A discussion about the value and effects of giving parents an option to the underperforming government school system. Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, William F. Buckley Jr. www.LibertyPen.com
We don't want monopolies -of any kind. Period. Which is why the US needs to break up. The unification of 50 states is an unnatural forced uncomfortable union but worst of all, an insufferable geo-political monopoly the rest of the world suffers.
No, what's simple, is that IT DOESN'T MATTER what the people want. The government officials are in final authority, not the electorate. The people do NOT CONSENT to their government: it's an OLIGARCHY not a democracy. That is the ONE FACT that libertarians refuse to mention: because they are CLOSET oligarchs themselves.
If this conversation happened there would be 20 sjw holding up signs, screaming profanities in the background, proudly displaying the fine public education they received in some progressive coastal city.
"Should we privatize public schools? On the pro side, we have these economists/smart guys. On the con side, we have two people whose entire careers depend on public schooling and a sociologist." Brilliant.
I noticed that too the second the moderator introduced them. Additionally, what else do the 3 on the 'con' side share? They are all worshipers of the ideology of Modern Liberalism. Specifically, these 3 believe that 1) government should have a monopoly on the sphere of education. 2) government knows better than the individual about what is best for them (this goes for their education, what they should buy, how much money they should earn, etc) and 3) government is benevolent and altruistic; unlike you greedy individuals. Such foolishness could only reside inside an evil ideology like Liberalism.
Aren't parents, teachers, and some recent graduates rather than a handful of administrators/profiteers who determine curricula acting as a collectivist (i.e. socialist) system? Socialism is about putting society at the wheel, and communism is about putting each community at the wheel - NOT bureaucrats.
As soon as they introduced Buckley, Friedman, & Sowell, I knew that it didn't matter who was on the opposing side. The other guys didn't stand a chance.
Scott Harris: Oh yeah, they fixed the education-system! Oh wait.... So you see, the point is: it doesn't matter who's right; but who's LEFT... in power. Until the people are free to choose government, they'll remain slaves to oligarchy.
"A guarantee that cannot be redeemed is not important." I swear, just everything that comes out of Sowell spontaneously sounds to me like it came from a book of proverbs or something. What a mind.
All it takes for me to pick a side in this debate is to know that I spent my years in public school, and at no time during that was I as intellectually stimulated to learn and grow as I was after graduation, when I was free to discover an unlimited array of subjects and a wealth of knowledge. I'm not saying all private schools are better than all public schools, but at least in the private schools, the parents and students can be involved in a significant way in directing the education of the youth.
Privatization is just a name. Take higher education, private or not, in the end many of these institution remain highly regulated. The only thing that changed since this 'neoliberalism' became practice is that higher education got unaffordable and the quality was reduced significantly, leaving almost everyone with huge student debts. Meanwhile a degree is absolutely necessary for even the simplests of jobs. All of this is pretty obvious if you look at it from a profit perspective. That is the problem with many (semi)private systems, especially those that are dealing with things that are intrinsically public. It's better for a few and worse for most.
I never went to a privately funded school. Ì wanted to learn....at least much of the time. I am 64, gainfully employed, know how to social. A lot if what I kearney came from family, neighborhood, church, and work. Jesus has been very kind to me. It's unclear the specifics of the system that educated Jesus. I feel like God did it His own way.
"Speaking against privatization, are Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers [...] and Bill Honig, Superintendent of Public Schools for the State of California" I literally laughed out fucking loud when I heard that.
Friedman has always been an excellent, empathetic and down-to-earth articulator of the principles of freedom. He had a knack for being able to translate at times complex ideas of self-governance in a manner that a layperson could understand. Only if he were here now..
Well he just missed that, essentially, this whole thing came crashing down in 2008. Forcing governments to bail out much of the private- and deregulated sector for which the public will pay for generations to come.
lmfao. The people arguing in favor of public schools in the debate stage are 1) A teacher's union leader 2) A sociology professor (a field that deserves no respect) 3) A public school superintendent
@@benjaminjeffery6873 "let me exploit you and charge you for paying for lunch food and giving you education " - Private funded schools monopoly lobbyist.
