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How would Libertarianism work in an Irish context?
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Duggys Housemate wrote: »Are you people capable of reading a history book?
Who are "you people"? I assume since you quoted me that you are asking me anyway, so yes I am capable of reading a history book. I would've assumed that I had proven this by quoting from a book that examined British education before the development of "free education".0 -
Suryavarman wrote: »I would've assumed that I had proven this by quoting from a book that examined British education before the development of "free education".
You've proven what? That the vast majority of people in Britain were literate before the development of free education?0 -
Suryavarman wrote: »Duggys Housemate wrote: »Are you people capable of reading a history book?
Who are "you people"? I assume since you quoted me that you are asking me anyway, so yes I am capable of reading a history book. I would've assumed that I had proven this by quoting from a book that examined British education before the development of "free education".
What book do you think you quoted from? Historically most societies were illiterate, and illiteracy has fallen with public education.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#section_10 -
Channel Zero wrote: »You've proven what? That the vast majority of people in Britain were literate before the development of free education?
If you read the post that I quoted or even just read my post you would know what I had proven.Duggys Housemate wrote: »What book do you think you quoted from? Historically most societies were illiterate, and illiteracy has fallen with public education.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#section_1
If you read the thread you would know what book I quoted from.
Prove that illiteracy has fallen because of public education. I would contend that illiteracy has fallen because of economic development.0 -
Suryavarman wrote: »Channel Zero wrote: »You've proven what? That the vast majority of people in Britain were literate before the development of free education?
If you read the post that I quoted or even just read my post you would know what I had proven.Duggys Housemate wrote: »What book do you think you quoted from? Historically most societies were illiterate, and illiteracy has fallen with public education.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#section_1
If you read the thread you would know what book I quoted from.
Prove that illiteracy has fallen because of public education. I would contend that illiteracy has fallen because of economic development.
You had no link in the quote you replied to me. I am not going back 20 pages in your search history to find a link you think justifies your position, not that one biased book proves anything. Economic growth is a result of higher levels of education, why would capitalists spend money on schools in the West of Irekand were there no individual profit in it? Education is another example of subsidisation of capitalists by the State.
Every single country in the world which has brought in free state education has seen illiteracy rates plummet - this is from China, but it is true everywhere.
When the independent new China was formally established in October 1949, among the total population of 550 million in China, 80 percent people were illiterate. In 1952, 1956 and 1958, Chinese government repeatedly launched free literacy-education campaigns, which were responded enthusiastically by 150 million participants. In the next five decades, the endeavour to reduce the illiteracy rate continued. Today Chinese enjoy nine-year free education, and the illiteracy rate in China has fallen to about 9 percent among all adults and below 4 percent in the young population.0 -
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Suryavarman wrote: »Prove that illiteracy has fallen because of public education.
lolI would contend that illiteracy has fallen because of economic development.
What about econonically under-developed countries that introduced PE and saw their literacy rates immediately rise?
Is this some kind of strange worldwide coincidense???0 -
Channel Zero wrote: »lol
What about econonically under-developed countries that introduced PE and saw their literacy rates immediately rise?
Is this some kind of strange worldwide coincidense???
do you have any examples?0 -
The sheer absurdity and utter dishonesty of taking this denialist tack is actually breathtaking to behold.0
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Duggys Housemate wrote: »You had no link in the quote you replied to me. I am not going back 20 pages in your search history to find a link you think justifies your position, not that one biased book proves anything. Economic growth is a result of higher levels of education, why would capitalists spend money on schools in the West of Irekand were there no individual profit in it? Education is another example of subsidisation of capitalists by the State.
You don't have to go back 20 pages through my search history. You just have to read this thread. What do you mean by "biased book"? So you do actually know what book I was quoting from or are you just talking out your arse?
Once again you are showing that you didn't read the thread. On the very first page of this thread. I had mentioned that charity would play a large part in providing education in the absence of government. I also don't see why there wouldn't be a profit to be made in providing education in the west of Ireland :rolleyes:.
