Split Thread Does compulsory schooling equate to slavery? (Split from: "Liberal Fallacies" thread)

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Does compulsory schooling equate to slavery? (Split from: "Liberal Fallacies" thread)

Yes, and slaves, being wealth, were surrendered by the owners of that particular personal property after being so mandated by the State. It was a huge tax increase for all those slaveowners in the South.

We agree. It was also a huge decrease in taxes on the slaves.

Your equating of compulsory education for children with actual slavery would be insulting if it weren't so laughable.

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery. What's your definition? In most US States, children between age 6 and age 18 labor, unpaid, as windowdressing in the make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel that people call "the public school system". Your indifference to the brutal subordination that this system inflicts would be laughable if it weren't so insulting.

 

[A'isha]

We agree. It was also a huge decrease in taxes on the slaves.

Property doesn't pay taxes.

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery.

Yes, and education does not fit in that definition.

In most US States, children between age 6 and age 18 labor, unpaid, as windowdressing in the make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel that people call "the public school system".

Yes, we've already been over this "theory" of yours.

Your indifference to the brutal subordination that this system inflicts would be laughable if it weren't so insulting.

"Brutal subordination" of the public school system...

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Property doesn't pay taxes.¹Yes, and education does not fit in that definition.²Yes, we've already been over this "theory" of yours.³"Brutal subordination" of the public school system...⁴

1. People pay taxes. Slaves are people.
2. Correct. Compulsory attendance at school does.
3. Correct. One day you'll see the light. Or not.
4. Albert Einstein
"Force and Fear Have No Place in Education"

To me the worst thing seems to be for a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and self-confidence of the pupil. It produces the submissive subject. . . It is comparatively simple to keep the school free from this worst of all evils. Give into the power of the teacher the fewest possible coercive measures, so that the only source of the pupil's respect for the teacher is the human and intellectual qualities of the latter.

Roland Meighan
"Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications"
Educational Review, Vol. 47, No.3, 1995

The issue of social skills. One edition of Home School Researcher, Volume 8, Number 3, contains two research reports on the issue of social skills. The first finding of the study by Larry Shyers (1992) was that home-schooled students received significantly lower problem behavior scores than schooled children. His next finding was that home-schooled children are socially well adjusted, but schooled children are not so well adjusted. Shyers concludes that we are asking the wrong question when we ask about the social adjustment of home-schooled children. The real question is why is the social; adjustment of schooled children of such poor quality?
The second study, by Thomas Smedley (1992), used different test instruments but comes to the same conclusion, that home-educated children are more mature and better socialized than those attending school.
So-called 'school phobia' is actually more likely to be a sign of mental health, whereas school dependancy is a largely unrecognized mental health problem.

Hyman and Penroe
Journal of School Psychology

Several studies of maltreatment by teachers suggest that school children report traumatic symptoms that are similar whether the traumatic event was physical or verbal abuse (Hyman, et.al.,1988; Krugman & Krugman, 1984; Lambert, 1990). Extrapolation from these studies suggests that psychological maltreatment of school children, especially those who are poor, is fairly widespread in the United States....
In the early 1980s, while the senior author was involved in a school violence project, an informal survey of a random group of inner city high school students was conducted. When asked why they misbehaved in school, the most common response was that they wanted to get back at teachers who put them down, did not care about them, or showed disrespect for them, their families, or their culture....
...schools do not encourage research regarding possible emotional maltreatment of students by staff or investigatiion into how this behavior might affect student misbehavior....
...Since these studies focused on teacher-induced PTSD and explored all types of teacher maltreatment, some of the aggressive feelings were also caused by physical or sexual abuse. There was no attempt to separate actual aggression from feelings of aggression. The results indicated that at least 1% to 2% of the respondents' symptoms were sufficient for a diagnosis of PTSD. It is known that when this disorder develops as a result of interpersonal violence, externalizing symptoms are often the result (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
While 1% to 2% might not seem to be a large percentage of a school-aged population, in a system like New York City, this would be about 10,000 children so traumatized by educators that they may suffer serious, and sometimes lifelong emotional problems (Hyman, 1990; Hyman, Zelikoff & Clarke, 1988). A good percentage of these students develop angry and aggressive responses as a result. Yet, emotional abuse and its relation to misbehavior in schools receives little pedagogical, psychological, or legal attention and is rarely mentioned in textbooks on school discipline (Pokalo & Hyman, 1993, Sarno, 1992).
As with corporal punishment, the frequency of emotional maltreatment in schools is too often a function of the socioeconomic status (SES) of the student population (Hyman, 1990).

