Scott Sumner argues that when it comes to policy, the key division is often not left-versus-right or Democrat-versus-Republican, but idealistic intellectuals versus corrupt politicians. He lists six great public policy failures, where idealistic intellectuals, regardless of ideology, largely agree that reform is urgent, while practicing politicians, regardless of ideology, largely defend the status quo:
- The huge rise in occupational licensing.
- The huge rise in people incarcerated in the war on drugs, and also the scandalous reluctance of doctors to prescribe adequate pain medication (also due to the war on drugs.)
- The need for more legal immigration.
- The need to replace taxes on capital with progressive consumption taxes.
- Local zoning rules that prevent dense development.
- Tax exemptions for mortgage interest and health insurance.
With the possible exception of the mortgage interest deduction (which I think effectively reduces the tax on capital and so might be desirable to keep per point (4)), I am certainly in what Scott sees as the “idealistic intellectual” camp on all of these issues. And I like to believe, as Scott does, that most idealists and intellectuals, regardless of ideology, are in that camp along with us.
One of Scott’s concerns is that issues like these get short shrift in the media precisely because it’s easier to report on divisions that are driven by ideology than divisions, like these, that are driven by values.
Or to say this more succinctly: Some issues divide us according to our ideologies; others according to our values. The first sort get all the media attention, but the second sort (as in the six examples above) are often more critical to our prosperity. (I hope this is an accurate summary of Scott’s position.)
Does this seem right to you?
I pretty much agree with Scott Sumner’s examples. In moments of “corrupt” (i.e., selfish) thinking, I occasionally fantasize about the possibility of occupational licensing for software engineers, in order to restrict production and keep prices high. Of course, we’d say it was to ensure quality.
Alas, I am an idealist. According to Scott’s six-sided classification, I think I’m a Pragmatic Libertarian tending slightly toward Idealistic Progressive.
Useful to all sides are ideas that bridge the gap and appeal to both selfish and idealistic motivations. For example, I recall Steve once suggested — perhaps tongue in cheek — eliminating whole groups of federal agencies, enough so that each voter gains as a member of the general public more than he loses in his capacity as a special interest. That idea may not be politically feasible as written, but the idea of finding the political will to eliminate, as a package deal, a bundle of not-especially-popular special interests is intriguing.
I’m not convinced that “idealistic intellectuals” reach consensus on these issues (although I wish they would) — it seems to me that skepticism about markets would prevail for many people
I agree with AC. If we polled idealistic intellectuals in the hard sciences and humanities, can we really be sure they’d reach that consensus? I have a hard time believing it.
This could take a bit more thinking about, but an early thought. It strikes me that the Nolan 2 axis diagram ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart ) fits in very well with the post on economic vs political freedom from the Egypt post ( http://www.thebigquestions.com/2011/02/01/freedom-prosperity-and-the-future-of-egypt/ ). Plotting each country of size proportional to GDP / capita on the Nolan chart may be interesting. A time series such as those by Hans Rosling may be revealing ( http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html Look from 2:30 for a flavour if you haven’t seen him before). Some social marker such as child mortality vs economic freedom, then vs political freedom, run through from 1960 would be very interesting.
The problem with the six sided model is that it is very USA-centric. The Nolan plot is universal, but these groupings do not apply so well to other cultures.
I think it’s close enough to true that it’s a lot more interesting than mainstream political debate. I’m a fiscal-conservative-far-left person.
[I know my political ID doesn’t match up with the messaging we currently get in the media. But it makes perfect sense. Take pieces of Eisenhower (warning about military industrial complex); Clinton (military cuts and reducing debt-to-GDP ratio); Carter (appointing Volcker); and complete opposition to government spying and intimidation e.g. the Patriot Act.]
@Tom Isn’t that kind of what a libertarian is?
I decidedly fall on the left side of the conventional spectrum, however awkwardly, and I’m very much inclined to agree on issues 2-6. Issue 1 I feel like I know very little about and is too broad. What qualifies as excessive occupational licensing? Does an Actuary having to take exams qualify? A Doctor having to go to medical school? An accountant having to take CPA exams?
I’m also a little confused about how values separate from ideology. I thought I was a liberal because I valued specific services to the poor over economic efficiency (in our current policy system, of course. In a communist country, I would feel quite differently). I get the impression that what Scott is saying is that if politicians really valued national prosperity they would fix these six problems, but instead they value their own power. However, we could throw out these politicians if we wanted to and replace them with liberals and conservatives who valued national prosperity, so that implies that there are either a large portion of people who don’t value national prosperity or that there is a large portion of people in our country who are ignorant and/or idiots.
