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

[Upchurch]

My son can tell you that most private (as well as public jobs) are difficult to get without a high school diploma or GED. Private companies in America must be in collusion with the govt to enslave children.

It's almost as if the free market values education.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

So, when rich parents send their children to private, non-union schools, is that slavery?¹"special pleading" "pretzel logic"
School becomes slavery if you are poor. If you are a poor parent and cannot afford private school it's better to keep the kid home and have it do chores. Hell, better to send it to the local factory. Remember when children didn't have to be slaves in public education and were free to earn a living?²

1. Compulsory unpaid labor is slavery. Compulsion defines slavery. Both compulsion and compensation are matters of degree. Slavery, then, is a matter of degree.
2. This is very close to the case. Survivor bias shapes the K-PhD school system. The people who design education policy are people who are good at school.
Not everyone aspires to an academic career. There's a strong flavor of narcissism in the ostensible goals (see the Common Core curriculum) of the State-monopoly school system. Because academics and people who look like academics (lawyers, Legislative policy analysts) owe their status to success at the academic game, they flatter themselves by exalting success at that game over success at other games (athletics and business, for example).

Here's Megam Mcardle: "Not everyone likes school. I've always been struck by this passage of Orwell's in The Road to Wigan Pier":

The time was when I used to lament over quite imaginary pictures of lads of fourteen dragged protesting from their lessons and set to work at dismal jobs. It seemed to me dreadful that the doom of a 'job' should descend upon anyone at fourteen. Of course I know now that there is not one working-class boy in a thousand who does not pine for the day when he will leave school. He wants to be doing real work, not wasting his time on ridiculous rubbish like history and geography. To the working class, the notion of staying at school till you are nearly grown-up seems merely contemptible and unmanly. The idea of a great big boy of eighteen, who ought to be bringing a pound a week home to his parents, going to school in a ridiculous uniform and even being caned for not doing his lessons! Just fancy a working-class boy of eighteen allowing himself to be caned! He is a man when the other is still a baby. Ernest Pontifex, in Samuel Butler's Way of All Flesh, after he had had a few glimpses of real life, looked back on his public school and university education and found it a 'sickly, debilitating debauch'. There is much in middle-class life that looks sickly and debilitating when you see it from a working-class angle.
It's still true: the mania to get more and more people into college is the brain child of people who think that school is fun, and that anyone who doesn't go is being deprived of something like a trip to Disneyland packaged with a job guarantee.

 

[RandFan]

1. Compulsory unpaid labor is slavery. Compulsion defines slavery. Both compulsion and compensation are matters of degree. Slavery, then, is a matter of degree.
2. This is very close to the case. Survivor bias shapes the K-PhD school system. The people who design education policy are people who are good at school.
Not everyone aspires to an academic career. There's a strong flavor of narcissism in the ostensible goals (see the Common Core curriculum) of the State-monopoly school system. Because academics and people who look like academics (lawyers, Legislative policy analysts) owe their status to success at the academic game, they flatter themselves by exalting success at that game over success at other games (athletics and business, for example).

Here's Megam Mcardle: "Not everyone likes school. I've always been struck by this passage of Orwell's in The Road to Wigan Pier":

Non responsive. Could you directly address the points I've made?

 

[RandFan]

It's almost as if the free market values education.

Almost.

Why is this being debated?

 

[A'isha]

The people who design education policy are people who are good at school.

So are the people who design cars, computers, skyscrapers, and corporate acquisitions.

Because academics and people who look like academics (lawyers, Legislative policy analysts) owe their status to success at the academic game

So do....well, pretty much all professionals. Even businessmen.

Just ask Mitt Romney's fellow Harvard MBA graduates.

Here's Megam Mcardle: "Not everyone likes school. I've always been struck by this passage of Orwell's in The Road to Wigan Pier":

So now you've gone from quoting Orwell to quoting other people quoting Orwell? Multiplying the number of authorities you're appealing to doesn't make it any less fallacious and irrelevant.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Non responsive. Could you directly address the points I've made?

I did. You ask if independent and parochial schools enslave their students. Since compulsion and compensation are matters of degree, slavery is a matter of degree. Force and freedom are different directions on a continuum. In a legal environment which limits parents' options for the allocation of their children's time, the term "slavery" applies with a precision that depends (inversely) on the degree of control that parents exercise. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

Although defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 school subsidy may present this dispute as a disagreement over the meaning of words, the important discussion concerns the differential impact of different incentive structures that different possible legal regimes create and present to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers.

