Ramble On
It's been a while since I've had a rambling, train of thought sort of posting. So here goes.
My goal is to offend as many distinct philosophical viewpoints as I can.
First of all, I'm concerned with the state of education in this country. I get some great stories from my little bro who's teaching out in Hawaii. Now, he's not exactly one of those teachers that will be getting an award for excellence any time soon. But from the stories that he's telling me, he's struggling with his new job because he actually seems to be caring too much. When that's the case, you have to wonder about the future of our children. You hear report after report of how schools are failing, how "No Child Left Behind" has resulted in everyone being slowed down. And then you hear about how teachers are subpar now, and how our best and brightest are not going into teaching.
I have a hypothesis. And before I get into it, I want to clarify that, though I am a misogynist, that only partially explains my position.
Women's rights have made our children dumber. There's more to it that just women's rights, but that's the part that makes this rambling more interesting (and is likely to generate more hate mail).
The basic premise is this. You also make the assumption that high mental ability leads to success in the workplace, as well as socioeconomic status (income, education, occupation). That's a pretty reasonable assumption, based on most of the research that's been done. Now, you also assume that people are inherently greedy, which is a basic assumption upon which the discipline of economics is built on. So, smart people will try to maximize their income by filtering into high-paying occupations. Nothing particularly intriguing, right? We've always known that people went into med school, law school, and B school to make bank.
Now, you assume that men and women have equal mental ability. Naturally, this assumption is faulty, since it's been proven that at the highest levels, women find math to be tough (I'd cite this, but I'm not exactly sure how to quote those old Barbie dolls with the pull strings). But let's assume it anyway. So, you take the next step and make sure that everyone in the world hates you by stating that if there was less female empowerment in this society, our schools would be better.
How do we make that drastic leap? Before the women's lib movement, what were the occupational roles that educated women played? Teacher, nurse, receptionist/typist, housewife. So, most of your smart women were being sent into the workplace, with a much higher proportion of them sent on a mission to educate our children.
Now, flash forward. Women have been told that they have the ability to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, pilots, astronauts, soldiers, accountants, race car drivers, CEO, vice president, president (note, the last two remain theoretical), and whatever else a man can do. And for the most part, that's been great for the individuals. For example, I'm sure that GoDaddy girl Danica Patrick has carved out a great life for herself. But what does this do to our educational system?
We have an economic system where teachers don't make much, compared to other professions, and have relatively low prestige. So, logically speaking, where should the smartest folks go first? Probably into the engineering, law, and business schools and the hard sciences. Or into bikini modeling, but that correlations between intelligence and beauty are rather spurious. And only after we filter out the smartest folks do we get into teaching.
Now, in years past, that was OK, because there were fewer acceptable occupations for women. And pay for nursing, teaching, and office work were about the same (actually teaching probably was better). So our brightest women were going into teaching. Even though men didn't really go into teaching, we still had a lot of smart people becoming school teachers. Maybe the smartest 5% went into some non-traditional roles, but you can say that the next 30% were probably teachers or nurses. So, out of the overall population, you had access to a good chunk of the top 1/3 for teaching. Note, I'm just making up the numbers, but you should get the point. If anyone cares to dig up actual numbers, we could see if all this still makes sense.
Flash forward today, and even though there are more men going into teaching, we're still missing out on the smartest folks. After you filter out all of the smart folks who are driven by income/prestige (which is still a basic assumption that's fairly robust), you have much more limited access to the top 1/3 of the population, and are largely limited to the next 1/3.
Back when we had more glass ceilings, we funneled more smart people into teaching. Thus, women's rights have led to dumber kids.
Now, there's more to the story. The free market also has led to dumber kids. I'm sure that Ron Paul and our libertarian friends will have hate mail for me. And heaven forbid if there are any feminists that support Ron Paul that read this.
The free market basically lets individuals set prices according to value. This works out well when things are quantifiable (commodity prices come to mind quickly). And this works as a system at the individual level, where social factors are small.
Wages are the price for labor. So, higher wages are offered for positions where employee ability is valued more. Employers want employees that contribute value (i.e., profit) to the employer. We have good accounting rules (generally speaking) that help us measure value in this realm.