Actually, I think I understand now.
Public choice theory at work. Most of these bad status quo policies benefit entrenched rent seekers. I expect if you look hard enough they all do. So I am not so sure the division is by values as much as it is by interests and incentives.
I would add another issue to the list: school choice. Bad schools are probably the most tractable serious social problem in America but almost unfixable due entirely to entranched rent-seekers.
I will argue against #4 as well, from a different perspective. People unfortunately conflate land (in the economic sense) with capital. This has the unfortunate effect of confusing taxes — and the resulting effects — on both.
For example, a property tax is not a single tax (not in the literal sense, or the Henry George sense), but a very bad tax (the tax on structures and improvements), and an economically neutral tax (the tax on site value). A pure tax on land value would have a different effect than a pure tax on structures and improvements. For one thing, the former does not cause deadweight loss (the supply of surface area on the earth is fixed), while the latter definitely does (the supply of buildings and improvements is definitely *not* fixed).
I would therefore argue that a mortgage interest deduction of 0% for land and 100% for improvements to land (that is, no deduction for mortgage interest on land, 100% deduction on everything else) would not only be better than any mixed system of land and building deductions, but better than the same amount of tax shifted to income, capital, or trade, including consumption taxes and VAT.
(Being one of the token Georgists here — though by no means a pure “single taxer,” since I also like Pigovian taxes — I would also like to see current property taxes shifted over to LVT, or at the very least a split-rate tax highly tilted toward the latter.)
@Ken B, I might disagree, depending on what you mean by school choice. In principle, school choice is an excellent idea. However, it is often implemented in ways that don’t align to my values. Here in South Carolina, there are many special interest groups that define school choice as vouchers that allow parents to take public funding to private schools. Again, in principle that sounds like a worthwhile approach. However, the reason they are promoting school vouchers is to be able to take public funds to set up private, whites only schools, for the purpose of resegregating the educational system here.
I think we often need to think about motivation and unanticipated consequences before implementing ideas. As @Jeff Semel suggests, is licensing a good thing, driven by the desire to ensure quality of services, or is it motivated by the desire to restrict the pool of people available to perform a function?
@ Ken B
I think many liberals oppose school vouchers because they’re concerned that it would be extremely expensive, and unlikely to benefit poor children because most good private schools would still be too expensive. What we have now, is arguably inefficient, but anyone who sends their kid to private school or homeschools their children is subsidizing education for everyone else, and that money would be difficult to recapture elsewhere.
Certainly the Teacher’s Unions have a role, but honestly, many teachers would be better off in some sense if private schools became more prevalent, as they market for teachers would become more competitive, which is especially relevant when you consider moving costs.
AC makes a good point. Only certain kinds of intellectuals support these. Amongst left intellectuals in sociology, or such pomo subjects I bet the concensus is strongly against 1, 4, 5, 6, and maybe even parts of 2 (motivated by animus at drug companies).
I bet these intellectuals think of themselves as idealistic too. We have seen the point made on other threads that people make errors when they pay too much attention to *blame*. I suggest the same is true of *credit* and that “idealistic” is an attempt to claim credit.
He has a point. There is a tendency among idealistic intellectuals to look at one side of an issue, and to ignore a broad view of the consequences of a policy. Yes, one can make a persuasive argument for reforming each of those 6 policies, if one is willing to ignore the consequences.
@math_geek: Any legal requirement to get a license probably qualifies. Markets can provide credentials. Insurance premiums can discourage carelessness. Private for profit invigilation is more efficient in the long run. Maybe there is a case for certain professions — doctors being the most obvious example. But we now have licensing for interior decorators (this is true not made up). That is what Steve means by the “huge explosion”.
@ Ken B
Thank you, that is obviously not a subject that I have a lot of expertise in, and yes, legal licensing for interior decorators is absolutely insane. I also know that licensing is often used by special interests to force out competition, such as restaurant lobbys trying to license food trucks out of existence. I don’t even know if you have to be legally licensed to do actuarial work, I just know that the exams are pretty much a pre-req to the profession.
Good article on this though…
http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2003/summer/pdf/feature2.pdf
@math_geek: Yes the actuarial exams are a good example of private credentialing.
As for scholls, well the evidence is pretty strong that private schools can be and usually are cheaper than public ones. It’s the usual thing. Markets are the best mechanism we have, and they work for education too.
I’m afraid you are flat out wrong about opposition being out of concern for poor students. Poor inner city students are the ones who need better schools the most and the unions fight any attempt to introduce choice or accountability even in inner cities. Head over to Reason.com and search their archives on schools, school choice, and union antics in DC.