Karen Brockenbrough, Dewey G. Cornell, Ann B. Loper
"Aggressive Attitudes Among Victims of Violence at School"
Education and the Treatment of Children, V. 25, #3, Aug., 2002

Violence at school is a prevalent problem. According to a national survey of school proncipals (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1998), over 200,000 serious fights or physical attacks occurred in public schools during the 1996-1997 school year. Serious violent crimes occurred in approximately 12% of middle schools and 13% of high schools. Student surveys (Kann et al, 1995) indicate even higher rates of aggressive behavior. Approximately 16.2% of high school students nationwide reported involvement in a physical fight at school during a 30-day period, and 11.8% reported carrying a weapon on school property (Kann et al, 1995). Research on victims of violence at school suggests that repeated victimization has detrimental effects on a child's emotional and social development (Batsche & Knoff, 1995; Hoover, Oliver, & Thomson, 1993; Olweus, 1993). Victims exhibit higher
levels of anxiety and depression, and lower self-esteem than non-victims (eg., Besag, 1989; Gilmartin, 1987; Greenbaum, 1987; Olweus, 1993).

Clive Harber
"Schooling as Violence"
Educatioinal Review p. 10, V. 54, #1

"...It is almost certainly more damaging for children to be in school than to out of it. Children whose days are spent herding animals rather than sitting in a classroom at least develop skills of problem solving and independence while the supposedly luckier ones in school are stunted in their mental, physical, and emotional development by being rendered pasive, and by having to spend hours each day in a crowded classroom under the control of an adult who punishes them for any normal level of activity such as moving or speaking."

Clive Harber
"Schooling as Violence"
Educatioinal Review, p. 9 V. 54, #1.

Furthermore, according to a report for UNESCO, cited in Esteve (2000), the increasing level of pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil violence in classrooms is directly connected with compulsory schooling. The report argues that institutional violence against pupils who are obliged to attend daily at an educational centre until 16 or 18 years of age increases the frustration of these students to a level where they externalise it.

H.L. Mencken

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, and brutal violations of common sense and common decency.

 

[Belz...]

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery.

Redefining things, like "tax = theft" and "school = slavery" doesn't really help the discussion, Malcolm. We all know what the words mean, so there's no point in trying to show us that they mean something else entirely.

 

[jimbob]

We agree. It was also a huge decrease in taxes on the slaves.

Property doesn't pay taxes.

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery.

Yes, and education does not fit in that definition.

In most US States, children between age 6 and age 18 labor, unpaid, as windowdressing in the make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel that people call "the public school system".

Yes, we've already been over this "theory" of yours.

Your indifference to the brutal subordination that this system inflicts would be laughable if it weren't so insulting.

"Brutal subordination" of the public school system...

Malcolm, do you accept the idea of economic power?

A lot of your posts seem to suggest that you don't like the State intervening because they are ultimately backed up by the threat of physical force (sounds a bit like Mao's view

"Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.")

but you seem to see no problem with slum landlords, factory owners paying in company scrip, or child labour - which I would say are all results of unfair use of economic power over the poor.

 

[bruto]

We agree. It was also a huge decrease in taxes on the slaves.Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery. What's your definition? In most US States, children between age 6 and age 18 labor, unpaid, as windowdressing in the make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel that people call "the public school system". Your indifference to the brutal subordination that this system inflicts would be laughable if it weren't so insulting.

Only if you redefine the word "tax"to mean something else. Changing the meaning of common terms to match a set of beliefs is not effective argument.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Redefining things, like "tax = theft" and "school = slavery" doesn't really help the discussion, Malcolm. We all know what the words mean, so there's no point in trying to show us that they mean something else entirely.

