Comments (29)

• Matt R.

  Merry Christmas! And let us all be thankful for free market ingenuity!

  Published: December 25, 2008 8:03 AM

• Bruce Koerber

  December 25, 2008
  Educational 'Dinosaurs' Are Destined To Go Extinct!
  
  If we assume we are living in the dark ages of economics and then if we step back to take a look at the condition of education we will be shell-shocked. It is a dinosaur destined to become extinct!

  But those species of dinosaur that exhibit adaptibility will continue to evolve. Those educational dinosaurs that convert their scales into feathers and their forearms into wings will also learn to fly if they are to be of use in the future.

  There is no doubt that certain types of 'education' are already completely obsolete. For example, the social sciences are filled with empiricists embedded in institutionalized educational systems promulgating erroneous methodologies and squashing alternative thought. These 'dinosaurs' are especially susceptible to the changing climate of education that is manifest as the free flow of informative counterpoints on the internet. These 'dinosaurs' may quickly go extinct when the meteor of classical liberalism flashes by, grabbing everyone's attention and then exploding onto the scene with subjectivism.

  Then (and now is then!) the dark ages of economics will end!!!
  

  Published: December 25, 2008 8:06 AM

• Greg Ward

  If you haven't read JR by William Gaddis please do. It is well worth it. JR is a tough read because of it's style but like I say well worth reading and it ties into this article.

  Published: December 25, 2008 8:10 AM

• Patrick Barron

  The CATO Institute reports that even the poorest countries somehow manage to have thriving private education for the poorest of the poor through donations, reduced prices, etc., proving that we do not need public education at all. Furthermore, one of the worst aspects of mandatory public education is that the nation's culture wars are fought there, as each faction tries to gain control of the levers of propaganda to indoctrinate all of the impressionable young. So today every young person has become an environmental warrior, for example.

  Published: December 25, 2008 9:10 AM

• Abhilash Nambiar

  Nice article. I wish he had gotten into a little more detail on the 'shoe tax' scenario. How it creates shortages by lowering prices below the clearing price, how that makes private players unable to compete. How it drives the price of raw material for private players. And why they eventually choose to sell shoes only in the high end market that is not covered by the government's 'shoes for all' policy and so on.

  Published: December 25, 2008 11:06 AM

• Raymond Tasillo

  I for one am tired of advertising intruding into every aspect of our lives. One cannot get away from it and this is supposed to be good? What about indoctrinating children from a very young age to over consume? Materialism is not the be all end all of life. I dont see any thing good about this. I agree on many points in this site but free markets in this context seems to be the freedom of corporations to inundate us endlessly with needless words from our 'sponsors'.

  Published: December 25, 2008 12:32 PM

• Michael Orlowski

  Great article, the shoe example is something I've been explaining to people except I didn't talk about shoes.

  Published: December 25, 2008 12:56 PM

• Curtis Zwick

  "The article also states that approximately 67% of the ad sales are inspirational messages, paid for by parents. Others are from local businesses."

  Not exactly the greedy corporations brainwashing our children here. I doubt exxon or wal-mart will be getting in this anytime soon and I see nothing wrong with local businesses supporting their community while putting their name out there.
  I, however, probably wouldn't object even if it was large firms. Heck I would gladly be a walking billboard for some firm if they would pay for some of my schooling :)

  Published: December 25, 2008 12:58 PM

• Christopher Hightower

  Sounds like the beginning of a lawsuit. Someone runs an ad that a parent doesn't like and sues the school.

  Published: December 25, 2008 1:15 PM

• Bryan Zubrod

  Raymond:

  I understand where you're coming from, advertisement and marketing seem to be in just about everything. However, I think it's clear that the article wasn't touting corporate advertisement as the solution or end goal of anything. Certainly if enough people, like you, become annoyed with marketing being plastered on too many things the problem would be rectified in a free market. So far, it seems, people are content with the fact that one can analyze or ignore marketing as they see fit even if it is everywhere. If you're worried about the effects of advertising on young minds, that's a whole different argument.

  Published: December 25, 2008 9:37 PM

• RWW

  I for one am tired of advertising intruding into every aspect of our lives. One cannot get away from it and this is supposed to be good?

  I don't have any trouble getting away from advertising.

  What about indoctrinating children from a very young age to over consume?

  Define "over consume."

  I dont see any thing good about this.

  Then you are narrowminded.

  I agree on many points in this site but free markets in this context seems to be the freedom of corporations to inundate us endlessly with needless words from our 'sponsors'.

  Your use of "us" and "needless" give away the fact that you are, at heart, just another controlling collectivist.

  Published: December 25, 2008 9:43 PM

• reply to Mr. Tasillo

  The article also states that approximately 67% of the ad sales are inspirational messages, paid for by parents. Others are from local businesses.

  So much for corporate brainwashing!!!

  P.S. Overconsumption is encouraged by our Keynesian taskmasters, not by free markets. Keynesian economics demands people to shop and spend to "stimulate the economy". They encourage this through inflation and artificially-low interest rates, which discourage people from saving and push people to spend more money. Austrian economics, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of savings and delayed consumption for prosperity in the long term.

  Published: December 25, 2008 11:31 PM

• Briggs Armstrong

  Excellent point Abhilash Nambiar. Thanks for the comment.

  Published: December 26, 2008 12:02 PM

• greg

  Only one problem. If the teacher wants to increase revenue, they need to print more test. It has been a long time since I was in school, but the one thing I remembered was more tests was not good. When I was in college, beer tokens would have worked better.

  Published: December 26, 2008 2:49 PM

• Wren

  No, there is nothing that says a teacher would have to issue more tests to increase revenue. Of course, that would be one way of doing it, but I don't see why there couldn't be other ways...

