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This reads like a figurative kick in the face to those who argue against free education and social programmes "because the market will solve it and those that w

by madez 7y ago

This reads like a figurative kick in the face to those who argue against free education and social programmes "because the market will solve it and those that work hard enough will make it, so it's fair". The world is deeply unjust economically and the vast majority loses from that, and those, that manage the inquality by using the cheap larbor and forced constraints of the disadvantaged to serve the more fortunate ones, win. Even the fortunate ones win from rich neighbours, so there should be a big consensus for universal conditionless free education, social security and health insurance backed by the government. I know this might be interpreted as a flamebait and I see the common "but the government is incompetent/corrupt/inefficient" answers already, but those don't negate what I just wrote in any way upon closer inspection. However, this is genuinely how I feel and I feel stupidified when I see how these programmes aren't yet serious international standards.

52-6F-62 7y ago
You’re not alone there. Ontario is battling it out over this (once again). It’s regretful that it’s even a question anymore.
- cheez 7y ago
  A few years ago, we were considering relocating to Toronto. We went to a school and had a meeting with the principal of the local school. This principal said to us in no uncertain terms that if we can afford private school, to not send our children to public school in Toronto. Now, could this be a selfish reason on his part? Sure, but I doubt it. He walked us through why. Toronto is huge. What you see with the teenager in question is a small town with decent enough resources. And that is the decision we took ultimately: to move to a small town with rich residents.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    I grew up on the other side of that coin—a small town without enough resources. It wasn’t the worst of them, but when school boards were amalgamated it sparked internal politics as to where funding was allocated. I was a kid, so I wasn’t directly involved, but looking back on it—it was sad. Rural regions basically battling each other to keep textbooks up to date. And even in that state there were kids winning nation-wide scholarships. The problem was the others who weren’t so gifted had opportunities stripped from them by some man they’d never know. I could go on an anger-filled rant about it but I won’t. (Haha?) I prefer to say anything I’ve done or accomplished was in spite of that situation (and because of good teachers) rather than because of those stringent circumstances. But yes, in Ontario the best schools are probably just outside of the big city centres rather than in them. Upper Canada College for one. The world that places like that exist in is so far removed from the Canada I grew up with that I still think I’d have to see it in person to believe it exists. I’m only partly exaggerating. I hope we can do better than that in the future I’m realizing that we’re all better off if every child has the opportunity to learn and experience from the widest array—rather than limiting those opportunities to children who had the good fortune of good circumstance. It’s not exactly in their control, and it seems like a hell of a good investment to me.
    - cheez 7y ago
      Sounds good but it's that kind of thinking that leads to the current situation (I mean this literally) . School is basically glorified babysitting at this point.
      - 52-6F-62 7y ago
        I’m sorry. I don’t follow. I was advocating for more funding to public education so that more children have access to more learning experiences. I hope that’s more clear.
        cheez 7y ago
        Sorry, I was trying to say that that people have been adding more funding for generations and it keeps getting worse. Example: declining student enrollment, increased spending https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/per-student-spending-in-ontario-up-more-than-23-despite-claims-to-the-contrary https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/per-student-spending... http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/quickfacts/2016_2017.html http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/quickfacts/2016...
        52-6F-62 7y ago
        It’s not getting worse, though. Canadian provinces’ public schools are ranking in the top 10 of world countries. https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/education.aspx https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/education.aspx https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 As an aside, I do not trust the Fraser Institute to be unbiased on the matter of any kind of public spending. Public spending is a essentially against their core values.
        cheez 7y ago
        Hey, if you're happy with a "B" grade, that explains a lot about Ontario schools :-)
  - purple_ducks 7y ago
    > What you see with the teenager in question is a small town with decent enough resources Everything bar the geo-specific things (sailing,planeterium) come from the same money pot for every school in Ireland (ROI) and are pretty much the same for most schools countrywide. The more disadvantaged an area your school is in, the more resources(a la funding/support) it gets. This extends outside school to community. The most disadvantaged/crime-ridden communities get the most government funding(local sports/after-school activities/local community centers etc.)
    - cheez 7y ago
      Interesting formula. Still I'm going to bet that this kid is better off than most
_edo 7y ago
> The world is deeply unjust economically.......and I feel stupidified when I see how these programmes aren't yet serious international standards. It's not really that simple. Taking, by force, from Person A to raise Person B's children is complicated especially if you're worried about justness.
- jadbox 7y ago
  Person's A child won't be held back tangibly if instead of a living on a 100+ million family fortune, that instead it's a fraction of that due to equalization of education efforts. Man cannot be born as equals when one child could buy their entire university, while another cannot even afford basic living.
  - _edo 7y ago
    And what happens to society as a whole when we abandon a person's right to own the products of their labor? What happens when highly productive people decide they have better things to do than go to work and get taxed at 70%? A lot of people like a carbon tax because it will lower carbon emissions, if you tax productivity it has the same effect. A lot of people like clean energy subsidies because it makes clean energy more common, unfortunately subsidizing poverty often has the same effect. I'm not saying you're wrong to care, I'm saying it's not a simple problem.
    - RootKitBeerCat 7y ago
      Here you begin to sound like you’re equating productivity to income. There are many companies that produce little real world value, yet tons of income.
    - vharuck 7y ago
      >A lot of people like a carbon tax because it will lower carbon emissions, if you tax productivity it has the same effect. It's not the same situation, so there's no reason to think it'd have the same effect. A carbon tax's effect would come from opportunity cost. A company stops a behavior because of a carbon tax when they've found something more profitable. The tax just shifts the line of "more profitable." But what's somebody going to do if you tax their wealth more? They only "other opportunities" are leaving the country or having more free time. The first is definitely a risk to consider, but the second seems unlikely for the class whose income comes from just investing their wealth. Why not invest, even if the profits are smaller?
leftyted 7y ago
> there should be a big consensus for universal conditionless free education, social security and health insurance backed by the government. You allude to the best argument for these things, something like: "people are born into the world with a set of advantages and disadvantages they neither earned nor deserve, so we should do our best to even the playing field". But you missed the mark in terms of identifying the best argument from the other side. "Because the market will solve it and those that work hard enough will make it, so it's fair" is not the argument. That's a just world hypothesis. The good argument is: high taxes and large social programs distort economic incentives; if you "tax the rich at 70%," people will behave differently, and your society will be less wealthy as a result. Which would you rather have? A wealthy society with inequality or a poor society without inequality? Anyway, the fundamental point here is that all human progress is agonistic, and "evening the playing field" will result in less progress, not more. We're trying to walk the line between these two perspectives. We have "free" social programs but wealth still buys all kinds of advantages. I think we're doing a fairly good job, but it's imperative that we take both sides of this argument seriously. There's no reason to think we can have our cake and eat it.
- madez 7y ago
  > Which would you rather have? A wealthy society with inequality or a poor society without inequality? This is a good as in goodwill and honest point here. However, I think it isn't a dichotomy based on evidence. For example, most of northern Europe has these programmes and they are not poor, and there exist many poor countries without these programmes. If I thought these programmes would leave the people less wealthy, healthy, happy, I would be against them. If the programmes create negative incentives in people as to not be productive and successful to a degree that offsets the advantages in reduced crime, more tax because of higher educated people and thus salary and countless other and not easily measured advantages like progress on science, culture, and art, then I would be against those programmes. This is however not what we are seeing. It is a scary shadow on the wall while we can see the cute bunny in the foreground with our eyes directly.
- skybrian 7y ago
  That's ok as far as it goes, but it's not very far. To be convincing, the argument about negative incentives resulting in lower growth needs to be expanded on more than it usually is. (Or is reasonable to do in casual conversation.)
specialist 7y ago
Agreeing with you... ""but the government is incompetent/corrupt/inefficient"" There's always some kind of overhead. Open markets and open societies require infrastruture. Rules, government, lawyers, accountants, judges, cops and so forth are cheaper (for society) than anarchy (laissez faire). I'd take the Freedom Markets™ advocates a bit more seriously if they offered any kind of alternative. Something a bit more constructive than "taxes are theft!".