Why the quotation marks? I did not write " 'tax' = 'theft' ", I wrote "a tax is a State-mandated surrender of wealth". Money does not have to pass through the treasury to qualify as a tax; corvee labor is a tax. I did not write " 'school'='slavery' ", I wrote "compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery". That's a plain definition, not a redefinition. Compulsory school attendance is (a) compulsory and (b) a surrender of time. Just like compulsory plantation labor.
There's no redefinition involved here.

 

[Belz...]

There's no redefinition involved here.

Of course there is. School isn't Dachau.

 

[A'isha]

1. People pay taxes. Slaves are people.

Property doesn't pay taxes. Slaves are property.

And it was the "free market" slave trade that made them slaves.

4. Albert Einstein
"Force and Fear Have No Place in Education"Roland Meighan
"Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications"
Educational Review, Vol. 47, No.3, 1995Hyman and Penroe
Journal of School PsychologyKaren Brockenbrough, Dewey G. Cornell, Ann B. Loper
"Aggressive Attitudes Among Victims of Violence at School"
Education and the Treatment of Children, V. 25, #3, Aug., 2002Clive Harber
"Schooling as Violence"
Educatioinal Review p. 10, V. 54, #1Clive Harber
"Schooling as Violence"
Educatioinal Review, p. 9 V. 54, #1.H.L. Mencken

Yes, you tried this argumentum ad copypastum before. Education still isn't slavery. Public compulsory education, which even countries that formerly did not have compulsory education like Singapore are now implementing, is also not slavery, and not a single one of your quotes supports your statement.

Your statement that compulsory education is just like slavery is, in fact, nothing more than emotional hyperbole, and has no connection to either the quotes you've posted, or to reality.

 

[bruto]

Why the quotation marks? I did not write " 'tax' = 'theft' ", I wrote "a tax is a State-mandated surrender of wealth". Money does not have to pass through the treasury to qualify as a tax; corvee labor is a tax. I did not write " 'school'='slavery' ", I wrote "compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery". That's a plain definition, not a redefinition. Compulsory school attendance is (a) compulsory and (b) a surrender of time. Just like compulsory plantation labor.
There's no redefinition involved here.

If you believe that a private individual stealing a person's time is the same as a tax, then you are, for sure, inventing a new definition for "tax," even if you are unwilling to admit it or incapable of understanding what words mean. It's wrong even by your own statements, since slavery was allowed by many states but never mandated.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Property doesn't pay taxes.

Most property does not. Slaves do. How do you define "tax"? It's not much of a stretch from a reasonable definition of "tax" to the conclusion that slaves are taxed 100% of their income.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

If you believe that a private individual stealing a person's time is the same as a tax, then you are, for sure, inventing a new definition for "tax," even if you are unwilling to admit it or incapable of understanding what words mean. It's wrong even by your own statements, since slavery was allowed by many states but never mandated.

If the law allows A to enslave B, then the State has imposed a tax on B. Those laws that "allowed" slavery enforced slavery with all sorts of penalties (e.g., fugitive slave laws). If State agents take 10% of your crop, that's a tax. If the law (in practice) allows some group (friends of the Chief of Police, say) to enter your land and steal your crops, that's a tax.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...Your statement that compulsory education is just like slavery is, in fact, nothing more than emotional hyperbole, and has no connection to either the quotes you've posted, or to reality.

Define "slavery", then. Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery. That's my definition. What's yours?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Of course there is. School isn't Dachau.

Neither was the typical Alabama cotton farm, c. 1840, Dachau.

 

[RandFan]

Neither was the typical Alabama cotton farm, c. 1840, Dachau.

I'm assuming you've never worked on a farm, am I right?

Having grown up on a farm I can tell you confidently that School isn't the typical Alabama cotton farm either. I didn't love school by any stretch of the imagination but it was much preferable to picking weeds, bucking hay, moving pipe, setting irrigation gates, topping onions, docking and castrating sheep, etc., etc.. BTW, farm work is very often an all day job, sun up to sun down. As a child there were many times I got up before the sun and didn't finish work until after it went down.

I'm curious though, are you against parents giving their children chores? Is that slavery? In fact, it would seem to me that it follows from your logic that having children and then giving those children any rules for their behavior is de facto slavery, isn't that right?

