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If you don’t understand why Reason is against this, you have no idea how most mainstream libertarians think. The tablets aren’t “donated”. They are part of a s

If you don’t understand why Reason is against this, you have no idea how most mainstream libertarians think. The tablets aren’t “donated”. They are part of a scummy deal wherein the prison picks one company that they want to buy them from, makes all other tablets illegal, and takes a kickback from the fees. While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Reason (and most libertarians) have been very consistent about the need to break down the prison-industrial complex, and in calling for an end to crony capitalist self-dealing.

pgcj_poster 7y ago
> While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Sure, and this is basically the same reason that people get upset about sweatshop labor: if companies weren't so relentless in profit-seeking, they could afford to give workers a better choice than the one between subsistence farming and sweatshop labor. But libertarians tend shrug their shoulders and say "well that won't happen, so you should be happy that people at least don't have to work on farms anymore." Likewise, prisons are moving from giving prisoners a choice among zero tablet offerings to a choice of one tablet offering. So according to the above reasoning, libertarians should be happy to see a small improvement; this article should be saying "this is a good step, but we've got a ways to go." But that's definitely not the impression I'm getting from the article. From this I can only conclude that libertarians are willing to tell others to be happy for small incremental improvements over a bad situation in a system they like (Capitalism), but aren't willing to do the same when it comes to a system they dislike (Prisons).
- Craighead 7y ago
  Find the answer to: "where did the books go?"

pgcj_poster 7y ago

> While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Sure, and this is basically the same reason that people get upset about sweatshop labor: if companies weren't so relentless in profit-seeking, they could afford to give workers a better choice than the one between subsistence farming and sweatshop labor. But libertarians tend shrug their shoulders and say "well that won't happen, so you should be happy that people at least don't have to work on farms anymore." Likewise, prisons are moving from giving prisoners a choice among zero tablet offerings to a choice of one tablet offering. So according to the above reasoning, libertarians should be happy to see a small improvement; this article should be saying "this is a good step, but we've got a ways to go." But that's definitely not the impression I'm getting from the article. From this I can only conclude that libertarians are willing to tell others to be happy for small incremental improvements over a bad situation in a system they like (Capitalism), but aren't willing to do the same when it comes to a system they dislike (Prisons).

Craighead 7y ago
Find the answer to: "where did the books go?"