In a lesson that should be learned here in the US, Chilean students have taken over schools and city streets in the largest protests the country has seen in decades. Chile suffered under the neo-liberal economics of Milton Friedman carried out by the brutal Chilean dictator Augustus Pinochet for close to two decades. Everything was privatized and if you wish to see how students in Chile, now facing the same austerity cuts that the neo-liberals are proposing to bail-out the one percent, are doing you can see the documentary below.Read it at The Daily Censored (with video documentary)
Chilean students have taken over schools and city streets in the largest protests the country has seen in decades for free education
Danny Weil
I have just one caveat with this enormously positive development. I don't think the new movement should be calling for "free" education. Nothing is free; everything has costs. What they are really calling for is socialized education: a system in which the costs of providing education are born by the society as a whole, rather than the individual who receives the benefit. The society employs a substantial share of its limited resources and labor potential to educate its youth and invest in the future, because it believes education is a vital social concern, and because it has a fundamental commitment to the value of equality in that sphere.
ReplyDeleteNow maybe "socialized" is a dirty word these days. Fine. Choose something else. But not "free".
When I hear people calling for something to be free, something whose production is obviously very labor-intensive and costly, it communicates a certain amount of naivete to me - as though they don't understand the role of human industry and limited, valuable resources in the production of human achievements of great value.
"Free" is the #1 marketing term. Thus, "free" markets, "free" trade, and "free" capital flows, not to mention "freedom," "free will," and "free" society. Internet content is characterized by "free" and it is comparatively difficult to monetize it directly.
ReplyDelete"Free" is a lot more acceptable than "socialized."
In a free society why would education not be free, since it is the sine qua non of freedom."Free" education is a very easy case to make.
I don't know Tom. If somebody says in one breath they want free education, the immediate question they will be asked is "How will we pay for it?"
ReplyDeleteIf they reply, "We won't have to pay for it, because it will be free," that will just show that they don't know what they are talking about and bring discredit on their proposal. But if they actually answer the question in some intelligible way, it will show that they are not calling for "free" education after all.
"Free" is not a good marketing approach in my eyes. Every grownup knows there is no such thing as a free lunch. Every teacher knows that their skills and services are not free. Every citizen in every town that has ever built a school knows that the school was not free - even though it was financed by the public.
If "social" and "socialized" are dirty words for puritanical Americans in 2012, then use "community". Say you are calling for "community funded education" or "equal public education" or something along those lines.
Dan, everyone knows that there is no such thing as a free market, either, or free trade.Most people get that the meaning of "free" has many nuances.
ReplyDeleteWe have "free" education K thru HS here in the US and no one thinks that it is actually free of charges since property taxes are used in part to pay the expenses and bond issues are issued to finance the facilities.
US education is funded locally and by states, which means that taxes are needed to "pay for" it, at least what the federal govt doesn't contribute. But a national education system in a country with currency sovereignty is not funded by taxes. It is however, a public commitment of national resources to public investment for a public good
I remember a commercial for a hospital that tackled the "free" problem. They wanted to emphasize the free care they offered without cheapening their brand. The angle they went with was "It's not free care, it's expensive, high quality care offered at no cost"
ReplyDelete