@Ken B
Public schools also have a significant amount more requirements placed upon them than private schools. A Private school does not have to educate special needs students that are significantly more costly to educate. When I grew up, I was taken out of the private school system and put into the public school system not so much out of cost, but because a larger school system allowed more flexibility in my education. For example, I was able to take Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry in the 6th and 7th grades. I had to take transportation to get to a different school for that to be possible, but it was all within the public school system and not available in any private school my parents could identify.
I recognize the arguments for school vouchers, and in fact specifically said that they would be more economically efficient. And while the inner city public schools are pretty terrible, and in many cases the private schools that have significant scholarships are better, that is not always the case, and often the ability to refuse to educate a student is a significant ability that enables Private schools to succeed.
Social Democrat here. Also part of the Religious Left.
I agree with all points, but more specifically:
On legal immigration, all borders should be open to allow for the free exchange of services.
It is much better to tax consumption than income. And of course businesses are pretty big consumers of goods and materials. So with a consumption tax, companies like Exxon would now actually pay taxes.
There is no need for a mortgage or health insurance deduction because we should provide a safety net to our citizen so that everyone will have access to health care and some sort of shelter.
Something tells me though that even though we idealistic intellectuals agree for the most part on the values stated above, some may have a difference of opinion on the laws/policies to implement these values.
Perhaps a reason why our law makers don’t focus on values is not because they are corrupt, but because you can’t make a law that says, “We will allow more legal immigration” without reaching agreement on what this means and how to implement it.
Perhaps our lawmakers aren’t corrupt, but instead immoral beings who support the policies/implementations of the shared values of those who determine whether they will be reelected.
I also sincerely question the statement that private schools are all that cheaper. Please see average tuition in private schools
http://www.capenet.org/facts.html
Per Pupil Spending in public schools
http://edmoney.newamerica.net/node/36914
When you account for the fact that Catholic and other religious schools are heavily subsidized by private donations, which reduces tuition, they don’t look that separate. To believe that expanding the school system would not result in increased private tuition you would have to believe that those private donations would increase accordingly. I don’t think it would be fair to look at Non-Sectarian tuition entirely, but it is difficult to make the case that private schools are significantly cheaper.
@Ken B: I would the last person to defend postmodernism; it would hardly be surprising if pomo academics were innocently unaware of the hidden costs associated with policies like occupational licensing and zoning.
I also recognize the existence of idealistic values other than my own — or at least weighted differently. Reason.com had a recent article reporting a study on the link between different moral values and ideologies. There’s an interesting bit in there about moral values as a function of personality factors.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/the-science-of-libertarian
@Jeff Semel: I agree, many pomo intellectuals (not just academics) ARE unaware. This is partly from lack of exposure. (I explained examples of private certification working to a group of left grad students once. One told me he had never even heard anyone give an argument against regulation before!)
@math_geek: I refer you to the contentious thread “Hawkeye talk” …
@Will A: I’m not part of the Religious Left, but I certainly get tired of the tacit assumption that God (R-Heaven) must endorse conservative policies. I think you’re right that our differences are mostly on how to implement our values: What’s the best way to make things better?
By the way, you suggested it’s better to tax consumption than income. Steve wrote in Slate that allowing unlimited IRAs for individuals would be the equivalent of converting the income tax to a consumption tax. And as an added bonus, you get to keep the progressiveness of the tax without inventing a new mechanism for collecting it.
@Ken B…
I recognize I am just one example, but my point is not this must work because it worked for me, my point is there are things that public schools do that private schools can’t or don’t because they have a broader customer base. I’m not convinced that illustrating with an idea with an example is equivalent to claiming the example as a rule.
My argument is this. A) Public Schools have a broader student base than private schools. B) A broader student base allows for more customized classrooms and specialized classes. C) Customized classrooms and specialized classes are a good thing.
@ Jeff:
I read the article. If sales taxes and unlimited IRAs are equivalent, I think I would prefer the sales tax.
As it relates to shared values, for a non-accountant like me, it would help make more understandable how our tax policy reflects our shared values. E.g.:
– Taxing fruits and vegetables from a grocery store 125%.
– Not Taxing cigarettes.
– Not taxing vehicles with a gross weight more than 5000 lbs.
– Taxing college tuition 200%.
To me these types of taxes would reflect our values more than whether the marginal rate should be 36.09348% or 39.893435%.
Also, with a Sales tax, I wouldn’t have to pay for an accountant, turbo tax, etc.
Perhaps this answers your question on one way I think we could make things better.