Education only plays a small role in economic growth. By far the most important factor in economic growth is saving and investment.Every single country in the world which has brought in free state education has seen illiteracy rates plummet - this is from China, but it is true everywhere.
How do you explain countries like Britain that saw literacy rates skyrocket before public education was introduced?When the independent new China was formally established in October 1949, among the total population of 550 million in China, 80 percent people were illiterate. In 1952, 1956 and 1958, Chinese government repeatedly launched free literacy-education campaigns, which were responded enthusiastically by 150 million participants. In the next five decades, the endeavour to reduce the illiteracy rate continued. Today Chinese enjoy nine-year free education, and the illiteracy rate in China has fallen to about 9 percent among all adults and below 4 percent in the young population.
Going to provide any clue as to where that quote was pulled from? Also you're going to have to do better than Communist China. Communist regimes have been well known for their data manipulation.0 -
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You have advocated an all-private educational system in the past though; if you advocate that here, you need to show how it would not be subject to the same problems, and how to work upon the other problems it would likely create.This post had been deleted.
As an example, here is a research paper I've posted recently, showing that after adjusting for various conditions, private schools do not perform better than public schools at maths:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.1541
An added example of a problem I posed earlier in the thread:KyussBishop wrote:an all-private system could easily make the problem worse by focusing disadvantaged (economically and developmentally) students into poorer schools, where there is not enough money to afford proper education.
As I also said:KyussBishop wrote:The government (since that 2009 report) has since launched a plan/program for improving literacy levels, which we won't find out the results of until the OECD's next study in 2015 (upon a brief look, finding more recent non-OECD studies is difficult).
So, it needs to be explained why such a drastic switchover to an all-private system is better, and why we should not wait to see the results of government efforts to deal with the problem.0 -
Suryavarman wrote: »I would've assumed that I had proven this by quoting from a book that examined British education before the development of "free education".
Had to trawl through the thread to figure out what book you were referring to. It was Education and State by a free-market economist called EG West.
Did a search and found some reviews of the book, which are worth printing in full imo. as the criticism relates just as well to these libertarian ideas for the Irish education system.
This one by A.H. Halsey:"Of all the verbal rubbish scattered about by the Institute of Economic Affairs, this book is so far the most pernicious. One deluded right-wing reviewer has referred to it as a Copernican revolution in the study of education. This is ridiculous, not simply because Mr West’s ideas are a crass and dreary imitation of those published several years ago by Professor Milton Friedman - a man whose brilliance in argument is made futile by the absurd irrelevance of his 19th-century assumptions - but because, if it were a revolution, it would be Copernican in reverse. Just as pre-Copernican science would ask us to believe that the earth is the sacred centre of the physical universe, so this crude version of liberal economics would place the market at the centre of all human institutions. That the market is not the only human contrivance for rationally relating means to ends is a commonplace to first-year students of economics. It is apparently unknown to Mr West.