by madez 7y ago

52-6F-62 7y ago

You’re not alone there. Ontario is battling it out over this (once again). It’s regretful that it’s even a question anymore.

cheez 7y ago
A few years ago, we were considering relocating to Toronto. We went to a school and had a meeting with the principal of the local school. This principal said to us in no uncertain terms that if we can afford private school, to not send our children to public school in Toronto. Now, could this be a selfish reason on his part? Sure, but I doubt it. He walked us through why. Toronto is huge. What you see with the teenager in question is a small town with decent enough resources. And that is the decision we took ultimately: to move to a small town with rich residents.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I grew up on the other side of that coin—a small town without enough resources. It wasn’t the worst of them, but when school boards were amalgamated it sparked internal politics as to where funding was allocated. I was a kid, so I wasn’t directly involved, but looking back on it—it was sad. Rural regions basically battling each other to keep textbooks up to date. And even in that state there were kids winning nation-wide scholarships. The problem was the others who weren’t so gifted had opportunities stripped from them by some man they’d never know. I could go on an anger-filled rant about it but I won’t. (Haha?) I prefer to say anything I’ve done or accomplished was in spite of that situation (and because of good teachers) rather than because of those stringent circumstances. But yes, in Ontario the best schools are probably just outside of the big city centres rather than in them. Upper Canada College for one. The world that places like that exist in is so far removed from the Canada I grew up with that I still think I’d have to see it in person to believe it exists. I’m only partly exaggerating. I hope we can do better than that in the future I’m realizing that we’re all better off if every child has the opportunity to learn and experience from the widest array—rather than limiting those opportunities to children who had the good fortune of good circumstance. It’s not exactly in their control, and it seems like a hell of a good investment to me.
  - cheez 7y ago
    Sounds good but it's that kind of thinking that leads to the current situation (I mean this literally) . School is basically glorified babysitting at this point.
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      I’m sorry. I don’t follow. I was advocating for more funding to public education so that more children have access to more learning experiences. I hope that’s more clear.
      - cheez 7y ago
        Sorry, I was trying to say that that people have been adding more funding for generations and it keeps getting worse. Example: declining student enrollment, increased spending https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/per-student-spending-in-ontario-up-more-than-23-despite-claims-to-the-contrary https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/per-student-spending... http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/quickfacts/2016_2017.html http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/quickfacts/2016...
        52-6F-62 7y ago
        It’s not getting worse, though. Canadian provinces’ public schools are ranking in the top 10 of world countries. https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/education.aspx https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/education.aspx https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 As an aside, I do not trust the Fraser Institute to be unbiased on the matter of any kind of public spending. Public spending is a essentially against their core values.
        cheez 7y ago
        Hey, if you're happy with a "B" grade, that explains a lot about Ontario schools :-)
- purple_ducks 7y ago
  > What you see with the teenager in question is a small town with decent enough resources Everything bar the geo-specific things (sailing,planeterium) come from the same money pot for every school in Ireland (ROI) and are pretty much the same for most schools countrywide. The more disadvantaged an area your school is in, the more resources(a la funding/support) it gets. This extends outside school to community. The most disadvantaged/crime-ridden communities get the most government funding(local sports/after-school activities/local community centers etc.)
  - cheez 7y ago
    Interesting formula. Still I'm going to bet that this kid is better off than most

