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

[lomiller]

No, axioms are the starting point for a chain of logic. If there are exceptions, then the axioms are invalid.

It is axiomatically true that the dc voltage drop across a constant resistance is proportional to the current.

I think there are some interesting extensions that can be attached to this example. First I want to add that an axiom can specify the conditions for which it’s true, but shouldn’t have exceptions within those conditions. Most of the axioms of classical physics apply only at the macro scale and no longer work at the quantum level. This doesn’t invalidate them, it just restricts the cases where we use them

For example current and resistance in a wire is actually emergent properties not seen at the level of the individual charge carrier. The charge itself accelerates due to the field, collides with atoms and slows down and follows a number of quantum effects. Cumulatively over a large number of charges ohms law emerges from then chaos. (You can do a statistical based derivation of ohms law from this but it isn’t pretty or easy, and obviously ohms law was well established long before such a derivation was possible)

I bring this up because current actually a nice analogy to aggregate macro-economic phenomenon like aggregate demand or the impact of public education. Malcolm wants to ignore all the emergent effects associated with widespread public education and just look at individual students. In effect what he wants to do is the equivalent of rejecting ohms law and use theory and predictions based only on the specific behavior of individual electrons.

 

[jimbob]

I think there are some interesting extensions that can be attached to this example. First I want to add that an axiom can specify the conditions for which it’s true, but shouldn’t have exceptions within those conditions. Most of the axioms of classical physics apply only at the macro scale and no longer work at the quantum level. This doesn’t invalidate them, it just restricts the cases where we use them

For example current and resistance in a wire is actually emergent properties not seen at the level of the individual charge carrier. The charge itself accelerates due to the field, collides with atoms and slows down and follows a number of quantum effects. Cumulatively over a large number of charges ohms law emerges from then chaos. (You can do a statistical based derivation of ohms law from this but it isn’t pretty or easy, and obviously ohms law was well established long before such a derivation was possible)

I bring this up because current actually a nice analogy to aggregate macro-economic phenomenon like aggregate demand or the impact of public education. Malcolm wants to ignore all the emergent effects associated with widespread public education and just look at individual students. In effect what he wants to do is the equivalent of rejecting ohms law and use theory and predictions based only on untested assumptions about the specific behavior of individual electrons.

I'd take the analogy one step further, see highlighted...

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... Malcolm wants to ignore all the emergent effects associated with widespread public education and just look at individual students. In effect what he wants to do is the equivalent of rejecting ohms law and use theory and predictions based only on the specific behavior of individual electrons.

Talk about indifference to evidence! Lomiller's assertion is flat false.

I have supplied abundant empirical, statistical evidence on the impact of school attendance on crime and on the relation between institutional structure on system performance.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Corvee labour is not a taxation system that has been employed in Western democracies, or rather the countries that became Western democracies, for several centuries.

Today, in the US, children work, unpaid, as window-dressing in the massive make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel that goes by the name "the public school system".

Or homeschooling, as it is a permitted form of education in Western democracies.

This was in the news lately. Here.

After reading, as best as possible, this short history of homeschooling in Germany, it appears that:
◦
homeschooling is still illegal, but not impossible.

Kinda like bank robbery is illegal but not impossible, only there's a good reason that bank robbery is illegal.
Croatia:...

Legal status of home schooling:
Homeschooling is not currently allowed for nationals, except in the instance of students with severe illness or disability. Education officials interpret the current education law to mean that school attendance is required.

Greece:...

Homeschooling is only explicitly allowed in Greek law in the case of children with special needs. The law states that in exceptional cases, education can occur in the home with direct supervision and materials from the school (Article 32, Section 4).

The Netherlands:...

Legal Status: Homeschooling is not technically recognized by Dutch law. The Compulsory Education Act, Article 2, paragraph 1, states that school attendance is mandatory. However, many are able to obtain a religious exemption to compulsory education.

There's more. Anyway, some democracies make room for homeschooling and some don't.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

So, you're saying that it is the fault of the free market then that it is better for a business owner to maximize their potential profits by making sure that low cost, low margin items need frequent replacement by persons in a position where they have little to no disposable income to purchase higher quality products, or is it the fault of those persons with little to no disposable income tohave to make a choice between short term needs (I need a can opener now if we are going to eat dinner), over longer term goals (I only have $10 to last the week to payday, if I buy the $1 can opener I still have $9, but it won't work as we'll and will probably break, or I can spend the $10 on a good can opener that will last for years, but means that I might run out of gas I need to get to work to get that paycheque.)?