"How are we going to ensure the common values in our democracy are transmitted to every child?" They are not necessarily everyone's values, they are yours, and they won't be. Get over it.
The reason that Italy flourished in the Renaissance was diverse opinions and we have a structure that contains them in one nation yet we want to get rid of it. The Enlightenment wouldn't have been possible if we had a Public Education system. Neil deGrasse Tyson had an interesting comment on Space Exploration that I find interestingly applicable to the Education system. Space exploration wouldn't have been possible without a government foray into space first, just like we wouldn't have found the New World, true, but! the New World wouldn't have been successfully settled without Triangular trade and business, tobacco, furs, etc. what we see on the space front, now, is private exploration (well almost) we wouldn't have as much of a secure cultural tradition in education without mandating it and providing it, now let's turn it over to private business and let it be efficient and flourish, just like the New World.
In that simple question, one can see the leftist’s delusional moral superiority so that he or his group can decide what values to be transmitted. “Our democracy...” Fuck you and your democracy.
Uh.... the "common values in our democracy" they're talking about, is the common ILLUSION that there IS a democracy. When the plain fact is, that THE PEOPLE DO NOT CONSENT TO THEIR GOVERNMENT.
Todd Rieger because objectively capitalists won’t fund something that doesn’t show immediate returns examples are fucking everywhere including in your pocket (quick side note the idea of telecommunications was an invention of the USSR and had it for at least 20 years before the first cellphone appeared in the US).
Yeah, how's that working out? Last I checked we still have public schools and everything else they rail against. It's about POWER, my friend... and the special interests have it, while the people DON'T.
@@kenburns4547 Public schools have degenerated into a combination of day care center / prisons. The sooner we scrap that failed experiment and start over, the better.
@@dbjkatz that requires a federal lawsuit: because public schools violate the same right of "privacy," by which the Supreme Court ruled abortion and gay marriage to be legal. The rationale, is there is no compelling state interest for a government-operated school system; since private schools can perform the same essential function; just as private-sector alternative suffice for all of a child's OTHER needs, from housing to health-care. Likewise parents pay at least the same for school either either way, through taxes or directly, and private financing can replace taxpayer-funding in spreading the payments over a longer period. Likewise, current public schools do not provide an EQUAL education to everyone, as they claim; since districts vary widely in their level of funding; and also the level of education in the HOME can vary. Therefore the sole state interest in primary (i.e. minor) education, is to define minimum standards for such, via basic licensing etc; and to intervene to enforce them, only in cases of actual breach through parental negligence or poverty. Finally, severe violations of liberty by public schooling by government abuse, demands an abolition of the entire system. The Supreme Court has long ruled that even local governments cannot enforce truancy-laws without valid PROOF that the child is NOT receiving an adequate alternative education; but state and local governments have long arrested, intimidated and terrorized parents and children on the simple basis of non-attendance-- when such were simply self-defense purposes, since the right of self-defense is not recognized by the public school system, even by avoiding a dangerous environment: while state and federal courts have almost unanimously ruled that SCHOOLS are under no obligation to protect children from abuse, or to provide for their safety in any way... and DEFINITELY not by failure to obey compulsory school-attendance laws. This is further encouraged by the fact that schools receiving funding according to numbers of attendees, and therefore schools and governments hold a vested interest in compelling attendance; however they receive NO such quid pro quo funding for student safety, but on the contrary receive governmental immunity from such. This therefore incites schools to compel attendance with little to no regard for student safety; while ignoring and denying crimes against students, and expending as little means as possible for preventing or redressing them, or removing problematic or even criminal students from the school. That's really what it will take; but lawyers are part of the problem, not the solution.
@@alobre3826 When they can put you in jail, they HAVE power over you; and you to jail if you do't pay your taxes OR go to school. You don't GIVE them that power, they TAKE it. Stop talking shit.