But what happens in social services where the value goes to society? And what happens when these things are difficult to measure?
The tragedy of the commons.
The free market is this idea at work. People act independently, trying to maximize their value. Unregulated, shared resources (the commons) are inevitibly depleted, though no one believes that is a good outcome.
The free market sets the price for tangible things well, but poorly for less tangible things. This intangibility leads to more risk when it comes to investment. And even if we could measure the value of something like the quality of education, it may not make economic sense for us to invest in education. After all, if my investment in education leads to smarter accountants and financial analysts, it may only benefit society in a minimal way. So, my investment on a public good, may not be good for me.
Basically, the free market sets a lower price for things like public education, environmentalism, community health, and other social issues. Part of this is the increased riskiness of investment associated with intangiblility, and part of this is that the benefits of associate with the outcomes are outweighed by the costs. So, even though we know that we should invest in education to get more talented poeple into the classrooms, and we know that the degradation of our educational system would be catastrophic, it may not make sense for individuals to invest.
So why can't we privatize education? We could, but there's no clear business plan for education as a profit maker, is there? I don't really know, but nothing jumps out at me. Current models basically take the same taxpayer money in, and use it to run schools privately, with the profits coming in efficiency. But efficient delivery only gets you so far. You still have the same issue - how do you convince individuals to pay for this? In a free market, you basically don't. In our system, we have taxes. Now, traditionally, we have a pretty laissez-faire attitude, so our tax structure is geared toward allowing free markets. If you compare this to somewhere like, say, Norway, where things are basically socialist, you see a very high quality public education system. Of course, many Norwegians go abroad for college. Norwegian universities are not world-class. Now where the American system shines is in higher education, where the goal is excellence of the individuals involved. This shouldn't be surprising. Our relatively free market system leads to the greatest rewards for individual success.
Now, as you go more broadly, from education, to society, you have to ask "what's the answer?" I think that we're seeing many outcomes that suggest that carte blanche free market structures lead to problems when goals are at a social level. However, we also see where the free market leads to excellence at the highest levels. I think that you can incorporate both structures. The question is where you shift from more socialist to more free market.
I think that free market proponents overstate the degree to which free markets have benefits. Areas where you need excellence , need free markets. Bear in mind, excellence has been diluted. Not every company is excellent. In fact, by definition, most are mediocre. And bear in mind it should be the need of excellence that is important. Many industries can thrive with mere competence. So, regulations should be geared toward a free market where radical innovation and knowledge generation can be rewarded. Heavy R&D companies come to mind. For example, phamaceutical companies need to be rewarded for breakthrough drugs (though they need to be strongly regulated for drugs that are only incrementally beneficial - like the myriad drugs that are essentially the same, save for an additional feature that allows for a new patent). Companies that can change the way energy is consumed need to be rewarded for helping us live sustainably (but companies that contribute to the status quo should not recieve such protection).
At the individual level, we can do this through smarter taxing. For environmental issues, we can regulate consumption. If you read Gregg Easterbrook, you've read about how improving fuel efficiency, going from 10 mpg to 20 mpg is much more beneficial than going from 20 mpg to 30 mpg. Since companies often use their manufacturing cost as a baseline for pricing, we often misprice goods by not considering the societal cost of usage. For example, SUV's can be considered underpriced, because we don't consider the increased cost of usage. We can increase the tax on the SUV, but we can also increase the cost of the gasoline for SUV's. For community health, we can impose taxes based on healthiness of the food, with unhealthy options taxed higher. We're starting to do this with tobacco. Alcohol should probably be more expensive, given the costs to society. But where this really can change society is with foods, particularly with processed food manufactureres and our incredibly screwed up agricultural industry.
And back to education. School taxes should not stay local. The broad role of basic education is not for individual excellence - it's for competence amongst the masses. Basics need to be instilled - this requires standardized programs where there is equal access, regardless of a community's income. National curriculum that sets a high bar is needed. This is of particular importance in K-6. Within each individual school, recognizing the most talented individuals and giving them some separate instruction for part of their studies can still allow for individual achievement, particularly in teaching writing, logic, mathematics, and ethics. The teaching of facts doesn't necessitate a separate classroom. Overall, it's providing uniformity in education, regardless of the neighborhood you happen to live in. This isn't a small change on how we teach. This is taking a bulldozer to a system that's intrinsicly skewed.