His conception of the other social sciences is no less defective. A man who believes that, in the case of a child kept ignorant of reading and writing, ‘the faculties of learning are not in any way removed; it is quite possible for them to remain intact to be used later,’ is a man who knows no psychology. A man who imagines that James Mill’s education of his son is evidence for the shrewd exercise of the protection of minors by parents of early leavers knows no sociology.When it comes to the history of education in the 19th century, Mr West goes beyond tolerable error. He tries to make out that before 1870 ‘a vigorous growth of schools completely independent both of official support and of endowments was developing into what some would call a private school “explosion”’ and that the state schools were a regrettable interference with splendid educational progress through the market. In arguing this thesis he puts a great deal of reliance on the 1861 Report of the Newcastle Commission. But he omits to mention what the Commissioners actually wrote: that there were 34,412 schools run for profit with 860,304 pupils, that they were of ‘all degrees of merit’, but ‘it is to be feared that the bad schools are the most numerous’ and that 573,536 pupils were being taught in places ‘for the most part ill-calculated to give to the children an education serviceable to them in after life.’ By contrast the officers of the Education Department inspected 7,646 of the state schools and ranked 75.4 per cent of them a excellent, good or fair.This, however, does not deter him from objecting to Forster’s inquiries before the 1870 Act, which showed that a quarter of those between the ages of five and 13 were not attending school in Liverpool in 1869. Mr West suggests that Forster’s statistics were biased because the inspectors ‘had a vested interest in the expansion of their own department’. He then goes on to a preposterous demonstration that Forster was inaccurate because he assumed that the ages five defined the population of school age. Mr West rejects this as a basis for assessing the adequacy of school provision in favour of the Newcastle Commission’s use of the age-range five-I 1. But again he fails to mention the opinion of the Newcastle Commissioners themselves: ‘the average attendance is far shorter than it ought to be.’ Incidentally, on his own type of argument it would be easy to show that the children of the 1860s were being more than 100 per cent educated by defining the population of school age as the five to eight year olds!It is only when we accept that, in the case of education, as J. S. Mill wrote, ‘the foundation of the laissez-faire principle breaks down ‘altogether,’ and that ‘the person most interested is not the best judge of the matter,’ that we can begin to consider adequately the role of the state. And only when we appreciate that parents cannot be substituted for children in the liberal theory, because we are dealing here with a question of justice which arises afresh in each new generation, can the discussion of public education become relevant. From this point of view Mr West’s discussion of equality of opportunity is hopeless.He wastes much of a short chapter by questioning the sincerity and consistency of those who believe in equality but do not practice it - as if the validity of Christian ethics is to be challenged by the existence of murderers. He then brings two charges against R. H. Tawney - that he wrote elegant prose and that he did not recognise the implications of allowing life to offer prizes. The first charge is unlikely to be turned against Mr West. His argument on the second charge is as follows.If A works twice as hard as B and receives at least twice as much money, or if A saves more than B out of equal labour income, we can hardly inform A that he is forbidden to spend his extra earnings on the education of his son.
Why not? This statement is only possible if you beg the whole question by assuming that education is of no more social significance than cabbages. What escapes Mr \Vest is that civilised people like J. S. Mill have always recognised that education should be distributed by criteria other than the capacity and willingness of individual parents to pay. The important questions are those concerning the allocation of resources between education and other claims and, within education. between individuals who differ in ability. No ideal of equality could be realised for the next generation if these decisions
were left to parental choice even if the present generation of parents had equal incomes. Mr West has turned an ‘impartial inquiry’ into a gross distortion of the role of the state in education. Choices between beer and skittles may well be left to the market: but education, and the search for equality through education, is too serious a matter to be left to an irrelevant economic doctrine, and least of all to its less competent practitioners.
Were this a short book and a well written one it would be worth reading, if only for the oddity of the notions that it so solemnly propounds. Dr West is angry with all that left wing crew who have persuaded people that the state has some responsibility for seeing that its members are educated. He takes to task those dangerous adversaries, from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill to Sir Geoffrey Crowther and Lord Robbins, who have argued that the state does have such a responsibility.He is pretty doubtful that the arguments of these favorite educational philosophers of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Professors Peacock and Wiseman. They think that state provide education should be replaced by private education paid for out of vouchers given to parents by the state, and spent in schools subject to stat inspection.. Dr West clearly thinks that this is a bit red. The blurb-writer carelessly omitted to read the relevant chapter.Dr West thinks that state education causes crime. He is not much concerned to describe or to criticise the deficiencies of state education as it functions now (perhaps because one remedy for some of those deficiencies is clearly that the state should spend more). The Ministry of Education is not mentioned in his index. he like s using epithets like "Berlin Wall" to describe the practice of zoning school areas. he writes laisser faire incorrectly. There is no point in trying to argue against a nineteenth-century thesis in twentieth century terms, nor against a metaphysical one in economic terms.Behind Dr West's often inchoate theorising seems to lie the notion that it is for parents to choose how their children are to be educated; and all that state subventions specifically earmarked for education in principle - irrespective of the way in which the subvention is made - detract from parents rights. A century ago it was rightly pointed out that the English have never paid the full cost of their children's education. Discussing the transition in England from a an educational system based on tax-provided finance, an inspector of schools said:
it is one of the extraordinary inconsistencies of some English people in this matter, that they keep all their cry of humiliation and degradation for help which the State offers. A man is not pauperised, is not degraded, is not oppressively obliged, by taking and for his son's schooling from Mr Woodward's subscribers, or from the next squire, or from the next rector, or from the next ironmonger, or from the next druggist; he is only pauperised when he takes it from the State, when he helps to give it himself.But then Matthew Arnold actually knew what went on in the schools.