 

[A'isha]

I did. You ask if independent and parochial schools enslave their students. Since compulsion and compensation are matters of degree, slavery is a matter of degree. Force and freedom are different directions on a continuum. In a legal environment which limits parents' options for the allocation of their children's time, "slavery" applies a precision that depends on the degree of control that parents exercise.

In other words, children are just as "compelled" to attend private and parochial schools, but you like when that happens so you're jumping through hoops to avoid calling it slavery. Just like when you tried to jump through hoops to claim that your support for government intervention in marriage to ban same-sex marriages is because you're all about less government intervention and increased personal freedom.

Although defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 school subsidy may present this dispute as a disagreement over the meaning of words, the important discussion concerns the differential impact of different incentive structures that different possible legal regimes create and present to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers.

And calling public schooling slavery is hyperbolic nonsense which completely poisons that debate.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

So are the people who design cars, computers, skyscrapers, and corporate acquisitions.

No. The Wright brothers were high school dropouts. Gill Gates was a college dropout.

So do....well, pretty much all professionals. Even businessmen.

J. D. Rockefeller (b. 1839) went to work as a bookkeeper in 1855. Let's see... 1855-1839 = 16.
Henry Ford (b. 1863) apprenticed as a machinist in 1879. 1879-1863 = 16.
John Wanamaker left school at 14.
Cyrus McCormick (the mechanical reaper, International Harvester) was homeschooled.
Richard Arkwright (homeschooled), Thomas Highs and James Hargreaves either had no formal schooling or minimal elementary schooling (automatic textile machinery, the industrial revolution, basically).

So now you've gone from quoting Orwell to quoting other people quoting Orwell? Multiplying the number of authorities you're appealing to doesn't make it any less fallacious and irrelevant.

Does anyone else in this discussion find the cartel defenders' preoccupation with fallacies embarassing? They're like the people who see a sexual image in every Rorschach blot. Where's the fallacy? Orwell makes a case. Do you disagree with anything in that quote? What?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

In other words ...

Why use "other words" when we can discuss what I actually wrote?

And calling public schooling slavery is hyperbolic nonsense which completely poisons that debate.

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery. Laws compel attendance at school. You can't eat a transcript.

 

[Border Reiver]

Malcolm, compulsory, unpaid labour is NOT slavery. Slavery is a system in which human beings can be legally treated as property of another person. Otherwise, you've just defined household chores as slavery, in addition to various self-help organizations who require extra unpaid work for the use of club facilities.

 

[A'isha]

No. The Wright brothers were high school dropouts. Gill Gates was a college dropout.

J. D. Rockefeller (b. 1839) went to work as a bookkeeper in 1855. Let's see... 1855-1839 = 16.
Henry Ford (b. 1863) apprenticed as a machinist in 1879. 1879-1863 = 16.
John Wanamaker left school at 14.
Cyrus McCormick (the mechanical reaper, International Harvester) was homeschooled.
Richard Arkwright (homeschooled), Thomas Highs and James Hargreaves either had no formal schooling or minimal elementary schooling (automatic textile machinery, the industrial revolution, basically).

"Gill Gates", huh?

And I've already explained to you why modern industrial technological society means that the method of education these men used is completely inapplicable and insufficient today. Naming ten people over three hundred years - Thomas Highs was born in 1718 - only one of whom was born after World War II (and he was one of those people who "owe[d] their status to success at the academic game", excelling in high school, acing his standardized texts, and getting into Harvard) is not exactly compelling evidence that children in 2013 America don't need no education.

Do you disagree with anything in that quote? What?

We went over what Orwell had to say about the schools he attended as a boy (and your concomitant rejection of what he had to say about Hayek's economic theories) in a previous thread. I see no need to rehash them now.

Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery.

Except when it's a private or parochial school, apparently, when suddenly things get a bit less black and white and you start saying things like "slavery is a matter of degree" and that it's not slavery when children are compelled to attend school by force just as long as the parents get to pick what school they're forcing their children to attend (which they can do in America now, you know).

Laws compel attendance at school.

Because a country with an uneducated population is a country that will never achieve anything or get anywhere.

You can't eat a transcript.

You can, however, use it to get a good job that will allow you to purchase things you can eat.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... a country with an uneducated population is a country that will never achieve anything or get anywhere.