@math_geek: a) Now yes when we live under what is almost a monopoly. Once upon a time ATT had a braoder base than anyone else too. This can change. (If public schools can improve when faced with competition it might not.)
B) more classrooms in number perhaps but not “more specialized”. Are books from penguin necessarily more specialized than books from chess publishers? Thare are more books for sure but fewer on subvariation X of opening Y. I’d also ask you to consider why, if “dominant Penguin rules all” is such a good thing why there is a market for Everyman Chess at all.
c) Agreed. Welcome to my side! :>
@Ken B
Please note I am not really opposed to voucher systems, I’m not really in favor of it either, and I am trying to make the case that idealogical liberals are opposed to school vouchers for non-cynical reasons. That’s why Reason is so underwhelming as evidence. Of course libertarians support vouchers and school choice, it’s what they do.
A) OK, obviously a voucher system would shrink the public student base, but if a large student base is a good thing, then that really doesn’t speak in favor of voucher systems. As for a monopoly, a monopoly is bad if it is profit maximizing and not neccessarily bad otherwise, which public education most certainly isn’t, so the monopoly characterization loses it’s sting. It’s also a mischaracterization as people pay good money to live in areas with better school systems in the form of higher property costs. They are not all the same.
B) The Penguin vs. Everyman Chess comparison is totally irrelevant. I’d encourage you to look instead at large university class listings compared to small university class listings. A faculty with 20 Math professors will by it’s nature have more variety in math classes than a faculty with 3.
C) :-)
Also, please note that what are we supposed to do with the most expensive people to educate? Consider an Akerlof problem where the larger the vouchers get the more people leave their school system, until only the difficult to educate remain in the public school system, with per student costs very high and school vouchers also very high. This is a correctible problem, but any voucher system needs to have a plan for this problem in order to be responsible.
@math_geek:
“As for a monopoly, a monopoly is bad if it is profit maximizing and not neccessarily bad otherwise, which public education most certainly isn’t, so the monopoly characterization loses it’s sting.”
First I wonder if you are right about educational monopoly not maximizing “profit” — it could be maimizing union member benefits, and politician re-elections. Second your point sounds like it is about monopolies delivering less of a service than markets: profits are sufficient no necessary for that. But monopoly can and does have other bad effects — stifling innovation is one.
But rather than an abstract discussion on the virtues of monopoly this is fundamentally an empirical question. Does choice and competition make for better schools? Yes.
@ Ken B:
What problem do you see school vouchers solving:
– A way that every child can attend a good school paid for by tax dollars (no cost to parents other than taxes paid)?
– A way that every child can attend a good school with the help of tax dollars (parents need to pay the rest of tuition)?
– A way that talented child can attend a good school with the help of tax dollars (parents need to pay the rest of tuition or the child gets a scholarship)?
But rather than an abstract discussion on the virtues of monopoly this is fundamentally an empirical question. Does choice and competition make for better schools? Possibly.
@ math_geek:
In the San Francisco Bay Area the students that have the best schools are the students who live in districts that have parents that are willing to vote to increase taxes on themselves to give their schools extra resources.
This is what makes for better schools where I live.
My personal belief is that the extra resources don’t have has much to do with the school as the fact that parents in these districts really value education.
mathgeek —
Long ago I thought it must be, but apparently it’s not. I don’t see eye-to-eye with most of today’s libertarians at all. Will A mentioned the religious left; I tend to see eye-to-eye with those folks on a lot of things. More safety nets, intelligent regulation, much less military, balanced budgets in at least the + side of the business cycle.
math_geek, you said:
Also, please note that what are we supposed to do with the most expensive people to educate? Consider an Akerlof problem where the larger the vouchers get the more people leave their school system, until only the difficult to educate remain in the public school system, with per student costs very high and school vouchers also very high. This is a correctible problem, but any voucher system needs to have a plan for this problem in order to be responsible.
Is it more expensive to educate a brilliant student at Harvard, or a poor student at a community college? Or to put it another way, in what other investment are we urged to put the greatest resources in the area of least return? Whenever someone claims it is cheaper to educate bright students, the first thing that comes to mind is that those bright students — and society at large — are being shortchanged.
I don’t make this argument because of a lack of empathy for struggling students, but because educational desires far outstrip educational resources. If Richard Feynman were to come back to life to teach, would we put him in front of a class of students struggling with basic arithmetic, or a class of students comfortable with physics and calculus? If private schools were able to somehow cherry pick the top 50% of all students, while the bottom 50% of students remained in public schools with the same average spending per student as they have now, would the average education of all students as a group increase or decrease? And if you say it will decrease, can you describe how this would occur?
I am in agreement with all six proposals. Does that finally make me an intellectual? Yes!