"We don't want a monopoly on the transmission of values. We don't want any small group of officials to have the power to say what values shall be transmitted. And yet that is what is happening now in a monopoly school system." -Friedman 9:29 What an incredibly brilliant communicator. Do we have Sowells and Friedmans in our generation?
Well jeez, it'd be awfully hard for them to mature in tact. Between the victimhood complex and over diagnosing of mental health disorders, even in kids.. parents coddling kids well into their teens...
Even with the team of Buckley, Friedman, and Sowell making impassioned please, we still have a crushing federal education monopoly that is creating the dumbest (both in knowledge and wisdom) generations of our modern era. Children with great potential are being ruined in it every day. I was lucky to escape with my mind, will, and spirit mostly intact. No wonder so many parents are home schooling these days. Unfortunately, they still have to pay for a failed system they are not using. Shame.
VirtualSuperSoldier "… we still have a crushing federal education monopoly… Children with great potential are being ruined in it every day. … No wonder so many parents are home schooling these days." And "Common Core" will soon render private and home schooling dysfunctional. In other words, watch out white people;the government already destroyed the black schools;now their coming for you and your private/home schools.
VaticansHolocaust "the government already destroyed the black schools" No, the entitlement system destroyed the black family which in turn destroyed the inner city schools.
***** "the entitlement system destroyed the black family which in turn destroyed the inner city schools" I think we mostly agree. Semantics may be getting in the way. I consider "the entitlement system" to be synonymous with "the government", because I attribute the action (system) to the body (government). In the end, the government (and its actions) - not the minorities - are the problem.
VaticansHolocaust Nobody has destroy the black family that is bullshit there white people on welfare too and more than blacks that means they have been destroy as well.
Ivan Campbell How can you look at the illegitimacy rate of black babies and make that claim? Though I can agree with you that entitlements damage any race of folks.
I became a conservative because of the ideas of Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman. The aftermath of COVID19 is that it serves as the exposer of truth, equalizer of reality, and energy need for those who do not quit.
You should read them better then. Much of how the world you're living in today is, is how they designed it. Read carefully and you will see that behind the platitudes of freedom they constantly argue for things like massive government protectionism in markets, authoritarian power structures etc. As long as it serves big business and upper class interest. The reason why so many in the working- and middle classes feel disillusion is that they never understood this project just wasn't for them. For the top 10% and especially 1%, things really did get a lot better.
It's funny how two of the people arguing for public schools have an incentive to keep them public;Eventhough, public schools does not help the public at large. This is still evident today. Public schools have some,if not, the worst scores in the country.
Those arguing for public schools will benefit personally by the system staying the same. As in, they will keep their job. Also, those that they represent (the teachers unions) don't wa t the competition that a voucher program would bring.
To be fair, it really depends on the school and the locality in which it resides. There are neighborhoods that take their schooling very seriously and manage to attract and retain high quality instructors, and the education those kids receive is consequently of greater value, and they retain more. Of course property values in those neighborhoods by and large are higher than average for the greater area they're located in, and families who acquire homes there do so in no small part because of the education opportunities in those local school systems. To Milton's and Sowell's points, the parents are making choices to get their kids into public schools that deliver better results, as it should be.
fetisima: they're not arguing for it. They are PRETENDING to argue; in order to maintain the illusion that the people can CHANGE it, if they have a mind; and that they CONSENT to their government. When in reality they can't, and they don't.
Christopher Zimny What happens if a student isn't religious, and all schools are affiliated with some religion? Would that student not be able to go to school then? The privatization of schools makes no sense at all!
elijahpickens What a ridiculous assumption. Your statement assumes away any and all demand for secular education, a scenario which is highly unrealistic and barely conceivable. Besides, it doesn't even address the point that both school owners and parents/students should have the freedom to offer/buy any service they wish, and that compulsory education negates this principle.