I'm a fan of run-on sentences. There're a few real beauties in Spontaneous Combustion that take half a page or so. The above is awesome. In response (if I get the gist. Not sure about that), I'm saying that, unless there's good reason to suppose otherwise, State intervention in markets usually does more harm than good. People know their own interests and wants better than do remote authorities, and politically adept insider interest groups have stronger incentives to bend the regulatory apparatus to their purposes than the average citizen has to keep regulators on the straight and narrow path.

(Lomiller): "It's actually expensive to be poor and very often being poor forces you into decisions like not getting a good education that are long term bad but when you are poor concern form the future is a luxury and the best decision is often the one that gets you though today. While this is pretty easy understood Malcolm subscribes to a philosophy that doesn't believe this can happen..."
(Malcolm): "Flat false. I have stated directly and repeatedly that the current system imposes heavy costs on the poor. A tax is a State-mandated surrender of resources. Corvee labor is a tax. The policy of (a) compulsory attendance at school, (b) State (government, generally) operation of school, (c) assignment by district, and (d) policies that restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy to schools operated by dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel imposes huge opportunity costs on the victims of the cartel's wretched schools. Poor parents buy their way out from under the threat posed by compulsory attendance statutes and educational neglect statutes by surrendering their children's time. They buy their freedom at the cost of their children's freedom and lifetime prospects. My sympathy is moderated by their propensity to reelect their oppressors."

And yet the present system does allows the poor to receive a education.

a) I rebutted Lomiller's assertion:..."Malcolm subscribes to a philosophy that doesn't believe this can happen ..."
b) We disagree. Conventional schooling is a huge waste of time. In addition, the routine abuse that schools inflict destroys motivation. Consider the race-related test-score gap. Why is it so much narrower for homeschoolers?

... since the government is running the school with tax money, they must therefore prepare a budget, get approval for said budget and then account for the money actually spent.

Earlier:...
Joel Fried
"Pots and Kettles: Governance Practices of the Ontario Securities Commission" (just go there).
Further: Maurice Callaway (just go there).
Andrew Coulson:...

A new public opinion survey commssioned in Rhode Island by the Friedman Foundation reveals that people want to know the honest-to-goodness total per-pupil cost of public schooling.

Unfortunately, the full cost is regularly omitted from state education department websites, as revealed in a recent Cato study by Jason Bedrick. What’s more, the full figure is seldom reported by the media. Instead, newspapers and local TV news outfits usually report just a portion of the cost that excludes things like construction spending, interest on debt, and pensions. Education officials obviously have an incentive to make their operations look as frugal as possible, so it’s no surprise that they would offer reporters these partial spending figures (known as “operating” or “current” spending).

If you asked sharply pointed questions about the budget, school officials will lie.
(Malcolm): " The policy of ... assignment by district ..."

A reasonable process taken to reduce transportation costs, for either the parents or the State. And generally, there are processes available to parents who wish their child to attend schools out of district.

"To" is a statement of intention. The "transportation cost" explanation is demonstrably false. Here. Here. Here. Just propose repeal of assignment-by-district and see who opposes it. Assignment by district enforces economic (and racial) segregation.
(Malcolm): " The policy ... that restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy to schools operated by dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel imposes huge opportunity costs on the victims of the cartel's wretched schools."

No, public schools are operated by the state, the state EMPLOYS teachers.

NEA members operate schools as much as a State-employed refuse truck driver operates his truck.
(Malcolm): "Poor parents buy their way out from under the threat posed by compulsory attendance statutes and educational neglect statutes by surrendering their children's time."

Alternately, they send their children to school so that they have the education and opportunity to move beyond their current status.

Surveys consistently find greater support for vouchers among black parents than among white parents. Support for vouchers is negatively correlated with income. Poor and minority parents want out. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

 

[bruto]

Oh great grammarian, a very long sentence, even if it is clumsy and unnecessary, and even if it simply evinces poor style, not to mention if it appears to be a joke (as one might surmise from the inclusion of very long parentheses, among other things), is not a run-on sentence unless it violates the rules of grammar.

 

[RandFan]

"Pots and Kettles: Governance Practices of the Ontario Securities Commission" (just go there)

To what end? Canada is ranked higher in economic freedom than America and most other nations. You are out of gas. You cannont refute the arguments, science and the data that support the arguments