Actually, for #2 I would include the collateral damage being done to the societies that are growing and transporting the drugs to the USA. The drug problem is big enough to cause problems here in our super-power sized economy. The monetary effect in these third world countries is a whole order of magnitude greater (literally!). Mexico, for example, is clearly losing our war on drugs.
@ Michael,
Those are strong arguments, but I was making my case from a liberal standpoint which will suggest that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens. This is clearly ideological liberalism, and you may disagree, but it is certainly a principle to which idealistic intellectuals may advocate. I’d also add the caveat that was mentioned before that issues like All White schools have been problems before and could be again.
Finally, I’m hardly a full on liberal, although I also have affection for the Christian Left, but I have an extremely hard time saying society should write off those that are too expensive to add value to. In addition, we do devote resources to especially gifted students in the public schools. They are called Gifted and Talented programs.
Ken B: “But rather than an abstract discussion on the virtues of monopoly this is fundamentally an empirical question. Does choice and competition make for better schools? Yes.”
Well, not necessarily. Have a look at Finland in the education stakes. It spends less than USA (5.4 vs 5.5 % GDP/person). It has 100% state education and comes out pretty much at the top of international comparisons (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923110.html).
It may be difficult for the free-marketeers to see beyond the theory and look at the real world, but there it is if you want to see. Finland seems to have the best system – State is best.
(I suppose in defence you could argue that there is nowhere that has a totally free-market education system.)
@Harold: Non-sequitur. I stated that competition and choice will make schools better. That is a statement about the “derivative”. (I was also explicitly talking about the Amercian schooling system if you look back.) But for your example to be germane you would have to show that the Finnish system could not be improved by choice and competition.
If I say adding dirt to the top of a hill makes it taller and you say ‘not necessarily — no-one added dirt atop Mt Everest and it’s the tallest hill’ would that be a sound argument?
And then from this one example you reach a general conclusion. Even if we grant Finland has the best system (rather than just very favourable initial conditions in a very homogeneous and egalitarian society) one example does not a proof make.
I’m late to add to this thread but my own experience tells me that the general economic argument for vouchers is even stronger in the case special education. The specifics of public financing and delivery of these services appears to have starved out the private market.
Let’s say I have a child on the autism spectrum and his school spends $25K a year on his services and we value those same services at $15K. Let’s also say that the average cost to serve all kids is $12K. The school should be willing to give us up to $13K just to walk away. If that offer was put on the table some families would take it and turn to the private market; where there now might be some offerings in the $15K-$20K range. As things stand there are few private services for kids with more modest special education service requirements. There are programs in the $30K plus range. And without any real market for these services the public schools have little reason, except threat of lawsuit, to be responsive to families. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of great people with all the right intentions but in a pretty broken system.
These numbers are probably not right, but the general point is correct. And there is no reason why a program to overcome this problem could not have some means testing as well. Although many of us who can do so would be happy to pay something more for better services if there was a functioning market.
Re. the mortgage interest tax deduction, I have come to the conclusion that it does not raise home ownership rates, although I’m sure it did when originally introduced. Rather, it drives an increase in house prices. When family buys a home, they account for the savings from the deduction in their calculation of the amount they can afford to pay for their mortgage. For example, with a interest deduction I can afford to pay $1,300 per month on a mortage for a $130,000 house. Without it I can afford to pay $1,000 on a $100,000 house. In the aggregate, the end result is that the $100,000 house in a world with no deduction will cost $130,000 in a world with a deduction. Who benefits from the additional cost? Not the purchaser, but rather the bank, the realtor, and the seller in part.
I suspect the same would be true if we implement school vouchers. For some period of time, there would be an increase in the number of students attending private schools. Eventually, we would reach an equalibrium point, and the overall result would be that private schools would be more expensive because parents would be able to pay more (paid tuition plus vouchers) than they did in a world without vouchers.
I want to commend math_geek for his candor in putting his cards on the table: “Those are strong arguments, but I was making my case from a liberal standpoint which will suggest that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.”
This is straight forward special pleading. “Yes but … I don’t think should be subject to the same cost benefit analysis as .”
This incidentally illustrates my point about “idealistic”. I think math_geek thinks of himself as idealistic, just as I think of him as misguided. You can be both, and math_geek is.
Ken B:
So you are saying that vouchers solves the problem of not giving every child access to free (other than taxes paid) education.
And your contention is that the most effective way of not giving every child a free education is to use vouchers.
There are different implementations around the world that solve the problem of giving every child access to free education.