Christopher Zimny So you're saying that not all Americans have the right to go to school at all? Basically, you want to privatize schools so that you can discriminate on anyone that you don't like, especially poor people. You want a large number of people to be completely illiterate, incapable of getting any jobs except menial labor. When they are illiterate, they will become subservient to you, not realizing that it would be in their best interest to rebel against their "overlords." All in all, what you want to do is to get rid of the middle class and create a permanent under-class. In this scenario, there would only be the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the slave masters and the slaves. Capitalism always leads back to slavery. Karl Marx was right all along. He might not have been right about Communism, but he was definitely right about the inherently corruption, evilness of unfettered Capitalism.
The entire Con argument can be summed up as, “How could we have a democracy if our entire population isn’t universally educated on our selective values.”
I worked for a school district for 15+ years. Privatize please! There is so much wasted money and so many inefficiencies that the private sector would improve on. The pros greatly outweigh the cons.
In theory yes. In practice it just never really worked and in many cases the bureaucracy only got worse after privatization and deregulation. Mark Fisher - Capitalist Realism is a nice book about this.
Can you imagine going back in time nowadays and entering a debate versus Thomas sowell, Milton Friedman, and William F Buckley. It would be like worthless even to try to outsmart them. Nowadays, the left would just try to shout them down and boo them off the stage
+Todd Rieger YEPPERS! But don't forget MISES and ROTHBARD and RAND too... and today, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Robert Murphy, Jeffrey Tucker, Jeff Deist, Mark Thornton, Tom DiLorenzo, Andrew Napolitano, Robert Higgs... well, you get the idea! Best wishes to you and yours- Rand Paul 2016...
Todd Rieger I wouldn’t consider the advocation of private tyranny to be a path forward toward a free society check Noam Chomsky’s private tyranny quote.
The current public schools have left parents duped into trusting that the schools will do a good job in educating our kids. Essentially, parents have given control to the governments and have given up. The teachers barely have a say in what is taught, and the results have been disastrous.
Maybe in a market based school setup they could've actually realized that the world doesn't revolve around the administration and actually start school at a more sensible time of day! I am beyond sick of their disregard for a teenagers sleep pattern being different than their old narcissistic asses. Also we might have desk-chairs that are actually designed for people to sit in them for hours.
Ryan Ferretti except it's not. :) It's no more a democracy than a monarchy is a democracy. If you define democracy by saying if the vast majority act together they cannot be opposed, that does not differentiate a monarchy for a democracy. That is not what uniquely characterizes the US system. It's a constitutional republic -- that is our system. Not a democracy. There are various voting requirements that are in a sense arbitrary and therefore undemocratic. And that's on purpose because they founders knew democracy was a bad system. Their idea was something new, a natural rights constitutional republic, essentially an aristocracy, voted on by white male land owners. It's in some ways the most successful government of all time. Though really it failed miserably. Vast amounts of modern government activity is unconstitutional, and nobody cares. The ideas created a powerful government, though it utterly failed to stay constrained and provide for maximum freedom as it was ratified as meaning. So it failed.
Ryan Ferretti *"since it is for and by the people, through their representatives."* That's essentially redefining democracy to mean something other than what it does mean. Furthermore, our constitutional republic is hardly "for and by the people" -- that's largely just marketing. If you look at how politics plays out it's more of an oligarchy. And in any case those people don't represent me. They're my "representative" in name only.
I was a postal worker for 30 years and I worked hard, but UPS came along, and showed everyone just how inefficient and incompetent government systems, and the people who work for them are.
Its really simple. Competition is the only thing that literally forces businesses/institutions to provide the best possible products and services. When you monopolize anything, there is not the same stress or pressure or innovation that comes along with competition. Competition is extremely difficult but makes everything better
Yet, when the US needed to win the space race they didn't look to the market but they did what the Soviets did: massive state interference! This was the Apollo Project. Manhattan project the same. Also if you open your phone 95% of those innovations come from the public sector that were only later marketed into a product. Moreover, after 50 years of deregulating things we now know did not quite work out the way it was promised and not everything got better at all. Even if things get better for some people in many cases they got worse for most. The market has its place and its strengths but it's most definitely not "really simple" and as black and white as you suggest.