From the negative point of view the State exists as a power to control the power of the individual; not primarily to defend his possessions. Negatively, the State exists to repress hubris, not to encourage avarice. But positively, of course, the State is more than this: it is an emanation of society, and its function is cybernetic: that is, it promotes by discreet measures of control and communication that same social harmony which Mr West sees fit to put into inverted commas as passing his comprehension.The State's positive role is to ensure that society is accorded the optimum conditions for remaining society and to prevent its degenerating into Mr West's mere collectivity of individuals'. Underlying this inadequate concept of society is an inadequate conception of the human person. This is natural enough, since the two realities are complementary. In Mr West's language, person is translated by 'individual' and society by 'collectivity'. Consequently, he creates an unreal antithesis between collectivism and individualism. Naturally, he himself opts in favour of the latter, declaring no theory acceptable which does not take the 'individual ' as the 'primary philosophic entity'.Few people, I think, would boast of being' individualists' as openly as Mr West. But of course he does this because his only possible alternative is to be a 'collectivist'. Now this dilemma, as we have suggested, is quite false. It is not a question of sacrificing the individual to the collective, or vice versa, in the name of the over-riding rights. Neither the individual nor the collective possess rights in any case, for both are merely abstract entities. To decide to confer 'primary reality ' on either of these is purely arbitrary, as Mr West seems to realise when he makes his own option. Unfortunately, he does not seem to realise why it is arbitrary, and contents himself with informing the reader that 'intuitively [he] feels that very many people are ... disposed to the individualistic view'. No doubt, but this is hardly pertinent.
The real problem is how to reconcile the absolute quality of the human person with the real existence of society. Ironically, it is only in the metaphysical order of personality that Mr West's 'individual' becomes the 'primary philosophic entity'. At his own empirical level there is no doubt whatever that society is prior to the individual who owes to it his physical existence, and also, through social communication, the awakening of his human potential. But let us grant that Mr West is half right, that his concept is a sort of white blackbird which means person when he wants to affirm his rights and reverts to being a mere individual when he wishes to deny his duties.How can we reconcile the absolute quality of person with the. state of being in, or part of, society? Philosophically, the rights of the person are not primary: they are consequent on duties. I become aware of my rights (i.e. not as powers) only because I am aware of duties towards others, which presumably they in their turn have towards me. Thus I only have rights at all in a context of social solidarity.I am a social being not because I am a part or aspect of society, but because society is a part or aspect of my being and equally of every other person's being. Society is that dimension of personal being which is possessed equally and entirely by every person. Therefore I cannot damage society or refuse my duty to it without damaging myself. The 'individualist' is by definition anti-social and consequently he mutilates his own person by trying to deprive it of one of its essential qualities. When we realise how far Mr West is from an authentic conception of society, most of the other odd features of this book become more explicable.It is no wonder that, having disposed of the bond of social harmony, he attempts to replace it by the 'cash nexus'. The underlying assumption is that it is possible to talk about education simply in terms of the market. Indeed, the author seems to take a delight in comparing schools and universities to grocers' shops and hosiers. It is understandable that Robert Lowe should have spoken with approval of Scotland as a place where 'they sell education as a grocer sells figs', but it is astonishing that Mr West should concur.