Just because you are unwilling or unable to think of ways to solve this problem doesn’t mean that it is misguided to try and think of ways these different implementations of this problem can be improved.
Above Harold gives the example of Finland which is a country that provides free education to everyone. As you point out, one country doesn’t prove a point.
But I’m curious what country’s education system would you point to as the zenith of an eduction system that doesn’t provide free education to every child.
@Will A: “And your contention is that the most effective way of not giving every child a free education is to use vouchers.”
Huh?
Sorry to be impolite on what is a fairly courteous blog but this is too stupid to take seriously.
So I guess your contention is we should burn all the books?
Now don’t reply that you never talked about books or burning. That won’t cut it. I never talked about the “most effective way of not giving every child a free education” or “free education” at all actually and that didn’t seem to matter.
Ken B:
I don’t mind you being impolite. It’s not like I’m the only person that you are rude to.
But you seem to be critical of math_geek’s statement that suggested “that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.”
You can of course disagree with this. You can argue that it’s the parent’s responsibility to educate their children but that society can help by providing vouchers to help pay for school.
If this is your point, then it is pointless to argue the virtues of vouchers to someone who feels that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.
It is pointless because you are proposing a solution to how a society can help parents pay for education.
@Will A: No I wasn’t critical of the excerpt you give. In fact it is dishonest to assume I am critical of just part of the sentence I quote rather than the whole sentence. (Or even that I am critical of a sentence I actually praised, but let that bit or remedial reading pass) Let me give an example of what you are doing here.
Fred: I think it is wrong to allow gay marriage.
Ethel: I am critical of Fred’s remark.
Will A: Ethel is critical of “allow gay marriage”. Ethel wants to ban gay marriage.
Ken B:
Instead of enlightening me on my logical gaffs. Maybe you could enlighten me on whether you feel that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.
Also, if you feel this way if you feel that vouchers is the best way to achieve this.
Or to use your parlance.
Ken B: I’m critical about a statement regarding a right to education.
Will A: You seem to be critical of rights to education.
Ken B: (I could correct Will about his assumption about my thoughts or criticize his logic) You are wrong to read my statement incorrectly.
Will A: Would you mind clarifying whether you think that people have a right to an education.
@Will A: Do you think killing puppies is a good thing? I ask only since you want to play “Ask strawman questions” and it seems to be my turn.
In some places it would probably be better to kill puppies to reduces the number of wild dogs roaming the streets.
Ken B:
I’m didn’t realize that I was pushing on a sore subject. My apologies.
If it helps make you feel better, I do agree that if we want a system where a society doesn’t guarantee everyone access to education then vouchers would help parents afford schools.
Well based on the recent spirited conversation, it looks like I was wrong above when I said:
“Perhaps a reason why our law makers don’t focus on values is not because they are corrupt, but because you can’t make a law that says, ‘We will allow more legal immigration’ without reaching agreement on what this means and how to implement it.”
It probably more likely that when our law makers don’t focus on values, they are trying to hide the fact that their laws don’t satisfy/contradict the values of the majority of their constituents.
Will A: You deliberately distort quotes. You do it out of ignorance or malice, I know not which. Assumning it is ignorance I will remark that I did not criticize math-geek’s statement, I commended him for it. And I teased out from it not any inference about public education and whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I teased out of it that math_geek seems to want to exempt that topic from a cost-benefit analysis. As my comment makes really quite explicit.
Exempting one’s own pet concern — special pleading — is quite common. Try debating abortion rationally some day (on either side of the issue) and you’ll perhaps see an example. The relevance of this to the subject of the thread should be clear enough.
Ken B:
I believe that most people reading your response to math_geek would get the impression you commended him for his candor and that you felt glee with the fact that you believed his statement proved that math_geek was misguided.
You of course will neither deny nor confirm that this is the case. And why should you? There’s no law that says you have to be candid on a Blog. You can espouse positions without stating the values behind those positions. You can attack people by calling them misguided and then argue that “I did no such thing.”
What I find dishonest is espousing a position and not stating the values behind it. Although I may disagree with Prof. Landburg on some issues, I respect the fact that he is honest about where he is coming from.
I don’t know if he has ever weighed in on his position on vouchers at all, but I feel pretty confident that if he does, he will state the values behind his position.
Will A: To waste more breath: you make strawman arguments. I do not respond to those. I point them out.
Look, say X argues “I don’t care about costs or benefits, marijuana use should be legal; it’s a principle of mine.” I point out his special pleading. That’s what is is. That does not imply anything at all about my views on marijuana legalization. Saying “But what about glaucoma sufferers, do you want them to go blind?” would be a strawman and I would refuse to respond to it. Similarly “so you think the real problem is that we don’t deny enough kids a free education, what next shall we keep them in cages?” would be a strawman. And rather like the one you use.