A country without sunshine would die. Does Pharaoh Obama's court have to pray for sunrise in the dark of the dawn every day to make the sun to rise? So is nutrition necessary, but (in the US) the government does not, in general, operate farms, graineries, mills, slaughter houses, or grocery stores. Where governments have assumed responsibility for agriculture (Ukraine, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia) the result is mass famine. The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's school system does for US education what collectivization did for nutrition in the Soviet Union.

 

[A'isha]

A country without sunshine would die. Does Pharaoh Obama's court have to pray for sunrise in the dark of the dawn every day to make the sun to rise? So is nutrition necessary, but (in the US) the government does not, in general, operate farms, graineries, mills, slaughter houses, or grocery stores. Where governments have assumed responsibility for agriculture (Ukraine, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia) the result is mass famine. The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's school system does for US education what collectivization did for nutrition in the Soviet Union.

A strong military and national defense is also necessary, and our nationalization and collectivization of that has served us rather well. And countries that feel the same way about education that the US does are a lot more economically successful and technologically advanced than countries where most children are homeschooled and where those few children who do attend schools leave those schools at a young age to seek employment.

 

[RandFan]

I did. You ask if independent and parochial schools enslave their students. Since compulsion and compensation are matters of degree, slavery is a matter of degree. Force and freedom are different directions on a continuum. In a legal environment which limits parents' options for the allocation of their children's time, the term "slavery" applies with a precision that depends (inversely) on the degree of control that parents exercise. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

Although defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 school subsidy may present this dispute as a disagreement over the meaning of words, the important discussion concerns the differential impact of different incentive structures that different possible legal regimes create and present to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers.

No, this ignores my points. I want you to address them directly. Is it slavery for a rich parents to send their children to school, yes or no? If you are going to move goal posts then please to tell me the degree of slavery to send a rich child to private school vs the degree of slavery to send a poor child to public school? Why does the free market value public education? Where are your shinny example of societies that don't have compulsory education? Why do so many nations high in economic freedom, GDP and HDI have compulsory education?

You really need to start answering questions and stop thinking that your cut and paste rhetoric is addressing anything substantive.

 

[RandFan]

A country without sunshine would die. Does Pharaoh Obama's court have to pray for sunrise in the dark of the dawn every day to make the sun to rise? So is nutrition necessary, but (in the US) the government does not, in general, operate farms, graineries, mills, slaughter houses, or grocery stores. Where governments have assumed responsibility for agriculture (Ukraine, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia) the result is mass famine. The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's school system does for US education what collectivization did for nutrition in the Soviet Union.

This is just a rhetorical assertion.

Why do nations that don't have compulsory school tend to be hell holes and why do most if not all nations high in economic freedom, GDP and HDI have compulsory education?

ETA: What about the fact that it's very difficult to get a job without an education? If it's worthless to the student and thus the employer then why is it so critical to get a job?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Why do nations that don't have compulsory school tend to be hell holes and why do most if not all nations high in economic freedom, GDP and HDI have compulsory education?

a) Randfan mistakes education for schooling.
b) I'm not sure that that's true. Most countries, rich or poor, compel attendance at school, de jure. Singapore did not compel attendance at school until the early 1990s.
The US was economically advanced before all States had compulsory schooling. Compulsory attendance statutes characterize the theocratic States (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island). Most of the delegates to the Constitutional convention did not attend school. Great Britain was an industrial power before compulsory attendance statutes.
c) Wasteful nationalization of industy is a luxury that only wealthy countries can afford (for a while). As a friend of mine remarked: "a cocaine habit says you're making too much money". Of course it's to politicians' advantage that children receive indoctrination into the State religion.

... What about the fact that it's very difficult to get a job without an education?

Again, NOT("education" = "attendance at school"). We agree that overseers (teachers) hold over students the threat to blight the students' lives with ugly transcripts. I recommend Ivar Berg, Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery.

If it's worthless to the student and thus the employer then why is it so critical to get a job?

I'm supposed to read employers' minds? Okay.
Ommmmmmm
Ommmmmmm
Ommmmmmm
...
Because, oh best beloved, since Griggs v. Duke Power an employer's use of standardized tests that yield a "disparate impact" (i.e., anything with a literacy or numeracy component) and are not "job-related" subject employers to legal and financial liability. The burden is on the employer to prove that a test with disparate impact is job related. Hiring at random, followed by on-the-job assessment of employees by employers would risk disparate impact of firing, and more legal jeopardy.

Safer to let schools do the sorting.