 

[RandFan]

A challenge:

Get a job working on a farm and then tell me that it's roughly the equivalent of going to school. Not wanting to do something like going to the doctor or exercising does not magically turn those actions into slavery, so long as those in charge of your long term well-being (parents and legal guardians) determine it's in your best interest (so long as society doesn't determine that going to the doctor and/or exercise is not in your best interest).

The idea that there should be no supervision or decisions made by parents that contravenes the short term interests of a child is absurd. Expecting children to follow the instructions of the parents to get educated for their (the children's) long term benefit even if the children don't want to go to school is no more slavery than a parent forcing a child to go to the doctor. Children are not born with the necessary cognitive abilities to make decisions that are in their long term interests. Human children require adult supervision and education be it formal or informal.

 

[bruto]

If the law allows A to enslave B, then the State has imposed a tax on B. Those laws that "allowed" slavery enforced slavery with all sorts of penalties (e.g., fugitive slave laws). If State agents take 10% of your crop, that's a tax. If the law (in practice) allows some group (friends of the Chief of Police, say) to enter your land and steal your crops, that's a tax.

By your definition anything the law allows or reinforces is a tax if anyone ends up paying anything to anybody. Nonsense. It may be something, and it may even be wrong, but it's not a tax. Of course if you include your conclusions in the definition of everything it's not hard to use your language to reinforce your conclusions, but have you noticed a funny thing? The result is utterly unconvincing to everyone else. It doesn't actually work, you know.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I'm assuming you've never worked on a farm, am I right?

I spent a summer in the pineapple fields on Lanai. What's your point? How does it relate to my characterization of compulsory school attendance as slavery or to my objection to Ant's mischaracterization of my position of school as Dachau?

Having grown up on a farm I can tell you...(deleted)...

I'm curious though, are you against parents giving their children chores? Is that slavery? In fact, it would seem to me that it follows from your logic that having children and then giving those children any rules for their behavior is de facto slavery...

The model universe of basic economic theory consists of rational economic actors and property. This is analogous to the geometry of Euclidean one-space (the line), a very simplified universe. Individuals are represented as endowments (the property to which they have title) and preferences (an ordering of possible endowments). Theorists expand this universe to accommodate real-world complications (e.g., common property, limited rationality). Children occupy an anomalous position, as we do not suppose that they have title to property and they are incompletely rational. This does not prevent economic theory from making predictions about behavior of children, or slaves, or animals (or about teachers or union bosses to whom current laws give control of children's time, six hours a day, 180 days a year, for 12 years). Some rationality is assumed. Children, slaves, and animals respond to rewards (or there's no point to rewards or punishment).
Someone will control children's time. The abstract policy issue of sub-adult education depends on the effects of different assignments of responsibility (title, in effect) for (to) children and children's time. Gandhi said that parents are the natural teachers of children. I would like to see a shift to a legal/institutional environment that assigns control over children and their time to their parents unless parents demonstrate their incapacity. And I'd set that bar (proof of incapacity) very high. We don't take fawns from wild deer.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

By your definition anything the law allows or reinforces is a tax if anyone ends up paying anything to anybody. Nonsense. It may be something, and it may even be wrong, but it's not a tax.

The test of a theory is whether it predicts.

Of course if you include your conclusions in the definition of everything it's not hard to use your language to reinforce your conclusions, but have you noticed a funny thing? The result is utterly unconvincing to everyone else. It doesn't actually work, you know.

Twelve (or 16, or 20) years of State-worshipful indoctrination can have that effect. I haven't yet converted any of the Jehovah's Witnesses who come to my door, either.

 

[A'isha]

Ant's mischaracterization of my position of school as Dachau?

You can't even get that right.

The model universe of basic economic theory consists of rational economic actors and property.

Economic theorists are remarkably poor predictors of human behavior.

Gandhi said that parents are the natural teachers of children.

Gandhi also wasn't dealing with the modernized highly-developed industrial and informational states of the 21st Century.

The governments of places like Singapore recognize this.

I would like to see a shift to a legal/institutional environment that assigns control over children and their time to their parents unless parents demonstrate their incapacity. And I'd set that bar (proof of incapacity) very high.

High enough to prevent this sort of nonsense? "Jindal also said he has no problem with creationism being taught in public schools as long as a local school board OK's it."