Oh yeah. And we need to get smarter people back in there as teachers. My first thought is to severely restrict employment opportunities for women in other arenas :-)
Remember. Roland in 2020. A Vision for the Future. I'm guessing that I won't be President anytime soon. But, I think that if I ever become Dictator For Life, that I'll have some interesting ideas.
-Chairman
15 comments:
Blaming the failure of PUBLIC education on the free market doesn't make much sense.
Why not? If free markets are the panacea that the libertarian folks claim it to be, then a public good should be priced just as efficiently as a commodity. I'm asserting that there's been a failure, precisely because it is PUBLIC (shared, common, collective, etc.) and we have let the free market dictate the price of a teacher.
It is impossible for the free market to work or have any relevance in being discussed when we're talking about a government controlled forced monopoly such as public education.
Of course we could attempt to fix the problem by making teacher's salaries artificially higher than they already are but I have little confidence in the government being able to be anything close to efficient in this.
Another error is your assumption that there is actually something that is a public (shared, common, collective, etc...) good for which everyone should be entitled even if it means forcing others to provide this good.
Are you asserting that the "public goods" that I talk about don't exist, or that they shouldn't exist?
If it's the former, then that is either a) an outrageous claim that warrants further discussion, or b) a response to my, admittedly, loose wording.
If it is the latter, that is a much more philosophical discussion. Should there be roads that are paid for by public, even though usage is not equal? Should we have basic infrastructure (power, water, etc.), even though some have no need for it? Should there be public education?
In any case, my contention is that free markets are very good where prices are relatively well understood, and inefficient where they are not understood. My example was that education was one of those instances.
Would the pricing of teachers be any different if education were not government controlled? I'd suggest that the market would still be inefficient, since the benefits of education are less tangible than say, the benefit of buying a pound of ground beef.
I am claiming that that they don't exist; there are no goods for which the market cannot provide. I'm assuming that you mean the market can't possibly provide the right amount of education when you say it is a public good. That is wrong.
Roads, in particular, would be incredibly simple to be provided privately and one unintended consequence of pretending that we would never have the right amount of roads if the governement didn't build them has been that the usage of cars is way too much.
Education has resulted in an extreme waste of time and resources for the vast majority of 18-22 year olds that go to college. Arguing against this seems quite ridiculous.
"In any case, my contention is that free markets are very good where prices are relatively well understood, and inefficient where they are not understood."
Pretending that the government will know better what the proper price for a good is than the market is a huge logical leap. What evidence do we have of any good where the free market has not known the proper price better than the government?
Of course providing more money for education and roads (and any other good that a lobbyist can convince or bribe the government to pay for) will result in more of that good but ignoring the huge amount of resources it took to do so is a very big mistake.
Looks like S. Dubner has some similar thoughts on women and teaching:
link
I agree that restricing the brightest woman to a teaching job resulted in teachers that were better on average. However, I'm also sure the benefits those brightest teachers have given in other fields is absolutely a much better benefit to society than the improvement in teaching would have been.
"Basically, the free market sets a lower price for things like public education, environmentalism, community health, and other social issues."
This is entirely untrue and could be one of the main logical errors contributing to your delusion. People are willing to do these types of jobs for less pay because they are well respected and "honorable" jobs to have. Why should these benefits be ignored?
In the previous comment I'm assuming you imply that the government should step in and give money to these types of jobs because they "deserve" it.
"For example, phamaceutical companies need to be rewarded for breakthrough drugs"
Why? We are doing this now and I believe it is one of the major reasons why drug technology hasn't made all that much progress.
"Companies that can change the way energy is consumed need to be rewarded for helping us live sustainably"
Should they get more or less money than the oil companies were subsidized with? What evidence do we have that the government has any clue what the right "sustainable" energy technology is that deserves this money?