 

[RandFan]

¹a) Randfan mistakes education for schooling.
b) I'm not sure that that's true. Most countries, rich or poor, compel attendance at school, de jure. Singapore did not compel attendance at school until the early 1990s.

²The US was economically advanced before all States had compulsory schooling. Compulsory attendance statutes characterize the theocratic States (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island). Most of the delegates to the Constitutional convention did not attend school. Great Britain was an industrial power before compulsory attendance statutes.
³c) Wasteful nationalization of industy is a luxury that only wealthy countries can afford (for a while). As a friend of mine remarked: "a cocaine habit says you're making too much money". Of course it's to politicians' advantage that children receive indoctrination into the State religion.
⁴Again, NOT("education" = "attendance at school"). We agree that overseers (teachers) hold over students the threat to blight the students' lives with ugly transcripts. I recommend Ivar Berg, Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery.I'm supposed to read employers' minds? Okay.
Ommmmmmm
Ommmmmmm
Ommmmmmm
...
Because, oh best beloved, since Griggs v. Duke Power an employer's use of standardized tests that yield a "disparate impact" (i.e., anything with a literacy or numeracy component) and are not "job-related" subject employers to legal and financial liability. The burden is on the employer to prove that a test with disparate impact is job related. Hiring at random, followed by on-the-job assessment of employees by employers would risk disparate impact of firing, and more legal jeopardy.

Safer to let schools do the sorting.

1. No, this is a dodge. You are ignorning my points.
2. That was then. We now have to compete in a global community where the nations highest in GDP, HDI, Economic Freedom etc., require education.
3. The reason to spend money on cocaine has nothing to do with the reason to have education. The analogy fails because the legislature that mandates school does not directly benefit from public education. Making public education compulsory won't get you high. It will increase the likelihood of your nation being high in economic freedom.
4. You can't get a job without a GED. Get that through your head. When private companies start to demand that students have an alternative education then that will happen.

You don't explain how in your world the poor would have upward mobility. You don't explain what poor people would do for work if they had no education. <snip> Who cares if they lose the one thing that gives them the best chance at a future?

I do.

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for Rule 12

 

[bruto]

I looked at a map showing rough categories of when school became compulsory in the US. The Northeast came first, with Massachusetts leading in 1852, the mid-Atlantic and West second, and the deep South uniformly last, after 1910. At the time of the Civil War, the Northeast was the technologically advanced part of the country, as well as the place where school was becoming mandatory. Now of course we cannot necessarily draw too many conclusions from the rather obvious fact that the North won and the South lost, but to say that "the US" taken as a whole was technologically advanced before school became mandatory is not really saying much.

added note: to avoid confusion one must mention that although schools were becoming common and free, virtually none of the states had enacted compulsory education before the Civil War, and a second look at the map puts much of the West in the first, rather than the second, group.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The reason to spend money on cocaine has nothing to do with the reason to have education. The analogy fails because the legislature that mandates school does not directly benefit from public education. Making public education compulsory won't get you high.

It will get you elected in times of anti-Catholic bigotry, like the waves of immigration of the early 1800s. Today, expanding the span of compulsory schooling (what used to be 12-14 is now often 5-18) will win a politician support from public-sector unions.

It will increase the likelihood of your nation being high in economic freedom.

Then someone doesn't know what "freedom" means. Compulsion and freedom are antonyms.

You don't explain how in your world the poor would have upward mobility. You don't explain what poor people would do for work if they had no education.

On-the-job training is education. Thomas Edison's parents were not wealthy. Cyrus McCormick's parents were not wealthy. John D. Rockefeller's parents were not wealthy. Sam Colt went to sea at 16 and developed the idea for his revolver while underweigh as a seaman between Boston and Bombay.

All that government has to contribute to the education industry is violence and threats of violence. Motivation is critical to educational success and compulsion kills motivation. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents. Who gets the wretched schools on the US mainland? Blacks and Hispanics. Who's overrepresented in prison on the US Mainland? Blacks and Hispanics. Who gets the wretched schools in Hawaii? Hawaiians and Samoans. Who's overrepresented in prison in Hawaii? Hawaiians and Samoans.

 

[Border Reiver]

Malcolm, are you ever going to:

a. start using the correct definition of slavery;
b. if not, address the issue of how children who are either compelled to do household chores or who are compelled to attend parochial or private schools are still slaves; and
c. realize that the few exceptions to the "limited education = limited opportunities" such as Colt, etc. (and that most of those are from over 100 years ago) do not prove your case for the vast majority?