Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!yale!decvax!cca!mirror!.misc!inmet!janw From: janw@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Population control & Freedom Message-ID: <117400031@inmet> Date: Thu, 25-Sep-86 03:31:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.117400031 Posted: Thu Sep 25 03:31:00 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 08:09:05 EDT References: <980@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Lines: 136 Nf-ID: #R:cit-vax.Caltech.Edu:-98000:inmet:117400031:000:5910 Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw Sep 25 03:31:00 1986 [mrh@cybvax0.UUCP ] >> There is no reason why children need be a great burden on parents >> *or* taxpayers. A five-year old could do some kinds of work al- >> ready, and learn in the process. >What a novel idea! Jan has invented CHORES and CHILD LABOR, for >which I'm sure generations of children to come will praise him. Hm... Little Mozart did not exactly curse the chores of his child-labor. One learns better by doing something useful, if it's also fun, than by scholastic drill. >And just think how much they'll learn performing repetitive tasks >instead of wasting their time learning their 3 R's or any other >such liberal bunk. Why not compare *creative* work with *repetitive* studies? >> School years are mostly wasted, for poor kids and rich kids, too. >> The 12-year course, properly taught, need take no more than 2 >> years. (I'd undertake to do it in 18 months, working full-time >> with one pupil - and beat the SAT of the average school products). >While some portion of the school years are wasted, the solution >is to teach more in the course, not merely to shrink the time >spent. Why not both? >The two year claim is absurd. At what age does Jan propose to >teach for two years? I don't. I said it *could* be done. I'd rather intersperse learn- ing with work and play. Still, 13 years from kindergarten to gra- duation is monstrously long. >An average student? Give us a break. If this was practical, we'd >see lots more 15 year olds (or younger) from private schools >entering college. Private schools only look good compared to public schools. They are overregulated, and lack the spur of competition, because of the rotten public school system. >> Abolish most welfare, abolish public schools, abolish minimum >> wage; permit child labor under healthy conditions. Create >> (privately) a network of apprentice schools where kids would be >> paid a little, and fed, and taught. Let charities chip in where >> the parents can't; but that may not be needed. Industries will >> likely jump at the chance to have a workforce tailored to their >> needs many years in advance, meanwhile doing something useful. >We used to have that. Among other things, it included migrant labor. >I'm sure those farmers and industrialists were plenty interested in >spending all the money they saved by hiring children on educating the >children. Right. :-( Depends on the contract, on supply and demand - on the times, too. For its times, apprentice system seems to have done a good job. The public school system, for our times, is doing abysmally. >> Kids will be *needed*. Get rid of race prejudice interfering >> with adoption of minority kids. Babies are needed, too. > [...] I had no idea you were such a Utopian, Jan. "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail". (Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism). He's right. Modern age is in many ways beyond the wildest utopian dreams of a few centuries ago. As for racial mores changing in this nation - it is gradual, but we are more than half-way there already. (BTW, the American Left deserves great credit for its part in the change. Whatever else it did or does, this should never be forgotten). >> The problem is not inequality, but lack of social mobility. >Return to a system of apprenticeship is going to alleviate a lack >of social mobility? Our current society probably has the least >barriers to social mobility of any historical society. Overt barriers - maybe. But social mobility is significantly down from previous generations. Apprenticeship can enhance social mo- bility by giving youngsters their first marketable skill early. Ask Ben Franklin. >> As we are graduating into a post-industrial era, a part of our popu- >> lation is stuck and unable to adapt. It is *not* a matter of >> their getting too little, or too much, of the pie. The problem is >> qualitative, it is one of skills, incentives and role models. And >> of intermediate steps; a family does not have to make it in one >> generation. What's wrong with this progress report: grandmother >> on welfare, mother a cleaning lady, daughter an electrician, >> granddaughter an engineer? >What's wrong is that two generations have missed out on their potential >for no good reason. I don't see that they did: each one had a sense of achievement. What *is* wrong is that generations of our people *are* wasted *not* moving up from a very unsatisfactory position. >Perhaps you've progressed too fast for your family, Jan. Care to >go back to the old village as a peasant? (Or whatever lowly posi- >tion is appropriate for your ancestry.) Oh, they include all sorts. One great-grandfather *was* a peasant. I can't boast I progressed much. If I did (in some worthwhile sense) of course I would be proud of this. >For someone who's concerned with social mobility, your idea of >stretching it out over four or more generations is a cop out. Why >should anyone with potential be slowed down? They should not. The faster the better of course. Part of the po- tential *is* one's background as a kid - which can make progress a family enterprise. I am speaking of accelerating from zero up, not of slowing someone down. >The real problem is that for long periods of time, "free market" >mechanisms like prejudice, bigotry, child labor, etc. don't >merely "slow down" social mobility: they lock large numbers of >people into cycles of poverty and repression. No, free market favors social mobility. This is a plain historical fact. Welfarism is one of the systems that *do* lock people into cycles of poverty. Jan Wasilewsky