Subject:
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Re: Libertarian SPAM (Propaganda)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 16 Jun 2001 04:35:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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1495 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Matthew Gerber wrote:
> > All of this still brings to the forefront the fact that few businesses in
> > America would/could/care to run privatized schooling for children. Most
> > can't make their bottom line in the first place, and are laying off tens of
> > thousands of workers daily. Besides all that, in this day and age, there
> > would need to be strict guidelines on HOW the business could educate the
> > kids, and that is just the same size government, doing different work, right?
>
> I think you're numbers on layoffs are a bit off... 10s of thousands of
> workers daily is quite a few.
Sorry, should have said "announcing the laying off of tens of thousands of
workers daily"...and I don't mean in total! Look at this from today's TechTV
news: http://www.techtv.com/money/businessnews/story/0,23008,3332884,00.html
"Nortel said it will take a $830 million restructuring charge, which is
associated with the elimination of about 20,000 positions. The company is
also taking an unexpected $950 million charge for increased provisions,
which is made up of $650 million related to manufacturing-related costs and
$300 million for bad debt.
The company also said it will lay off an additional 10,000 positions by the
end of September and will take related charges in its third quarter. This
brings the total workforce reduction by Nortel to 30,000. Nortel also
canceled its long-standing dividend to investors."
That's a grand total of 30,000 workers looking for jobs by September.
> In Libertopia, there would certainly be no regulation of schools. Of
> course schools would vary all over the map as to how good an education
> they actually give, and it wouldn't necessarily follow how much is spent
> per pupil or any such. Of course that really isn't different than today.
The biggest, scarriest problem with all of this idea is that the kids would
be brought up thinking "The Ralston-Purina Company is my GOD". This was
prevalent in the market education system, basically the students were
brainwashed into undying loyalty to the company. Families were housed in
company barraks, fed through company sources, etc. This carried on into the
fifties and sixties with company planned communities being built around
company work facilities. And what happened when the business went belly up?
A whole lot of undereducated (for general employment-too specialized and
brainwashed) families out in the cold (coal towns are the prime example).
And it's not too far a leap into the cyberpunk idea of corporate wars from
there, now is it?
> Of course we also have examples today of private schools doing just
> fine, with plenty of corporate sponsorship, they just currently don't
> start until their students are essentially adults.
But there are regulations in place limiting how much actual influence the
company has after contributing. They may get a wing or building named for
them, or a scholarship or something, but the history courses don't suddenly
stop teaching world history and start extolling the history and virtues of
Anheiser-Busch.
> Will some kids get screwed by a fully private school system? Sure. Will
> it be more or less than get screwed today? I'd strongly suspect less.
> For one thing, I'm not sure that the majority of kids in poor performing
> schools really need all the education we give them.
You just scared the living $#!+ out of me. If you actually believe this, I
am afraid for the whole country. Seriously.
> Sure, folks need to
> be somewhat educated, and opportunity must be available to any willing
> to grab for it, but I bet that opportunity would be greater if schools
> were private and could use any criterion they chose to accept students
> and grant scholarships.
SOMEWHAT EDUCATED?!? I'm too freaked out to even argue the point! That is
seriously f'd up!
> The result would be that the underprivileged kid
> who shows some promise will be much more likely to be given a place in a
> decent or very good school.
Except that the families of the rich kids who went there on the family dime
would hate that "that little bastard from the other side of town is daring
to put himself up on the same pedestal as MY child". That kid wouldn't even
get the break that you are talking about. What is so wrong with getting good
education to the places that need it, rather than the other way around?
> Corporations also give plenty to schools already (of course they have a
> non-free market incentive, but most tax breaks are deductions not
> credits so the corporation is still reducing it's bottom line). There
> was an article in the paper recently about my employer investing another
> 25 million into education. There is also a reason why my employer's
> largest site is here. It's because of the concentration of quality
> education. I'd also point out that in many areas besides just education,
> I think my employer is ahead of government in providing more opportunity
> (for one thing, any employer which can convince a manager to tell his
> employees that while he personally came from an environment where boys
> dated girls and not other boys, that he was fully behind his employers
> efforts to make an environment safe for people of any sexuality because
> it was good for business really impresses me as an employer who doesn't
> really care what government says it should do, it cares about what the
> bottom line means - but heck, my employer is just one of those big
> multi-national companies which is out to exploit the world and run over
> anyone who gets in it's way).
Ummm...so the manager was made to eschew his beliefs and play the nice
little corporate wag, spouting corporate policy, no matter what he wanted?
Really forward thinking, that. Not. (I hate the 'not' thing, but it works here)
Matt
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Libertarian SPAM (Propaganda)
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| (...) I think you're numbers on layoffs are a bit off... 10s of thousands of workers daily is quite a few. In Libertopia, there would certainly be no regulation of schools. Of course schools would vary all over the map as to how good an education (...) (23 years ago, 16-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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