal when they are secure in their life, their freedom and their ability to choose for themselves how to best become happy.
The concept of entitlements, be they education, medicine, welfare, etc are nothing more than insurance for large governments to grab and sustain power which is not rightfully theirs. The delusion the masses in Europe (and soon the USA) live under that they are better off when wealth is taken from the rich and spent on the poor has led to the perpetuation of suffering, not its resolution. Redistribution of wealth, in any form, is nothing short of robbery. No justice exists in the methodic theft from certain individuals and the distribution of that ill-gain to other individuals.
Please make an effort to understand these simple concepts. Giving entitlements to someone does not engender them to earn their own way. It creates dependence (on government) and an ever increasing complacency on the part of that individual to trust not in their own efforts and labours but in that of those around them. In a similar manner, taking wealth from individuals does not engender them to continue to produce wealth. It is the constant creation of wealth which perpetuates the cycle of wealth and which naturally distributes it. As wealthy individuals become more wealthy they are better able to risk a portion of their wealth on endeavors (venture capitalism), which in turn creates jobs, which creates wealth, ad inifinitum. If governments (such as those in the EU) rigorously stifle the creation and maintenance of personal wealth they not only encourage those most able to promote the cycle to leave their countries, they also hinder those least able to create wealth on their own to be in a position to do so. Thus the wealth cycle stops and the dependence on governments begins, a dependence which is only sustainable so long as wealth individuals remain in said country (the country robbing them of more and more of their wealth to support more and more dependents).
To attempt to address your points:
Education and information is one of the great equalising forces of our society and should therefore be available to all who desire it.
-Education is an extension of the "pursuit of happiness." Education is available to everyone in Western societies. I suspect you are referring to higher education, university etc. I agree. Education should be available to everyone. In my country it is. We do not restrict access to colleges and universities on any grounds other than merit, unlike the NL which restricts entrance on perceived aptitude. Every child here can attain higher learning if he so chooses.
To limit education is to limit opportunities.
-Here I must disagree. In a not-so-perfect-capitalistic-society education is not the end-all be-all of opportunity. Used cars sales men here, some without high school diplomas, can easily make 6 figures a year. In NL this is of course not the case because there it is felt that permitting someone to work on commission and potentially earn 6 figures is quite unfair. Much more reasonable to ensure that despite a salesman's best efforts he is paid within a 5% margin of the worst salesmen in the floor. That way "equality" is promoted.
Not all people are born equal, that’s a fact;
-That is not a fact at all unless you perceive the world through the eyes of a socialist.
but we should still strive to give everybody equal opportunities as long as the costs do not outweigh the benefits.
-It is not the mandate of government to extend equal opportunity based on a cost benefit analysis. If it were then history would laud Hitler for ridding his state of the mentally ill and unemployable whose cost of securing rights were not outweighed by their benefits.
To restrict education is to restrict those of great potential but little wealth from adding their full value to society, as a result society is poorer and – in effect – we are all hurt.
-And here we arrive at the heart of your argument and my bone of contention. You are either suggesting one of two courses of action. 1) that all education (university included) be free to all individuals. Or more likely 2) that wealthy individuals be taxed so as to entitle poorer individuals to be as educated as they desire. Both are bad ideas. Number 1 is a bad idea because that would require fully socializing all universities and by extension placing all power of what is taught into the hands of the State (no thank you 1984). Number 2 is a bad idea because A) wealthy individuals have no obligation to have their hard earned wealth forcefully taken and spent by the State to achieve a potential betterment of every condition in the State except theirs. B) because no just determination can be made as to where one individual must pay his own way and another get a free ride. Attempts have been made and all have failed to be just.
To believe that capitalism is the cure all and end all is silly, it is not perfect, nor is it ever going to be.
-Capitalism has never claimed to be perfect; it has only claimed to be a more accurate understanding of how things actually are. Promoting capitalism is only necessary in order to refute unsubstantiated theories like socialism and communism (one of former which is an extension of the latter, the latter which has proven itself defunct).
We should never put our full faith in any one system but should always by looking for alternatives.
-Why? You have offered no evidence for this and as I stated at the beginning of the post you seem to disagree by this very post.
To modify a famous quote by Winston Churchill, Capitalism is the worst system except for every other system we’ve ever tried. (For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, the original quote was about democracy, not capitalism).
-You really should not muddle with the words of the giants upon whose shoulders you stand on. Especially if you are going to get it wrong.
I’m not saying that the socialist model used in Europe is necessarily better.
-Brief respite to my current aneurism. Thank you for that.
Obviously the investment in education and research is greater if the returns are greater and this is one of the reasons why in many ways the top educational facilities in America are envied the world over.
-Brief respite to my current aneurism. Thank you for that.
On the other hand, I refuse to believe that a system that restricts access to research to the rich and those that are members of established institutions is the right way to approach education and the spread of information.
-Where does this come from? Yet another example of your mentality as a high-bread European looking down his nose at us quaint continentals across the pond. Are you under some delusion that education in the USA is restricted based on income? I am glad that I can inform you this is simply not the case. Individuals are accepted to Harvard and Po-Dunk-U alike based on merit. (well, merit until it is determined that a straight white male is just as metorious as and someone with a different skin colour, sex, sexual orientation, and/or immigrant status at which time the offer to attend a school is oh so justly extended to the non-straight-white-male.) Our Federal Government offers loans for education, more so the poorer one is. The people who have the hardest time are the upper-middle class who receive no loans or grants and who have to actually work through college (remind you of anyone?)