There has never been a genuinely free market in education. Perhaps the nearest approach was the one in which Plato's sophists operated, and this is scarcely a recommendation. In defending 'individualism' and the free market in education, Mr West is at great pains to show, albeit rather hypothetically, that every consumer would benefit financially from his system or, at any rate, nearly every consumer. But he has little comfort to offer teachers, whom he regards as incorrigible disruptors of the free market. He speaks with relish of 'weakening the monopoly power of a professional group', and considers that lengthening the period of teacher-training was a sly plot to acquire for teachers an artificial scarcity value. How efficient teacher-training would be assured in a free market he does not say.Probably he considers it unnecessary, for he finds it odd of Dr Hodgson to regret that in 1850 many private-school teachers were qualified only as grocers, tailors, or bakers, and he hypothesizes that the modern schoolboy would prefer being taught by 'such a colourful variety of experienced adults'. The obvious inference that teachers are generally colourless, uniform, inexperienced and adolescent, may fairly be drawn, for Mr West takes the trouble to underline it with a quotation (going back to 1868) from a hostile witness.It is hard to resist concluding that the barrel is being scraped to make a case for a view based mainly on prejudice and unconscious dogmatism. At any rate Mr West has no hesitation in condemning three hundred thousand members of the community to salaries even more inadequate than their present ones, simply because the value of their contribution (which he cannot measure) to society (in which he does not believe) is not fairly reflected in the operation of the free market (which for him is a self evidently Good Thing).It is as guarantor of social solidarity and trustee of the common wealth that the State intervenes in education. By doing so it favours equality of opportunity, which, despite some sophistical criticism, remains a valid objective; for it means that lack of privilege can exert only a marginal, and not a determining influence on the progress of a person towards the creative fulfilment of his natural talents."0 -
Yes that does a very good job of centering in on and fleshing out some of the primary issues with this way of thinking; the underlying principals of many Libertarian arguments rely upon this extreme individualism, but what is not acknowledged (though sometimes tacitly is) is that in specific situations this is incompatible with a fair society on many levels.
Whenever arguments come up showing how taking these principals to their logical conclusion, is likely to create overall harm to society (particularly the social segregation issue with private education), the arguments are played down or just outright ignored; when these arguments are selectively ignored, it implies a tacit admission that it is not viewed as a problem by those who promote these ideals.
If unpalatable, potentially embarrassing and integrity-damaging aspects of these ideals are ignored, denied and/or played down by their proponents (as opposed to acknowledged as a problem), whilst still promoting the same ideals, that is not honest, and implies either an unresolved cognitive bias, or (what the cynic in me increasingly suspects) an unspoken agenda or vested interest.0 -
Good demolition of Suryavrmnan's book. On that subject, can someone point out to the libertarians on this thread that saying something - charity will replace state education - does not prove anything. Empirical facts prove things. The data on the level of education in a country and its economic success is vast, the fact that in the absence of free education fewer people get educated is verified in every single country in the world, and the fact that, in the case of Ireland - as one example - education levels rocketed after the introduction of free secondary school is easily researchable.. Of coure the libertarians want to stop the poor, or lower middle income groups from going to even primary school, unless they get charity - charity which may come with religious or other indoctrination - so education levels will drop back significantly losing, just from an economic perspective, the gains from having engineers or scientists from all classes.
So we have libertarian education, nothing for the poor. Other libertairan philosophies? no legal aid, I assume, no social welfare, no state pensions, massive loss of transfers, and huge property rights for the ever wealthier 1%. We've had this before, and they want it again. Libertianism is the real road to serfdom.0 -
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Private for profit business works best for most things but the model doesn't suit other things like education and healthcare for instance. To maximise profits a business provides as little as it can get away with as cheaply as possible which isn't a good system for education.0 -
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Heh; I could say the same about your naive optimism regarding the workability of an all-private education system, where you don't seem to explain solutions to many of the problems presented.Permabear wrote:This post had been deleted.