Ken B:
I could be wrong, but I think that a strawman argument is used against someone who actually states a position.
In this case it is impossible for anyone to use a strawman argument against you because you haven’t stated any position.
You are not saying whether you think that there should be right to/guarantee of an education. If you were to actually state an opinion, then someone could try to use a strawman argument against you.
As I mentioned above, there is no law stating that you need to state your position. I just hope you aren’t doing so because you are worried about a nascent strawman argument.
I said that I was in favor of killing puppies in some circumstances. You could probably state whether or not you think the state should guarantee access to education.
Let me try again. “so you think the real problem is that we don’t deny enough kids a free education, what next shall we keep them in cages?” would be a strawman argument to someone who didn’t think that the state should guarantee access to education.
However, a voucher system would seem to be a valid solution to someone who didn’t think that the state should guarantee access to an education. It would not be misguided of such a person to push for a voucher system in which ever society they were part of.
It would also not be misguided for such a person to reject solutions such as the European systems that are based on guaranteeing access to education.
In a similar way, it is not misguided for someone who thinks that the state should provide access to education to look at the European systems to see what could be improved in our system.
It would also not be misguided for some who think that the state should provide access to reject vouchers as a solution.
It would be helpful if those who don’t think that government should provide access could:
1) Give examples of working system that match their ideology.
2) State that this is where they are coming from.
I think it is perfectly clear that KenB does not think there should be a right / guarantee to education, since he considers this to be special pleading. I assume he would consider that there are no rights as such, as everything should be weighed by a cost benefit analysis, although there must be some assumtions of what is a benefit.
If we take this view, it becomes difficult to conduct any discussion, because we do not have all the information to carry out such a detailed cost / benefit analysis. Is it of ultimate benefit to kill Obama? How can we know? So what we tend to do is assume some level of “rights” as a starting point. It can be very useful in such a discusion if parties can agree on whether they share the assumption of particular “rights”. It is a short-cut to a starting point. If there is no agreement, then both parties know where they stand and at what their arguments should be adressed.
KenB does not think that there is a right to education. He also states that the question of whether competition gives better schools is an empirical question, i.e. can only be answered by examining the data, not by recourse to theory. I offered one piece of data showing the country with the best academic school achievement in the world has a monopoly system. Whilst I agree this is not a proof, it is evidence towards answering what he states to be an empirical question.
If asked the question does shovelling earth onto a hill make it taller, with only emprical evidence allowed, then we would ideally conduct a simple experiment. Measure a hill, shovel earth on it, and measure again. A simple empirical test. If we are unable to conduct such an experiment we would find it difficult to answer the question empirically. Would the earth pile up and make the hill taller, or cause the hill to collapse, and become shorter? We just do not know, and could not answer the question well by measuring existing hills. We could re-phrase it slightly and ask: Is the only way to get a tall hill to shovel earth on top? We can now answer this empirically: Everest is tall without having earth shovelled on it.
As far as education goes, the evidence presented in this discussion shows that a good education system can be provided by a monopoly state provider. As far as I can see it says absolutely nothing about whether competition would improve this, one way or the other. What we have are theories suggesting that competition may improve education, but that is not empirical. Introducing competition in Finland may cause a collapse of the system, or may make it better. We simply do not know.
Harold & Will A: You both miss the point. Read the thread from the beginning.
Harold: Since you are merely misreading me and making logical errors — and not like Will A indulging in strawmen and distortions — I will answer you.
I stated that school choice is the best way to improve our current bad schools. That does not imply or entail a belief that there should be no public education or that it is or is not a right. My assertion is pretty simple: our schools will be improved by more choice and competition. That can be achieved with the state still providing public schools. Nothing need be lost. If you can prove otherwise then the issue becomes relevant. Right now it isn’t. And Will A wants to use it as a strawman and a worthiness test. Like feminists who say you can criticize them unless your one of them. That is bad arguing, it is waht Will A is all about, and I won’t play along.
Will A: Take a logic course.
I don’t want to get hung up too much on minor points, but from the above:
“Math_geek: “education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.”
KenB: “This is straight forward special pleading.”
seems to me to leave your position on that particular point absolutly clear. To say education is a right is special pleading. That is a prefectly OK positioon to take, and says nothing about public education provision.
On the other point, you assert that school choice is the best way to improve our current bad schools, and also that it is an empirical question. Perhaps I am getting a bit too hung up on the word empirical, but it seems hard to justify your assertion based on empirical evidence. You may be right; school choice may be the best way to improve education; you may be wrong also.
