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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!"