Free Market Competition - A Beautiful Thing
March 3rd, 2006 | by Gman |A rising tide lifts all boats. Here is a great example.
The same could happen to our education system if we’d only let it.
Free market competition makes consumers, and ultimately society, better off.
13 Responses to “Free Market Competition - A Beautiful Thing”
By Chad on Mar 4, 2006 | Reply
Is it just me, or are the two biggest conservative gripes regarding education:
1) Lack of free-market education for what is currently socialized education;
2) Too much liberal influence in higher education?
So, the only education that market forces really dictate anything en masse to is the one that the liberals are most entrenched in. Gee, I wonder why that is.
Comparing breakfast sandwiches to education is a remarkably specious argument, in my opinion. I suspect that were we to live in the libertarian paradise of free-market education, the system of education would act much less like establishments that serve trendy breakfasts and more like the airlines or west coast power grid (which is to say, ‘poorly’). And if we were living in the libertarian paradise and the school administrators did something nefarious, defrauding their clients out of hard-earned money, there would be little or no recourse because there would be no lawsuits. And if there were lawsuits, the plaintiffs would likely not be burdened with too onerous of a punitive judgement, if any.
Because in libertarian land, it’s not about the money you make, it’s all about the money that you take.
By SallyT on Mar 4, 2006 | Reply
Gman, thanks for the links! Browne’s comparison of ed to computers is spot on.
Chad, you may have missed it, but free-market ed does exist and is doing quite well. You might have to search beyond the MSM to discover the success stories, but they’re out there.
Why do you assume that alternatives to state ed would be unaccountable?? The current system is unaccountable to most everyone, especially the kids. Are you saying the compulsory system is preferable, because at least the indoctrination is uniform?
Musing:
why do ‘progressives’ dislike the concept of competition, especially when it comes to ideas?
By Chad on Mar 4, 2006 | Reply
Sally,
If you ever figure out “why … ‘progressives’ dislike the concept of competition, especially when it comes to ideas”, I’d love to know. Since I’m neither a progressive nor anything very near it, I’d love to find out. After all, were I a progressive that disliked competition of ideas, we’d not be having this discussion as I would just be ignoring you.
I am very much a capitalist. I understand capitalism very well, and that is why I am against a very high presence of free-market education. You correctly point out that there is currently free market education in the US. I even alluded to it in my earlier comment, when I mentioned that the only part of the American education system that the market affects en masse were colleges and universities. But the analogy that Gman used was that of a breakfast sandwich.
If you desire a breakfast sandwich, you can either make it yourself or purchase it from a very large number of outlets. If you live in a larger city, you may even be fortunate to have several choices of the same outlet (i.e. Starbucks, McDonald’s) to purchase your breakfast sandwich from.
On the other hand, it is very difficult to buy a breakfast sandwich from any level of government. It is not impossible, as the Federal Government in particular is the purveyor of some very fine breakfast sandwiches, but unless you are in the military you still have to pay for them — and that’s if they let you buy one. As an aside, the same happens to hold true for the K-12 education that the Federal Government provides. There exists the ability for someone not connected to the military to have their child attend schools run by the Federal Government, but there is tuition and it isn’t cheap.
Therefore, Gman posited that he wished the same opportunities existed for obtaining or supplying education as do obtaining or supplying a breakfast sandwich. Were that the case, then it seems that governments would supply very little of either and education would be as privatized as the breakfast sandwich industry.
There is a very common quote regarding capitalism that is extremely flawed. That quote is, “the customer is always right”. If that statement were exactly true, then I would think higher of the prospects of privatized K-12 education. The fact however is that the will of the customers is always secondary to the will of the shareholders. The reason capitalism works so well is that a very large amount of the time, the interests of shareholders and customers are relatively compatible. However the customer only benefits if it is in the shareholders’ interest for the customer to benefit. Frequently this is not the case.
Schools are definitely broken. Making the bulk of them privatized will not fix them. And finally, private schools today are successful not in spite of the fact that most of the K-12 education is socialized, but rather because of it.
By SallyT on Mar 5, 2006 | Reply
I apologize if you think the ‘Musing’ comment was directed at you. I meant, in general, that the educratic opposition to charter schools, school vouchers, private schools & home-schools stems from annoyance with competition of ideas.