It is quite possible that a perfect market in education would provide the best of all possible systems. It is also possible that a state monopoly could run a fairly good system, as in Finland. It is also possible that a mixture of the two could be worse than either – a sort of negative synergy. In this case, increasing choice a bit could maker things worse.
@Harold: You have doctored the quote. How many times do I have to point this out? Math_geek really actually said in the bit I really actually quoted: “Those are strong arguments, but I was making my case from a liberal standpoint which will suggest that education is a basic right that society has a responsibility to grant to all it’s citizens.” Look at that closely. Here is the characterization I made of it “those are good argument BUT I exempt education from a profit loss analysis because I see it as a basic right beyond such analysis”. That really is special pleading. This issue should be exempt because … IS special pleading.
What Will A is doing is not an argument. It is a tactic.
You write “You may be right; school choice may be the best way to improve education; you may be wrong also.” Yes this is exactly right. I believe the our schools will be improved by competition. There is a good theorectical argument for it. But it may be wrong.
I assert that from the evidence we have, and I gave a place to find some, it is true. It is true EMPIRICALLY of almost everywhere we have been able to have markets. And I think it is worth a try.
There may be good arguments against trying. If you have one you can make it. But you know what is not a good argument against my assertion? “But you don’t think all kids deserve an education do you Ken B?” Which with mild exaggeration is what Will A is doing. Plus of course he distorts quotes.
Ken B:
“But you don’t think all kids deserve an education do you Ken B?” is what you think I am doing.
What I think I’m doing is trying to find out what your value is. I think one of the points if this blog is that discussion about values get short shrifted.
I personally think that you are doing a great job at portraying how some people will go to great lengths to avoid discussing values that are behind proposed solutions.
Maybe others could chime in on whether it is fair to ask a question that could be used as a strawman question like
“Do you think it is OK to kill puppies?” – So you are saying that you hate puppies.
Or
“Did you want Italian food for lunch?” – So you are saying that you hate Italian food.
Or is it OK to ask these questions, as long as the person asking doesn’t turn it into a strawman argument?
Is not any basic right beyond profit / loss analysis? This could be a definition of a right. If you grant such a right, it cannot be withdrawn as result of loss. To grant any right is therefore special pleading. I agree that to claim education as a right is special pleading, but sometimes we accept this, either as a shortcut or because we have to make a start somewhere. You do not have to agree that this is agood place to start. If you do not accept this special pleading case, then you must accept a system that would not lead to universal education, even though you may think that universal education is a good idea.
Will A: In other words, you are trying to deflect attention away from whether arguuments are sound or cogent.
Discussions of “values” are not the same thing as discussions about evaluations of particular consequences.
It is a trick, a tactic, to ask questions like “But you just don’t value X right?” rather than to demonstrate that anything pertaining to X will occur. This tactic is meant to imply that policy A implies consequence X without making an argument that it does; to imply that those you disagree with are defective because they don’t value X; to distract attention from actual logical arguments; to provide an excuse to avoid debate because “our disagreement on X is just too great”. You truck in tactics; I prefer to deal with the quality of reasoning.
@Harold: I agree with your last post pretty well. But the point I want to make is this. No one has demonstrated that any right to education will be undercut by school choice. Or that there won’t be remedies if it is. If I believe in a right to free speech — and I do by the way — then I oppose censorship ipso facto. But I do not necessarily oppose cutting funding to NPR becauser I don’t think cutting funding to NPR impinges on any *rights* of speech anyone has. If you think school choice — which you and Will A conflate wrongly with just vouchers btw, there are other approaches too — will necessarily mean we stop educating kids then make the case. Then advocates like me can respond to the argument, the seriousness of the consequences, or propose possible remedies.
Ken B:
I can’t speak for every area of the country, but California pretty much has school choice now. I’m in one of the better school districts. One site say (97/100) for whatever that is worth.
I chose live in this school district and live in a 1500 sq. ft. house built in 1970. My brother-in-law chose to lives 30 miles farther away and lives in a brand new 4000 sq. ft. house and in a typical poor CA school district (46/100). We both paid the same amount for our houses.
There are currently 600 sq. ft. condo’s on sale for $ 150,000. Like most California towns, we pretty much allow anyone to move to our town that wants to move here.
You will pretty much find that the best schools in CA are public schools in districts that agree to tax themselves.
Any city in California can choose to tax itself to improve its schools. Anyone in California is free to move to a location that has a better schools.
Also, I apologize for this post. As you mention, I am lousy at logic so this is probably another strawman argument that I’m failing to see.