Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!mcnc!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Education] Message-ID: <290@ubvax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 16:23:47 EDT Article-I.D.: ubvax.290 Posted: Wed Aug 7 16:23:47 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 03:18:32 EDT References: <955@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1110@umcp-cs.UUCP> Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Distribution: na Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca. Lines: 101 Keywords: Attn: Larry Tepper In article <1110@umcp-cs.UUCP> version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP ubvax!cae780!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!flink flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) writes: >> ... Daniel K McKiernan has convinced me (by USPS mail) >> that the externalities involved are too minor and to hard to identify to >> justify a policy of subsidized education... >> --Paul V Torek > >Since someone asked: the only serious externalities I could think of >involved in education are those associated with research and invention. >Education keeps people off welfare, but welfare wouldn't exist in a >libertarian society, so that wouldn't apply in my antilibertarian argument. >Education makes better voters, I think, but McKiernan disagreed (which >shows, I guess, how subjective that judgement is); and besides, democracy >wouldn't exist in Libertaria either (except in voluntary organizations). > >Education promotes research and invention, which in turn have positive >effects on people not party to the relevant transactions. But only some >types of education do that, and only indirectly. And subsidizing education >in order to promote subsequent activities is bass-ackward; better to just >subsidize research directly. And invention wouldn't have significant >externalities in McKiernan's version of Libertaria, because they would be >copyrighted and copyrights would *never expire*. > >One other way in which education of an individual might benefit the public >at large is that it makes him less likely to turn criminal. But, again, >this is only an INdirect effect; if we want to discourage crime, we can >do that more directly. (Although, since deterrence is imperfect, there >will still be some positive externality associated with education's effect >in reducing crime). > >So that's why I've succumbed to the libertarian argument on education. >OK, socialists and centrists, where did I go wrong? > >--Still the reluctant centrist, Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink Nearly everywhere, Paul. First, you assume that direct means of discouraging social problems are superior [more effective, more humane, more honest, etc. -- perhaps] to indirect means, when historical evidence shows loads of cases where direct attack on social problems fails [Prohibition, for one example]. The statement that "if we want to discourage crime, we can do that more directly." is maybe not so. General, subsidized education shapes and defines a population by guaranteeing that members of that population share certain characteristics. Then problems which might be intractable given a population random in all dimensions might become tractable -- crime being probably the best case. Redefining the domain of a problem is a quintessentially indirect strategy. Second, instead of trying to put out a theory about what education does, Paul goes scattershot looking for externalities, a set whose relative completeness or incompleteness we have no way of judging. And there are causal connections which elude me entirely. For instance, I fail to see a link between education and invention. Many school systems today get attacked for stifling creativity; Einstein had to go to school in Switzerland before he could do well in school, for instance (AE had a German upbringing and schooling). And I fail to see a direct link between education and research (Of course, *I* would fail to see this, since my degree was in Sociology yet I do software engineering of a passable sort). Education does one massive thing that its lack or its privatization could not: it sets up people with credentials before they get their first job. Hence it permits a match between many different levels of jobs and many different levels of credentials. Hence it makes filling a job a manageable task for most jobs, by helping to ensure that the number of "qualified" applicants for a job match the number of jobs more or less. It also makes filling a job a less risky procedure, since applicants have accumulated a record which can be compared with other records even before the first job. If there is a link between education and research, it is the same as a link between education and plumbing, or education and secretarial skills, or education and teaching: education in each of these cases provides the credentials by which those who fill jobs in research or plumbing or secretarial skills or teaching can sort and evaluate applicants. A popular modern theory of education is that education sorts people by educational credentials, keeps accounting of these credentials, and helps to ensure that the supply of credentials more-or-less matches the demand for credentials by adjusting educational standards appropriately. Personally, I like this theory. I think it sums up all that education can be observed to do. Of course, the value of a credentialing system depends on the level of publicity, the level of enforcement, and the level of agreement on the value of particular credentials. Hence, since the best guarantor of publicity, enforcement, and agreement between credentials is a public regulatory authority, and because people outside the educational system disturb the system of credentials, the place for education is in the public sphere, and education should be subsidized and regulated by a public authority. Even in Libertaria. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw "And if you don't believe all the words I say, I'm certified prime by the USDA!"