I’m not clear what your point is here:
“Gman posited that he wished the same opportunities existed for obtaining or supplying education as do obtaining or supplying a breakfast sandwich. Were that the case, then it seems that governments would supply very little of either and education would be as privatized as the breakfast sandwich industry.”
Isn’t this as it should be? Parents are responsible for their children’s education and shouldn’t be required to put up with lousy service.
Maybe I’m missing something, but you don’t seem to factor in any trust of the consumers’ choices, or consumer interest in their children’s futures.
you said,
“Schools are definitely broken. Making the bulk of them privatized will not fix them.”
So you lead us into a dead end…the market system is static, prone to corruption due to self-interest. Excellence will be overridden by the hunt for the dollar. So we do what?
The reality is that an awful lot of alternative elementary and high schools already operate on higher principles than mere capitalism. And parents and communities support the work of the best in various ways.
If the public system can’t adapt to competition and it flounders, so be it. I rather resent paying taxes for incompetent services. The current system only survives because it is compulsory; the folks controlling the system (from feds to unions) are more concerned with indoctrination than teaching and inspiring young minds. Our kids, businesses, and country are the ones paying for it down the road. So I’m all for trusting parents to seek the best for their kids, giving the capitalists their whack at the job of education.
By Jeff on Mar 5, 2006 | Reply
I’d be interested to see what some around here think about this (PDF) study, comparing different types of private schools to public schools.
By Steve on Mar 6, 2006 | Reply
I wrote about this a while ago here and I probably need to update it, but the way I see the problem, is that teachers have moved from professionals who will do the best for their clients (students) and are instead just union hacks. If you figure that the updated figures show that in Missoula the State contribution per student is now at $15,000 according to the Missoulian, that means in a 20 student classroom we are spending $300,000. Why not let the teachers bid for students and have the parents select who the teachers will be. It would offer more flexibility and probably better results.
By Craig on Mar 6, 2006 | Reply
Jeff–
Let me riddle you this: How much credence would you lend to a paper that found global warming to be “nothing but nonsense” funded by Exxon, Shell and Conoco?
By Jeff on Mar 6, 2006 | Reply
“Let me riddle you this: How much credence would you lend to a paper that found global warming to be “nothing but nonsense†funded by Exxon, Shell and Conoco?”
Not much, because I know that global warming has been validated by numerous other studies and many anti-global warming arguments have been shown, on a level a layman can understand, to be wrong.
I’m not sure your analogy holds, anyway. Whatever stake the funders of NCSPE have (which is unclear to me) in schools remaining public, does it really rise to the level of the kind of direct economic impact that oil companies face from global warming regulation?
By Craig on Mar 8, 2006 | Reply
Jeff–
Really, if you don’t know what stake the groups listed have in public education (e.g., a teacher’s college — yeah, no stake there), then you might at least take a look at the papers the group has put out with regard to school choice.
While I don’t have the time to read them all, a cursory glance at the summaries shows very clearly which side of the debate NCSPE is on.
By Walter Greenspan on Mar 8, 2006 | Reply
Jeff says, “Not much, because I know that global warming has been validated by numerous other studies and many anti-global warming arguments have been shown, on a level a layman can understand, to be wrong.”
Huh?
It’s just the opposite: global warming has been proven to be the view that is wrong.
Over (real) 17,000 scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis whatsoever.
The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth’s temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.
See “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
By Jeff on Mar 8, 2006 | Reply
Craig - There’s a difference between being one side of the debate and having a vested interest in that side. Looking at their papers can tell you the former, but not the latter, which was your objection.
You pointed out that a teacher’s college has a stake in this debate. Their stake seems awfully mild compared to an oil company’s stake in the global warming debate.
Still, what’s the point here? I really don’t think we should judge research soley on where it came from.
Walter - Here’s some reading for you.
By Craig on Mar 11, 2006 | Reply
Jeff–
You asked what we might think about the article, and the short version is this: I smell confirmation bias. No, I haven’t read the article, and I honestly don’t have the time nor inclination to do so.
This isn’t unique to either side of any debate. If I showed you an article from AEI or Heritage, you would think the same thing.
It’s as simple as that.