  Published: December 26, 2008 3:57 PM

• IMHO

  A great idea. I only wish it had occurred to me the year I had a class of students who had been pushed through the course preceeding mine, yet hadn't met the minimum standards. The activities and drills in the current text was a "one size fits all" prescription devised by collectivist thinking. I desperately needed a specific drill book that was primarily designed to target each student's particular weakness. Unfortunately, the money I needed had been allocated to Phys Ed in order to buy "disco skates." :\

  Published: December 27, 2008 1:43 AM

• anon

  I share Raymond Tasillo's views.

  Published: December 27, 2008 4:36 AM

• anon

  Reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip, actually - where Calvin says:

  "A good shirt turns the wearer into a walking corporate billboard. It says to the world, 'My identity is so wrapped up in what I buy that I paid the company to advertise its products!' Endorsing products is the American way to express individuality."
  

  Published: December 27, 2008 4:38 AM

• anon

  Some of the replies remind me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip, actually - where Calvin says:

  "A good shirt turns the wearer into a walking corporate billboard. It says to the world, 'My identity is so wrapped up in what I buy that I paid the company to advertise its products!' Endorsing products is the American way to express individuality."

  
  Raymond's concerns are legitimate, but bigots like RWW would prefer to label him as a narrow-minded, controlling statist.

  Published: December 27, 2008 4:40 AM

• IMHO

  anon

  Think of how many businesses rely on referrals. Well, wearing a shirt that displays a company logo is essentially the same thing.

  Published: December 27, 2008 6:40 AM

• anon

  Point taken. But the aim of advertising is not only the conveying of information, but also part manipulation as well (that's why you have hot girls in car ads, and celebrities modelling for Nike) - so from that perspective, it is distorted information which is being conveyed so that people would have artifically manufactured wants and desires (a common Calvin and Hobbes theme).

  It would be silly however to suggest actively regulate advertisements - and true, if you don't have a mind of your own, you're gonna be manipulated by people (subconsciously or not) anyway. But the point still stands. I would be concerned if a school has been so deprived of funds that it has to resort to having advertisements on test papers, and have billboards erected on the school grounds. There is economics - and their laws hold true, but life is much greater than that.

  Published: December 27, 2008 6:53 AM

• Brian Macker

  "... it is distorted information which is being conveyed so that people would have artificially manufactured wants and desires (a common Calvin and Hobbes theme)."

  But that same argument can be made about the typical kind of person who finds such arguments offensive. They are far from shy in advertising their own views, which are more often than not distorted themselves.

  Marxists, and their intellectual offspring in the leftist crowd, are all about hating advertising because of it's supposed mind-warping capabilities. Yet they entirely ignore the mind warping effects of their own ideology. They then turn round and where Che T-Shirts.

  Unless and advertisement is outright committing fraud I think we need to let people sort this out for themselves.

  Published: December 27, 2008 10:38 AM

• Miraj Patel

  This type of thought is what drives capitalism. Sadly, some just don't want to think of creative solutions such as this. Like the piece said, the knee-jerk reaction nowadays seems to be going straight to the government, but increased gov't funding certainly wouldn't have had a positive effect for all sides like this did because the taxpayer (involuntarily, unlike the parents/companies who bought the ads) would take the burden.

  Published: December 27, 2008 9:13 PM

• anon

  "Unless and advertisement is outright committing fraud I think we need to let people sort this out for themselves."

  Yup, I agree.

  Published: December 27, 2008 10:51 PM

• IMHO

  Actually, the idea of using advertising in education is not a new one. Consider yearbooks. The cost to students is greatly reduced by selling ads. For those that have never purchased a yearbook, those ads are gathered into a separate publication which is included with the yearbook.

  Published: December 28, 2008 2:45 AM

• Inquisitor

  '"A good shirt turns the wearer into a walking corporate billboard. It says to the world, 'My identity is so wrapped up in what I buy that I paid the company to advertise its products!' Endorsing products is the American way to express individuality."'

  What is the "European" way? Or "Asian" way? No one can "artificially" engender a want in another. They can only appeal to their judgement in the end, which the other party is free to make go either way. And if we're all determined, in the end, it's irrelevant.

  Published: December 28, 2008 12:25 PM

• David Spellman

  Privatizing education is one thing that would have tremendous positive impact. Nevertheless, most people resist the idea of doing it, despite general agreement that our schools are failures. Why is that?

  My impression from the attitudes and arguments I hear is that most people prefer to make everyone send their children to failed schools rather than see anyone have better opportunities. Even though the odds are good that privatization would result in personal improvement, there seems to be a pervasive desire to make everyone go down with the ship.

  Truly education is a group-think issue that resists any rational approach besides the communal failure we have now. History, economics, experiments, and rational thought avail nothing because this is one issue that has wide societal presumption of efficacy.

  Published: December 28, 2008 6:23 PM

• snon

  > No one can "artificially" engender a want in another.

  That's the presumption you make - and I disagree with it. Just observe all that is around you - advertising/marketing are deliberately designed to skew one's consumer preferences.

  Some (e.g. Rand) would contend that people can't be manipulated without one's (conscious or subconscious) consent - well, I agree that the responsibility of decision-making still lies with us. That people are capable and do manipulate one another for their own ends is part of daily life anyway.
  

  Published: December 28, 2008 7:12 PM

• P.M.Lawrence

  Inquisitor wrote 'No one can "artificially" engender a want in another'.

  Sure they can. For instance, the colonial authorities in Kenya deliberately created a want for jobs that paid in cash by imposing a Hut Tax.

  Published: December 28, 2008 9:29 PM