Your entire posts rails against the government and the current system, but doesn't explain how an all-private system would be better; your 'urgency' argument "I don't have the luxury of waiting around for another 15 years" is also ridiculous, because there's clearly not a hope of an all-private system being implemented in that time (the public wouldn't support it).
Also, I'm not "anti-private-education"; I did post a topic discussing the idea of getting rid of private schools, but I don't hold the view that that should be done.
Your arguments also imply that the literacy rates have always been bad; in the OECD 2000 report, Ireland was ranked in the top 5 in the OECD for reading performance, and that of course was with the public education system; the downward trend shown in the 2009 report is a new one, and our past performance implies it is reversable.
Also, the digital literacy tests for Ireland in the same year show an improved score relative to the paper OECD test performed in 2009; this shows that the 2009 report was likely to be overly pessimistic compared to the digital tests (which would make sense due to more schoolkids using computers regularly):
http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2011/06/irish-students-score-better-on-oecd-pisa-digital-literacy-test-minister-quinn-welcomes-improvement-in-literacy-scores/
As for "awkward silences", I notice you completely failed to reply to any of the problems posed with private education, or how it would resolve these literacy problems. If you propose such a system you should at least be able to acknowledge the faults in it; the supporters of the current education system generally do, and view that it is better to resolve the problems existing in the current system.
Some of the problems of an all-private education system (off the top of my head), that have previously been discussed and need resolving:
- From a previous post "an all-private system could easily make the problem worse by focusing disadvantaged (economically and developmentally) students into poorer schools, where there is not enough money to afford proper education.".
- Private schools are free to discriminate on what students they allow to enroll, for any reason (the Libertarian view is "this is not a problem", but many will regardless view it as one)
- Private schools have a demonstrated history of creaming off easy to teach students, segregating those with disabilities or varying degrees (from minor to severe)
- Many private schools will still be partially subsidized by government, through government vouchers, without any added responsibilities or strings attached
- The cost of education will not scale based upon income, meaning the less well off a family is, the greater a proportion of income they have to spend on education (vouchers don't solve this)
- There is a high likelihood for increasing amounts of social segregation and societal divides, as students are sectioned off based on the education their parents can afford0 -
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There isn't a Gov monopoly on education in Ireland there are private schools and one can homeschool if they want to. Why would a private system be any different, there are unions in the private sector also who can be just as "militant" (though Irish teachers have not been very militant lately).
Bad maths and literacy rates are mostly due to those leaving school early. Don't see how a libertarian system would do anything to stop that.0 -
The lack of libertarian logic continues, particularly from PB. We are looking for Libertarian solutions - how would it work, how many people would get to go to school? We get
1) An appeal to emotion; as a father I, my two year old
2) 1) is incorrectly argued anyway, for private education is not banned. There are two year olds, who in the libertarian solution, would be actually disadvantaged and couldn't go to school. Which is what we are looking at.
3) The blaming of Statism for falls in standards in this country, without regard to the previous success being also Statist.
4) The sins of omission. Below is a link from wikipedia on the massively successful, and statist, Finnish system. The Finnish system produces the best results in international tests (from Wikipedia).
5) Critisism of the existing system - which could be flaws within the statist system, and fixable within it - is not proof of your position, even if correct in tiny parts (Irish teacher unions are a bit too powerful). The thread is about the actual libertarian solution, that is largely not getting argued. Criticism of A is not proof of B.
