Thoughts on Education and the Economy

Assorted free-flowing thoughts of the day:

(1) Free education for all. This is a must. No litmus test based on money, but not just free education, for the lower classes could still not afford living expenses. Therefore, education should be free and all those who go to college should get a living stipend as well, to allow for rent, food, health insurance, etc. Working detracts from a quality education.

(2) Acknowledgment that taking on debt and then starting out in the job market with a B.A. and $20K in debt (at least) puts the worker in even more of a disadvantage than typical capital-labor relations. Since payment on debt starts six months after one graduates one cannot hold out for the best job that they want but is typically forced to take whatever job they can get so they can start paying those loan bills.

(3) The credentialism aspect of education is very true, Max Weber said it best, “the demand for regular curricula and special examinations, the reason behind it is, of course, not a suddenly awakened 'thirst for education' but the desire for restricting the supply for these positions and their monopolization by the owners of educational certificates." [From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, p.240-244]. University education, the process of certification, is the means for class privilege and the way to protect one's economic and social class position, particularly the middle or upper class, but primarily the upper class.

(4) That university education is nothing more than costly individualized job training. All the costs of having semi-skilled workers are passed from the corporation to the state that passes it onto the individual. I have to pay to obtain skills so I can be employable. This is ridiculous, if we are forced to take loans than corporations should have to payback our loans for hiring us, but that sets up a whole new set of problems.

(5) Accept the fact that the link between academia and the job market is tenuous at best and that higher education should be for creating knowledge and civically active people on an ethical, ecological and political level. If one wants an education strictly for the job market than go to schools specifically designed for that.

(6) Realize that oil is purchased in U.S. dollars, if enough countries go off the dollar to the euro, like Iraq (with Saddam) and Iran have threatened than that will hurt the U.S. economy even more, since the Euro is worth more than the U.S. dollar.

(7) Realize that one path to autonomy and self-determination for all within capital, at least at a higher than current level is through the guaranteed universal income, with no work requirement. http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html

(8) Realize that in all actuality capital might not fail during our lifetime, so one path is to try to work on improvements within that system. I am not giving up on a different economic model, but with western Europe turning towards capital along with China and India and south America turning relatively leftist I think there is a long time left, hence the search for alternatives within capital, like the one above. The proper question is, what economic model can provide for the autonomy and self-determination of the majority.