Markets work, central planning simply doesn't work. It is especially dangerous when the level of knowledge the government has is such a small percentage compared to the amount of money they are capable of stealing from society.
Westy - interesting. However, Dubner seems to have much less of a misogynistic stance than I do. Probably why he's on NYT and I have a content warning posted before you enter.
Robby - Generally speaking, I believe that your argument is that no one should have to fund anything that they don't want to. This contrasts with the notion of pure socialism, the sort of utopian communal living. I'm not pushing that end of the spectrum. However, I am suggesting that when you are a member of a society that there are obligations that you have, a cost of membership, if you will. I think that how much the membership should cost is the levels of gray in this discussion.
Does that seem a fair assessment?
You posted a bunch in a row - let me respond to the first two.
First, in regard to roads - as far as building and maintaining roads, in general? I think that you can build a case for privatizing some roads. But to undertake the creation of something as massive as the highway system, there has to be some government intervention. And more basically, someone has to own the land, right? At the least, the land is a public good. Otherwise, people would be landlocked on their own property.
With regard to contributions to society:
"However, I'm also sure the benefits those brightest teachers have given in other fields is absolutely a much better benefit to society than the improvement in teaching would have been."
How do you know? How do you measure the value of education?
Are you arguing that education is not problematic in this country? If so, then the discussion needs to go down a different path. If not, then read on :-) If teachers felt rewarded enough by the intangible benefits, then we wouldn't see this sort of "brain drain" in education. This suggests that price that has been set may be low.
With regard to the societal benefits of education, not every dollar generated has equal utility, right? The first dollar you earn is much more valuable than the 10,000th, which in turn is more valuable than the 100,000th. Diminishing returns and all that. This story is consistent with perspectives on happiness (technically, "subjective well-being", a common construct used in psychology), where wealth positively influences happiness until you hit about the $25,000/yr. mark, the point where basic needs are met, and then wealth ceases to have much of an effect on happiness.
My thought is that educators contribute more to the early dollars earned, than the folks going into other fields (particularly finance and banking, like Dubner notes). So, the dollar amounts being contributed to society may be less, the utility gained by those dollars may be more (depending on how you "discount" those later dollars).
If you compare Norway (a successful, relatively socialist nation) and the U.S. (a successful, relatively free market nation), from 1975 to now, you see some interesting things. At that point, our per capita GDP's were about the same. Since then, both have grown (ours to about $43,500, and Norway's to about $71,700).
What has been the difference? Part of it is that we keep letting in immigrants. And we have racial issues that come into play. But I'd suspect that a lot of it is a) the emphasis on basic education for all of society and b) a a government that has taken some successful ideas from socialism. This contrasts to the deregulation that has been the trend in this country over the last 30 years.
I'm not calling for the old-style Marxist revolution. I'm suggesting that a) we don't know how to value complex things, and b) just letting the free market run wild on some of these things is akin to the blind faith called for by religion.
And again, I'm just running off the cuff, building up from first principles and theorizing based on observed outcomes, so my "facts" may be off. Please do correct, if I'm just making stuff up :-)
I would place Norway, Democrats and Republicans all very very close to each other on the Communism to Anarchy scale. I'm arguing for basically anarchy and a number of 0 for cost of membership, as long as property rights are properly defined.
"But to undertake the creation of something as massive as the highway system, there has to be some government intervention"
No.
"And more basically, someone has to own the land, right? At the least, the land is a public good. Otherwise, people would be landlocked on their own property."
Why would anyone continue to pay to use the roads of some company that forced landlocking or anything of that nature? The market wouldn't allow that to happen. They would go bankrupt or be tried in court if their actions were intentionally antagonistic.
"How do you know? How do you measure the value of education?"
Because that's what the market is telling us.
Utility: Anything we do to try to manipulate the markets will be counterproductive and result in unintended consequences (welfare creates an incentive to be unproductive, public education undercuts the market for private schools, etc...). It's simply not possible to be smarter than the market.
Regarding Norway-USA GDP: A particular number is pretty much impossible to explain and from what I see as recently as 2003 the US was higher. My guess would be currency exchange itself would explain the difference. Also the US has been spending absurd amounts on the war and those costs have basically a 0% return while costs on health care or education probably have at least a 50% return no matter how poorly they are run.
