From: marotenb@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Mark Rotenberg)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: In a libertarian society there would be...
Date: 22 Jul 92 09:11:18 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, San Diego

peercy@dopey.crhc.uiuc.edu (Mike Peercy) writes:

>marotenb@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Mark Rotenberg) writes:
>
>| How would a libertarian society change people's inate inclination to work for
>| the short term as opposed to the long term?  I'm not talking about the smart
>| businessman; I'm talking about a teenager who doesn't have the money or the
>| personal drive to finish junior high school (since it would probably cost as
>| much as a private education does today), and who's probably already in debt.
>
>| It seems that the libertarian society would not do anything to discourage him
>| from dropping out and working at McDonald's for the rest of his life (if he's
>| even qualified to do that).  Remember, this is not somebody who thinks 20
>| years into the future about how much he could be making if he finished school.
>| What opportunities would this person have to move up the societal ladder?
>| Or would he be disposed to be forever worse off than his parents?
>
>The libertarian society, by providing an environment in which one
>is predictably rewarded in proportion to one's contribution to the
>society, would _encourage_ him not to drop out.  One would think
>that the prospect of a future better than burger flipping would be
>adequate incentive, no?

In the present society students have this same opportunity, yet the dropout
rate is astounding.  The difference in a Libertarian society would be that
the same student would be thousands of dollars in debt (due to the lack of a
public school system), and banks would not be lending him more.  He
wouldn't even be offered the option of staying in school if he wanted to
because nobody could offer him the money.

The prospect of a better future for the student makes no difference in the
mind of the banker who ends up determining that student's future.  He's much
more likely to be flipping burgers or unemployed for the rest of his life in
a Libertarian Society than in a system with school choice.

                                    -=*=-

Understand that my problem with Libertarians seeking to eliminate public
schools is not the liberal ("what about the poor kids?") argument.  It's
that the quality of the workforce would plummet, and the chasm between the
average well-educated citizen and the average not-so-well-educated individual
would widen.  As the engine of society, the middle class would not thrive
as it has in America.  That frightens me, and should frighten anyone who owns
part or all of any business (unless it's manual labor 8^) ).

I completely support school choice, as do some Libertarians.  I brought this
topic to a "Newcomers' Bull Session" with the local Libertarian party (1
person showed up) and the man I spoke to said that Libertarians are against
school choice.  Why?  Because it requires the "initiation of force or fraud"
to fund it -- not because society would be better off without it.  Bad
justification.

We as a society need the best of both public and private education.  And the
"initiation of force or fraud" needed to fund such a system is more than
justified, IMO.

>In fact, I would maintain that it is the government which does the
>most to discourage long term planning, both through a system of laws
>which makes long-range planning difficult and through actual incentives
>for short-range planning.

In most cases I would agree.  But true Libertarians don't balance the good
and evil of each plan.  They work on pure principle, which is foolish, IMO.

>That said, in a free society there will still be a significant
>number of persons whose planning is not long-range enough by the
>standards of the society.  Nonetheless, it is not government's
>place to act against the value judgments of those persons.

As far as education goes, the decisions will ultimately be up to banks, not
to students and parents.  That's ideal for many sectors of our economy, but
it's a tragedy if applied to education.  And that's why a fully Libertarian
society disturbs me.

>Mike Peercy
>peercy@crhc.uiuc.edu
								Mark Rotenberg
								mrote@ucsd.edu
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