Though admittedly there seems to be a correlation between intelligence and wealth, this is a weak correlation at best and even if the correlation was strong then that would still not prove anything,
-Actually it would prove that the wealthy are better suited to the rigours of education and that enacting your proposal for all people to get educated is not cost effective. But that would muck up your theory so I can see why you dismissed it.
as it might be that wealth allows people more access to learning, thereby raising average intelligence (besides, there are as yet no intelligent measurement systems that can truly be trusted).
-If there were evidence to support that the wealthy are more intelligent (which I don’t believe) then I am afraid bred intelligence will win this argument. We have had intelligent and wealthy people longer than we have had education by way of universities.
In purely capitalist societies, such as the United States,
-I nearly fell off my chair at this one. Thanks for the laugh. I know this is obviously a joke because you are far too intelligent to actually believe the USA to be a pure capitalist society. But thank you for the laugh.
social mobility is actually lower than in socialist states (in other words, if you want to live the American dream it is better to go socialist states like Sweden, Denmark and, yes, the Netherlands).
-This is utterly ridiculous. Social mobility in Denmark (population 5.5 M) consists of going from making 20,000 USD at age 25 to making 70,000USD at age 55. Sociality mobility in the USA consists of making 12,000 USD at age 25 to making 250,000 USD at age 55 (Colin Powell taken as example because it was the most extreme I could think of). Your utter lack of understanding of the economic opportunity afforded every citizen of the USA (and about 20M of Mexico residing here) is truly astounding. Gates, Brin, Page, Trump, etc all failed to finish university, all grew up at or below middle class, and all have risen to the top 1% income earners in the world.
I fear you confuse the disparity in wealth in the USA as compared to the EU with social mobility. You are comparing apples to oranges. Taking a society (the EU) which by country is 80%+ mono-ethnic mono-cultural (meaning NL is 80%+ dutch, etc) and comparing it to a country which is comprised of 300M people from 192 countries and 1000s of ethnic and cultural differences is unreasonable. Expecting the disparity in wealth to be the same percent in a country of 300M people as that in one of 12M (NL) is again unreasonable.
I believe, though this is conjecture, that the reason for this is largely in the accessibility and differences in quality of educational institutes.
-I won't address conjecture at this time.
Ultimately, dollar for dollar, education is one of the best ways to raise people’s chances to take care of themselves.
-Refer to my used car salesman above. Dollar for dollar character and work ethic is the best way to raise people's chances to take care of themselves. Of course the very idea that some nanny-State needs to extend effort to help me take care of myself is little more than insulting. Never forget that you permit government to govern you, you do not insist upon it.
It is better than social welfare,
-No, earning your own wealth is
it is better than charities
-I do not have enough data on this either way.
and it is better than armed intervention.
-Not sure where you are going with this? Iraq I suppose.
It is also one of the best ways to reduce crime rates,
-Enron
raise social awareness and improve people’s understanding of government policies.
-Again, no. Wealth is the best way to accomplish this. Self-interest will motivate people to be aware of government policies, especially those that affect their wealth. You do not have to be college educated to understand government policies. Just because it is fun, Hitler failed out of art school and managed some pretty impressive government policies (read BMW bug not the nasty stuff).
This does not mean I’m advocating that every person should be educated. That is ultimately a choice that every person should make for themselves.
-Well, thank you for that.
What it does mean is that I believe every person should have the opportunity to receive a good education and any system that does not allow this – like a purely capitalist system – is ultimately sabotaging itself.
-See car salesman above
Even one of the most purely capitalist systems I have encountered, namely the system in Singapore, realises this and heavily subsidises education. Singapore does not need to spend a great deal of cash on social welfare, law enforcement or other systems to aid its population. What is more, they don’t feel the need to use protectionist measures to safe guard their people. Instead, they retrain the people to fill a needed niche – thereby keeping their people working and their country relevant.
-I do not know enough about Singapore to comment.
We all know the adage by now, ‘give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.’
-Yes, which is why do you not give anything to anyone for free. You make sure they are able to earn it.
The best way to teach a man is to give him access to places where he can learn.
-All a man needs is to live in a free society where he is not hindered by oppressive government bureaucracy and taxations so he can pursue his economic goals, create wealth, hire others letting them earn their own wealth, and promoting this cycle to continue.
There is so much more I feel I should write but it is getting late here and you won't be swayed by any of this anyway. Don't take this rant personally; it has been a sad week here in the USA with Barack getting the Dem nomination. Our path down the road of socialism just turned into a rack track and I am a hair depressed about it.
Symbol's mentioned how Singapore's heavily-subsidised public education system is continuing to result in able-minded citizens. Who am I to argue?
ReplyDeleteOn the flipside, still on the subject of attainable education (up to a point and short of tipping over a country’s national budget), a large part of Indonesia's social woes stems from ignorance – the kind that would sometimes painfully obviously feels like it could easily be under control with a bit more action in the academic department.
And this department should warrant the support of its leaders. They could be less lackadaisical about educating its people. For example, it did not make sure that it has enough in its coffers before offering star students bursaries for higher education. Now the ‘000s of students promised have no future anymore or what?
Clearly the body that had thought about this in the first place had not thought far enough to ensure the effectiveness of such a programme i.e. lack of education on their part.
To recapitulate, its leader had invested some US$1m in an endeavour that promised to turn water into fuel (Google ‘Jakarta blue energy hoax’, which is a possibility, but infinitely uneconomical (for now). Coming from a man who earned his Masters from the US, which we all seem to agree is a very good one to have, perhaps this is why Symbol had said that ‘not everyone is born equal’…
… which, by the way, I disagree with, for all the reasons that Phyrrus/ America’s funding fathers had already mentioned.