My earlier post, “Encourage Working Children,” has already got 16 comments, so I would like to return the discussion to the main space and also take it two steps further. I am serious when I say that the schools system must be closed down.
First: the extension of the “division of labour” – that we all specialize, the butcher, the baker and the brewer etc. – is accompanied by a “fragmentation of knowledge” such that each Individual requires just one fragment to survive.
The implication: Specialization in the market catallaxy is a means by which not only is our need to labour reduced, our individual requirement of knowledge is also reduced.
In an earlier age, you would have had to know the crops and the seasons, how to look after and milk your cow, how to build your house, and so much more. Now, if you just play your guitar on MTV you have “money for nothing and chicks for free.”
Secondly, there is a large area in all our minds called “rational ignorance.” We choose NOT to know a lot. I do not know how to repair my car – nor do I want to. Nor, of course, do I need to – because there are trained mechanics upon whose far superior knowledge I can rely. And I am sure none of these mechanics have ever heard of Hayek.
Put these two together and you have the answer: As all knowledge is fragmented, let it be sold thus. Let there be no broad, generalized “education system.” So learn English from a firm that possesses this knowledge while also selling it in conditions of intense competition. The goal should be to SHORTEN the time required for a kid to enter The Market. Even the tired professions like medicine, engineering and law, so much favoured by the present “education system,” can surely be rigged out so that the required training is delivered in a short time period. And, of course, there is apprenticeship. A young apprentice at Mercedes Benz will learn more about automobile engineering than any IIT can teach him.
So let us clearly differentiate our libertarian “education policy” from that of Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi.
He champions The System.
We want The System closed down.
A Free Market For Knowledge.
Stay tuned: I plan to podcast on this topic in a few days.
It’s obvious that the major purpose of our much-vaunted educational system is to brain-wash and indoctrinate, to produce useful and compliant digits that will keep society functioning. As Pink Floyd famously sang, kids in school are just another brick in the wall.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe we shouldn’t confuse being instructed in a certain profession as “education.” A doctor may know something about medicine, but does that necessarily mean that he is educated? What if the initial purpose of education had been the all-round well-being of the individual, a means to happiness and to better cope with life, but that this has now been forgotten or hijacked by the State, so that today we are educated to be nothing more that well-fed, well-dressed and well-housed slaves?
sauvik,
ReplyDeleteyou know how people demand security.
As long as the establishment continues to be "Nutts", and without the free-market, security is a necessity for everybody at the cost of that of some others.
(competition is liberty and the lack of competition is tyranny)
Now, how do you think parents are going to ensure security for their kids without being a part of this horrible system? No parent is going to allow their kids to be a ROLLING STONE 'cos they think the kid won't 'learn'. Therefore not be elligible for all the social norms like a fixed salary and a pretty wife.
My question is how do we break this bias?
And for the parents of children who go to work, hope that they had the money to live like the ones who can afford school and livelihood.
QUITE A FIX!
I think you nailed it on the head. It might amaze you to know that much (or most) of what medical students learn is forgotten, as well as forgettable. Knowledge evolves so fast that a lot of the knowledge becomes obsolete. In addition, students are pummeled with bizarre and exotic facts best left for specialists. In the process, the broad-based conceptual learning takes a hit for the majority. A pity, really, because even in the US they follow this method of overload.
ReplyDelete