By all accounts, the public education systems in western countries are not performing to the level that we are collectively demanding. There are fundamental structural problems with our schools that inhibit good outcomes for students. Western countries have become obsessed with universal student attainment of minimum academic standards measured by test scores and maximisation of enrolment rates at universities. I propose that this is flat out the wrong goal for our education system, that rather than try to teach everyone the same material at the same kinds of schools in the same kinds of ways, our education system should be more personalised to get the most out of each individual’s talent set, and I have a plan for how to do it.
Tag: Germany
Misconceptions: “America is Like Greece”
The other day I found myself in conversation with one of my fellow students about whether or not the British government had too large of budget cuts too soon in the economic recovery. I argued that it was fairly self-evident that it had done so, considering the superior economic performance of most nations that had refrained from issuing cuts or embarked on a policy of stimulus. The response he gave me was an interesting one–he argued that the advantages being enjoyed by the stimulus countries were short term, and advised me to look at France, a country that had refrained from austerity and has recently had its credit rating reduced by Moody’s, is seeing stagnant growth rates, and has a host of other problems. I responded that Eurozone countries were in a different kind of economic crisis from countries like Britain and America, and that different rules applied–this was met with scepticism, as if I were trying to weasel my way out of the point. So today I would like to make the broad argument that the economic problems being experienced in non-Euro countries like America, Britain, Japan, and Canada are of a fundamentally different nature from the kind being experienced in France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. So different, in fact, that comparing the former to the latter is intellectually useless.
The Obama Economy
It has become a common sense view that the US economy has performed poorly under Barack Obama. The assorted punditry are all trying to explain how Obama managed to win the election despite this fact. Perhaps they should stop to consider that perhaps this fact is not a fact at all? Well, if no one else is going to do it, it might as well be me.
Dragging Behind the Horse: Making States Bigger
Though history, states have been getting bigger. From tribes, we expanded to city-states, from city-states to feudal states, and from feudal states to the consolidated modern states of today. This process has never been easy, however. There has always been resistance to the expanding, consolidating state. The unifications of Germany and Italy required extensive military campaigning, the United States fought the civil war over the south’s resistance to a strong federal government, the French monarchs struggled to break the back of the nobility for generations, and the British struggled with rebellions from Scots, Welsh, and Irish. Yet, in the end, all of these countries unified and centralised, because it was economically necessary–as more territories became economically interlinked, the same economic laws needed to apply to larger swathes of territory. There was no other way to keep the medieval guilds in line, to achieve coordinated economic policies in the interests of the whole of society, rather than for one region against others, to reduce the need of every town and region to be self-sufficient in every economic category. The economy is the horse driving the cart of the enlarged state, but there are always people dragging behind the cart, and they’re usually the very sort of people behind setting up the previous, smaller state. But this is not merely an historical tale–states are getting bigger right now for economic reasons, impeded by people who are, once more, dragging behind the horse.
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Misconceptions: “Medicare is Going Bust”
Lately it has become fashionable among political pundits to declare that the US Presidential election has devolved into a negative slug fest in which both Obama and Romney are equally culpable, lying and distorting and refusing to accept fundamental realities. This is a sort of professional centrism–taking it as an article of faith that both sides are equally to blame. The trouble is that this centrism doesn’t reflect reality and consequently, in order to maintain it, these “centrists” have resorted accepting blatantly false claims from the American political right. Chief among these is the claim that “Medicare is going bust” and that Paul Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system is some kind of bold, serious solution. Today I set out to examine and refute that claim.
Benjamin Studebaker 