"This contrasts to the deregulation that has been the trend in this country over the last 30 years."
I don't think this is true at all. Bush may have ran and gotten elected on a deregulation/small government platform but nothing he has done while in office has been anything close to that. With how the government works deregulation basically doesn't happen and it's more of keeping the status quo instead of constantly adding new regulations that has become called deregulation.
I can't find the numbers but overall tax rates (which is likely a good answer to how socialistic countries are) are very similar in the United States to Europe as US corporate tax rates are higher. While we like to be known as the land of the free the reality is that we are very similar to most European countries. I'm more of the opinion that every country is doing it wrong than one country is doing a better job than another. Besides war, which is pretty much a complete waste of money no matter what.
"b) just letting the free market run wild on some of these things is akin to the blind faith called for by religion."
I would say that pretending that the government is the answer instead of the problem is "akin to the blind faith called for by religion." While Obama was a better pick this year those people who imagine that anyone could possibly have enough knowledge to properly handle a job like being the president are the ones who are incredibly overestimating our ability to "value complex things".
"a) the emphasis on basic education for all of society and b) a a government that has taken some successful ideas from socialism"
It's entirely possible that we could use some adjusting in the priority we give education. I also realize that a truly free market like I describe will never happen in my life. However, discussing tweaks to our system doesn't really interest me, I'm more interested in a drastic change because I don't believe b) is possible. There simply aren't any ideas from socialism that are worth taking. I would equate all attempts to do so to attempting to build a perpetual machine and believing that somehow the laws of physics can be tweaked in a way that it will work.
This is where I don't follow. I see the anarchy standpoint that you espouse. That seems to be basic libertarianism. I'll agree with that.
Why would you expect that would work in anything that resembles a society? And in that system, how does law exist and how is it applied? Why would private property be recognized in that system?
The thought that "every country is doing it wrong" is perfectly plausible, because what you're calling for is something where the notion of a country, or any form or organization wouldn't exist. And a system like that definitely existed in the history of mankind. Basically, you're describing the hunter-gatherer era of humanity.
But even basic notions like agriculture or industrialism require collective efforts. In that sense, a system characterized by anarchy will lose out in the long run to systems that have some central planning. If you believe in evolution at all, you'll see the fall of the hunter/gatherers and the formation of communities.
In a basic survival sense, people quickly see that organization provides enough advantage to conquer those who don't organize.
Are you arguing that anarchy works better, from day 1? Are you arguing that we would be better off with anarchy, starting now? Or are you arguing both?
The former, I think, would be a huge leap, but I'd be interested in hearing an explanation. The latter may be more reasonable, but you still have fundamental issues with devolving into simply "might makes right."
All that it would require would be a majority of people with the understanding that government is a problem and not the solution. How is this done? Good question. You would for sure need enough of the people understand this that if a small group of people began bossing others around the masses could come in protect them. With mandatory public education and the constant "democracy is awesome", "capitalism is evil" and "government is good" we hear from age 4 to 80 I'm not too optimistic about anything changing.
There would be private courts that handle disputes. Currently government has a monopoly on the court system. There have been times in history where private courts have been in place and has worked successfully. (Iceland several hundred years ago and "Wild Wild West")
Collective efforts, social organizationa and central planning are completely fine. The only problem I have is when these groups force their will on others who disagree.
It would not be some utopian world, very similar problems to what we're currently facing would still be the norm. In the long run we would be better off. That said, if the dollar collapsed and the US became bankrupt today and we immediately went into a system I'm describing it's entirely possible the "long run" would not be achieved within our lifetime.
"Might makes right" is the problem currently, not what we would devolve into.
A better transition would be if somebody like Ron Paul somehow got elected and remained popular. Over the next 20-30 years all government agency's could be dissolved, government property sold, Fed shut down, taxes reduced to virtually nil, etc.. and eventually people would see the government has virtually no function.
This is probably less likely than some drastic change as a result of some crisis, similar to the Great Depression or this credit crunch * 20, but would be preferrable.
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