@@rolyars State interference works with certain things their is no denying that. Especially a public interest that is not achievable by the market because there is no economic incentive to do so. However, in the market it is sink or swim. That forces people to have to act in a way to make things more efficient or potentially go bankrupt. Government does not have competition and has unearned tax money that is poorly managed and wasted through bureaucracy. An example would be - Why do you think the democrats attack charter schools? Because many of them are successful and are a threat to public schools and the teachers unions. Charter schools are forced to reach certain standards or they get shut down by the state (which acts as a substitute for free market competition). Public schools have no such pressure on them and is one reason why they continue to underperform. Pressure by market forces is extremely uncomfortable and difficult when you are on the losing end of it. But it is important in order to maintain an economy. Nothing else has worked, and there are no economic strategies that I have seen that can replace such a complex system that is the free market. Diversification of economic power is the only thing that has worked so far. The state does have its place though.
@@Luxuriouswhite I somewhat agree but the elephant in the room is that throughout the so called neoliberal era is that, this free market never really occurred. When you read the monetarists like Friedman carefully, you would start to see that this is by design. Deregulated market forces are there for 'you and me', while there is a socialist tendency for big capital because the economy needs to be 'stimulated'. Another word for this is cronyism. Deregulation in many cases meant more access to cronyism. A very modern example is that some tech companies don't make any profits for decades because they have virtually unlimited venture capital, which in turn is flowing freely because central banks have been pumping so much cheap money. This way all competition, who really do have to cope with market forces, can be eliminated. Another example is just normal monopolies or near-monopolies. Also the financialization of everything has been very toxic, where some of the world's richest people are just speculators who don't add anything to the economy. Of course, the US has been through all of it in the Gilded age. I think behind the abstract theoretical economics it's just simple class warfare. When the middle class has enough they want the state to step in, then they forget about it ast some point and the upper class will try to regain their power. Most certainly that is how it turned out. For the ~10% things really got better, the rest of the population. Not so much. In that sense I think the neoliberal project was a political project disguised as an economic one.
It’s always amusing to me that the left demands absolute fealty to the value of choice when it comes to a woman’s right to chose an abortion but not where her children may go to school.
Do you possibly have a link to the initial source of this debate. I know you probably went through a lot of time editing it for time and content but I really want to see the entire debate now.
LibertyPen man, they don't make 'em like they used too! Can anyone think of a similar caliber of discourse going on today? A show? Podcast? RU-vid? Where are the Sowells and Friedmans and Buckleys of our day?
This was the most long winded way of saying "we want the government to teach values and ethics to the children" vs "we want parents teaching values and ethics to the children". Why not skip past all the blabbering, and get to the point? The people running our society believe the time for religious freedom is over, and that if the religion of humanism is accepted as the state approved religion, that a new utopia can be achieved.
But this really shouldn't be how we see the difference between public and private schools. In one case a school can profit off of its students and in another case children can get access to education independent of their parents wealth-just because the way public policy is affecting schools is degrading their ability to offer high quality education doesn't mean that public schools can't be a fantastic way to educate, it means we need to actively change they way we do public schools for the better.
I completely support school privatization. Vouchers can be a intermediary step, but ultimately, I'd like to see schools be completely removed from government control. Education should be treated as any other good/service in a free market capitalist economy. Parents should be free to choose whichever school they deem fit for their kids. Government shouldn't have a say in the matter. The only legitimate role of government is to protect the people's rights to their own person and property (i.e. you can't murder, rape, steal, commit fraud, etc.). Government protects against such infringements through law enforcement, a justice system, and a military. Everything else should be privatized and left in the hands of the people to decide for themselves as they see fit, without government interference.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, but there is one thing that strikes me as difficult to privatize: roads. What are your thoughts? I wonder if Sowell, Friedmen, or others in their league ever wrote about this.
@@BladeOfLight16 So, there are actually plenty of private roads already. And, apart from government there is still demand for infrastructure, such as roads. Businesses still want customers to be able to get to their locations. People still want to drive to places from their homes. Where there is demand, there will be people who seek to meet that demand in exchange for money. Government currently filling that role doesn't mean it must do so or that it can't be done by some other means.