_edo 7y ago

> The world is deeply unjust economically.......and I feel stupidified when I see how these programmes aren't yet serious international standards. It's not really that simple. Taking, by force, from Person A to raise Person B's children is complicated especially if you're worried about justness.

jadbox 7y ago
Person's A child won't be held back tangibly if instead of a living on a 100+ million family fortune, that instead it's a fraction of that due to equalization of education efforts. Man cannot be born as equals when one child could buy their entire university, while another cannot even afford basic living.
- _edo 7y ago
  And what happens to society as a whole when we abandon a person's right to own the products of their labor? What happens when highly productive people decide they have better things to do than go to work and get taxed at 70%? A lot of people like a carbon tax because it will lower carbon emissions, if you tax productivity it has the same effect. A lot of people like clean energy subsidies because it makes clean energy more common, unfortunately subsidizing poverty often has the same effect. I'm not saying you're wrong to care, I'm saying it's not a simple problem.
  - RootKitBeerCat 7y ago
    Here you begin to sound like you’re equating productivity to income. There are many companies that produce little real world value, yet tons of income.
  - vharuck 7y ago
    >A lot of people like a carbon tax because it will lower carbon emissions, if you tax productivity it has the same effect. It's not the same situation, so there's no reason to think it'd have the same effect. A carbon tax's effect would come from opportunity cost. A company stops a behavior because of a carbon tax when they've found something more profitable. The tax just shifts the line of "more profitable." But what's somebody going to do if you tax their wealth more? They only "other opportunities" are leaving the country or having more free time. The first is definitely a risk to consider, but the second seems unlikely for the class whose income comes from just investing their wealth. Why not invest, even if the profits are smaller?

leftyted 7y ago

> there should be a big consensus for universal conditionless free education, social security and health insurance backed by the government. You allude to the best argument for these things, something like: "people are born into the world with a set of advantages and disadvantages they neither earned nor deserve, so we should do our best to even the playing field". But you missed the mark in terms of identifying the best argument from the other side. "Because the market will solve it and those that work hard enough will make it, so it's fair" is not the argument. That's a just world hypothesis. The good argument is: high taxes and large social programs distort economic incentives; if you "tax the rich at 70%," people will behave differently, and your society will be less wealthy as a result. Which would you rather have? A wealthy society with inequality or a poor society without inequality? Anyway, the fundamental point here is that all human progress is agonistic, and "evening the playing field" will result in less progress, not more. We're trying to walk the line between these two perspectives. We have "free" social programs but wealth still buys all kinds of advantages. I think we're doing a fairly good job, but it's imperative that we take both sides of this argument seriously. There's no reason to think we can have our cake and eat it.

madez 7y ago
> Which would you rather have? A wealthy society with inequality or a poor society without inequality? This is a good as in goodwill and honest point here. However, I think it isn't a dichotomy based on evidence. For example, most of northern Europe has these programmes and they are not poor, and there exist many poor countries without these programmes. If I thought these programmes would leave the people less wealthy, healthy, happy, I would be against them. If the programmes create negative incentives in people as to not be productive and successful to a degree that offsets the advantages in reduced crime, more tax because of higher educated people and thus salary and countless other and not easily measured advantages like progress on science, culture, and art, then I would be against those programmes. This is however not what we are seeing. It is a scary shadow on the wall while we can see the cute bunny in the foreground with our eyes directly.
skybrian 7y ago
That's ok as far as it goes, but it's not very far. To be convincing, the argument about negative incentives resulting in lower growth needs to be expanded on more than it usually is. (Or is reasonable to do in casual conversation.)

specialist 7y ago

Agreeing with you... ""but the government is incompetent/corrupt/inefficient"" There's always some kind of overhead. Open markets and open societies require infrastruture. Rules, government, lawyers, accountants, judges, cops and so forth are cheaper (for society) than anarchy (laissez faire). I'd take the Freedom Markets™ advocates a bit more seriously if they offered any kind of alternative. Something a bit more constructive than "taxes are theft!".