The Finnish education system is an egalitarian system, with no tuition fees and with free meals served to full-time students. The present Finnish education system consists of well-funded and carefully thought out daycare programs (for babies and toddlers) and a one-year "pre-school" (or kindergarten for six-year olds); a nine-year compulsory basic comprehensive school (starting at age seven and ending at the age of sixteen); post-compulsory secondary general academic and vocational education; higher education (University and Polytechnical); and adult (lifelong, continuing) education. The Nordic strategy for achieving equality and excellence in education has been based on constructing a publicly funded comprehensive school system without selecting, tracking, or streaming students during their common basic education.[1] Part of the strategy has been to spread the school network so that pupils have a school near their homes whenever possible or, if this is not feasible, e.g. in rural areas, to provide free transportation to more widely dispersed schools. Inclusive special education within the classroom and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement are also typical of Nordic educational systems.[1]0 -
Bluewolf did try and answer the thread, however vouchers are just another form of state payments, with more choice. In fact the voucher is not necessary, we already have a system where the government lets you choose in third level where you want to go, you spend government money, and to a certain extent your points are also currency ( effectively this is a voucher system - there is no need for a physical voucher).
In fact vouchers could be used for more redistribution - i.e. give bigger vouchers to the poor, and disadvantaged, each representing a certain fund to the schools, and reduce the voucher given to the rich. The rich can top up with real money.0 -
Ya good breakdown above of the methods of argument.
There is room for fleshing out how the voucher system would be implemented I suppose; for a Libertarian system only those unable to meet sustainable payments would get them (which retains the core of the problems I previously mentioned), where as a voucher based version of the current system would be available to all, and would either provide a static payment to all, or a progressive payment which is higher for the poor and gradually declines with earnings.Duggys Housemate wrote: »Bluewolf did try and answer the thread, however vouchers are just another form of state payments, with more choice. In fact the voucher is not necessary, we already have a system where the government lets you choose in third level where you want to go, you spend government money, and to a certain extent your points are also currency ( effectively this is a voucher system - there is no need for a physical voucher).
In fact vouchers could be used for more redistribution - i.e. give bigger vouchers to the poor, and disadvantaged, each representing a certain fund to the schools, and reduce the voucher given to the rich. The rich can top up with real money.
I don't know what I think of the possibilities of a voucher-based transition of the current system; if payments are not flat across the board, it seems to be a de-facto fee based system, as fees will be necessary to make up the cost-difference per student.
I disagree with that, in that I think it's valuable to maintain fee-less education (with the option of paying fees though, of course EDIT: i.e. semi-private vs public), particularly at primary/secondary level, as it is effectively a guarantee of education; having increasing fees depending upon income (or whatever way you want to calculate wealth), doesn't factor in things constraining money supplies, like debt.
A family with a semi-decent income, but with a mortgage, can be worse off for paying fees than a family with a poor income, but with a mortgage fully paid off.
Alternatively, the flat-payment across the board seems more fair, but seems like it may be redundant compared to what we have now; I'm not sure whether this may encourage piling on of additional fees to schools, as the choice of where to spend the voucher may just be a psychological difference to the way it is now?
I'm assuming a system here, where schools still receive additional non-voucher government income; otherwise, with a flat-payment system, schools in disadvantaged areas (where the cost of schooling is generally known to be greater) would be at an even bigger disadvantage.0 -
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Not to assume that the education discussion has yet run its course, but another issue of libertarianism in an Irish context would be food safety.
Could kick it off with BSE.
"Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is a disease that affects adult cattle. BSE attacks the brain and central nervous system of the animal and eventually causes death.
Commonly known as 'Mad-Cow Disease', BSE has a long incubation period. This means that it usually takes four to six years for cattle infected with BSE to show signs of the disease, such as disorientation, clumsiness and, occasionally, aggressive behaviour towards other animals and humans."
BSE controls in place in Ireland since 1996 are very strict and there are layers of robust measures to ensure maximum consumer protection in relation to BSE.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) bases its decisions upon the best scientific data and knowledge, and develops inspection and audit controls to ensure maximum consumer protection in relation to meat and meat products."
http://www.fsai.ie/faq/bse.html
Short Thom Hartmann vid here explaining the possible ramifications in U.S context but the same principles apply to Ireland or anywhere:
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