I actually watched this whole debate. As big of a Sowell and Friedman supporter as I am, the public school advocates poked holes in their arguments. I watched the whole debate, I don't simply scroll through You-tube looking for political talking points that favor my preference such as what Liberty Pen is doing.
Clearly you did not watch the debate. I had to pay to watch it. Furthermore, I'd like to say it doesn't take a genius to observe logical fallacies. It also doesn't take a genius to hold a subjective position on social analyses. However, It does take an intelligent person-objective and observant to see the good and bad in all arguments reaching more sound conclusions.
WashingtonMonster86 Is there a video of the whole debate you know of, or (if there isn't one) could you give a couple of the holes in their arguments? Edit: Nevermind, found another comment that had the link to the full debate.
Brayan Delgado ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_euZ65qtS9E.html The uploader posted a link to the full debate in response to another comment on this video.
They make the same arguments for universal healthcare and free tuition these days. One side wants people in Washington to control the choice. One wants us each to control our own choices.
Knowing what I know about public education, I would not have my kids sent to a public school. It's not just the type of education that is being fed to them. But, the unruly, trendy, and ignorant student body that has grown in these public schools. If I could go back, I would've have just gotten my high school equivalency in middle school and went to college.
“We don’t want the transmission of values monopolized”... the truth of this statement makes me want to cry knowing since this discussion how these transmitted values in our schools have fallen into the most stupefying and moronic values of all time. Quick edit: the values truly resonant in kids that actually mean something and make the difference in my experience even with my own children is and always will be, that which is transmitted at home.
+dimebagVision You are so dead on, What a dream team, Friedman,Sowell and Buckley, its too bad two of them are gone. I would have love to see them today and hear what they think, at least we still have Sowell, an underrated and Brilliant economist.
Have been watching Milton Friedman, & Thomas Sowell ....thank God for these men. Our country is idealistic & doesn't recognize the hard work our predecessors put into our country. Capitalism & free market along with values are key to growth, not collectivism.
@@-dash None of these individuals had any authority to declare that the purpose of government includes educating anyone. Care to try again? Who, if anyone, has that kind of authority over another person...
They, along with the Congress, had the authority to allocate funds towards education. Evidently they believed education was within the mandate of what government “should” do- otherwise they wouldn’t have funded it.
It's ironic that the public school side argues that we must keep teaching kids to believe in freedom and democracy when public schools have been trending away from those values.
Public schools are run by governments who will never agree to any kind of competition, since that will make them vulnerable to loose control. The voucher will also give ability to a poor kid move to a better school than they are zoned to. That will make the poor learn and move higher and not being a poor. In turn that will make less number of poor people to control and manipulating by throwing money without results. We, in America spends almost 40 percent more money in education than any other country yet the quality is way poor than others.
51MontyPython "Commie Core" LOL In other words, they're done with the black schools, now it's time to destroy the white schools via their new-fangled Commie Core.
VaticansHolocaust Absolutely. See, when you bring down the big bad evil rich greedy white schools, *all of the black schools suddenly--mysteriously--rise **_UP_* to the level of those evil rich greedy white schools. See? But I know this is probably all over your head --It's Commie Core "standards"; you wouldn't understand. Speaking of so-called "standards," who knew this word was code for "Marxist communist NWO indoctrination?" ..... ....>:(
51MontyPython "But I know this is probably all over your head --It's Commie Core "standards"; you wouldn't understand." Maybe my comment was well formed. I understand the Commie Core agenda very well. Black schools will not rise, but rather the white schools will wilt and die, all as a charade they call "equality".
Government being involved in schools has been dictating for decades what to teach and how to teach our kids..not sure we should continue with the govt being involved.
I think Glenn Beck should be a moderator and take his chalkboard to debates like this. Where opposing sides can create magnets of ideas that they must have and these two teams can debate and we can come up with a great system.
