Metalwork in schools ?

Huh? "Compulsory" and "public" are two different principles, and neither implies the other. Perhaps *you* had a public-school brainwashing?

Notwithstanding the earlier adoption in some areas of compulsory schooling,

I heard 1/4 of the delegates at the Democratic convention were teachers union. 'Nuff said.

Hehe Fair enough.

Cheers

-- Jeff

I've been meaning to ask for a while, just what is the big deal about socialism? This isn't a hidden agenda question, I really am curious about why socialism (whatever the defintion might be) is considered so horrible by many.

Thanks,

Gregm

Blink blink......communism lite. Or do you need more details of why your Stuff doesnt belong to your neighbors or the State?

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

I think there is a wide continuum involved in the issue. I agree that Communism is only pleasant when its an idea, but I really don't get how public schooling equates to it. Is this fundamentally about taxes?

Gregm

Not really "communism lite," unless you also feel that conservative Republicans are "fascists lite." Neither one is true.

Communists employ socialism to achieve their objectives, just as the emotional appeal of fascism is conservative and nationalist. But all of those ideas are really distinct and independent. Bringing them together is a political expedient. Philosophically, in fact as well as in attitudes and objectives, they each stand alone.

You won't find an objective of general communism in the platform of those with a standard liberal, "commons" philosophy of shared activity and ownership. For example, the US Army. Philosophically, by your definition of socialism, it's the most socialist institution in America. It is "the commons," carried to an extreme, in which individual people are ruled by the state throughout the terms of their contracts, and even beyond. The institution itself is state-owned, state-financed, and state-run. It even has its own state-run legal system, housing system, and dress code.

"Commons" philosophy, in the context of either liberalism or conservatism, is limited to those things that make sense to do in common. To say that late-20th-century liberals adopted it in a big way, and that they went overboard with it, is true. But it's inherently neither liberal nor conservative. You could argue that it's socialist, but perhaps not close to being communist. You could argue that, but you would have it backwards. I'll continue that point further down in this unfortunately lengthy message.

Likewise, fascists appeal to traditional, national values and impose them through authoritarian means. But there is nothing in the traditional values of a country like that US that is inherently authoritarian. Authoritarianism is a separate philosophy that imposes values and behavior -- traditional values, in most cases. Communist political structure imposes socialist economics. In both cases, two distinct ideas have been combined for political expediency.

Trouble results when you try to align all these separate ideas -- communism, liberalism, socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, fascism -- on a single line, and make the whole thing into a linear scale, with extremes and "moderate" positions in between them. In many cases, they have nothing to do with each other. Libertarianism, for example, is an extreme form of liberalism. But because liberalism has been identified with socialism, libertarians align themselves in opposition, seeing themselves as a variety of conservatives. Which, of course, makes them so conflicted that they're forever defining themselves, and excusing all the contradictions by saying they're so independent that they're all really different, anyway. The real reason they're "all really different" is that they have no idea where they really fit on that liberal/conservative (communist/fascist) line. And that's because the line itself makes no sense, and has no place on it for libertarians. It's difficult for them to communicate what they are because they have an inadequate model from which to communicate.

What you and some others call socialism in the US often is nothing more than different ideas about what constitutes the "commons." But this is the crucial point: Socialism is not about defining the commons. Socialism, in its useful, original meaning, is about state ownership of the means of production. In the UK and Europe, coal mines, steel mills, the automobile industry, and other economic institutions have, at various times, been state-owned. That's socialism. We haven't had a lot of that in the US.

But we have had some strong elements of "commons" institutionalization. For example, education. And the army. Airports. Highways. Police forces. Fire companies. And so on. These are not economic institutions. They are social institutions. They don't produce profits, they produce social services.

Once you see that distinction, a strange fact emerges. Communism isn't socialism carried to an extreme. It's a universal application of "commons" institutions. In other words, the US Army is really more of a communist institution than a socialist one.

But that doesn't make us a communist country, any more than state ownership of utilities makes us a socialist country. All countries have some institutionalization of "commons." And almost all have some state-ownership of what economists call "natural monopolies," like water utilities. So we all have some of the precursors of things that, if carried to extremes, could become either communism or socialism.

In the US, these commons institutions and socialized economic institutions are self-limiting to those areas that we agree, through our political process, are best coordinated through the state. Compared to Europe, we limit them much more. But Western Europe, whatever else you may think of it, derives its economic strength, its freedom, and so on from liberal-democratic institutions: elected government, and private ownership of the means of production. Sweden may appear socialist to us but it is an economically strong country whose strength comes from the same sources as ours: capitalism and democracy. Those are the dominant and determining facts of its success -- which, right now, looks somewhat better than ours, BTW. It may be because Sweden's ideas of the proper institutions to coordinate as "commons" and the proper degree of state ownership are better than ours. You, personally, would benefit from their "commons" approach to healthcare. And I don't think you'd see it as an imposition upon your freedom, if you actually experienced it.

This message is trying to cover too much territory and I'm not really organized today, so please excuse the lack of unification in the whole story. It really is a coherent story, I'm just not presenting it well. But I'll throw in one more point before I go off to work: We aren't really arguing in this country about keeping education as a "commons" institution. The state will still pay for it, or we will in "common," through our taxes, even if we switch to a voucher system. What some are arguing for is not making education a purely capitalist institution, but, rather, detaching the state from the running of it. The state still would treat it as a common good -- part of the "commons" -- by paying for it and by setting some standards for it. They'd just get away from running the schools themselves.

Whether that will work is an open question. Mixed systems, with government money paying for private services, is a mixed bag. For example, electricity in California.

Off to work with me...

Ed Huntress

I'd have a minor disagreement with the BEST engineers are the ones that work their way up. The ex techs are good journeyman engineers that will get incremental improvements to a product, on time, on budget, and with a minimum of extra 'features' that you have to fix on the next go around. I sure can't complain about any of that!

But the real breakthrough projects come from the creative types that have not spent too many years getting beat up on the shop floor. Of course these best projects need to have the sense of what is doable, reliable, robust, manuafacturable, and cost effective. Only way to get that part is put them out on the shop floor for a while. Learn that some of those old foggy shop supers REALLY know thier business.

Lately, we have been push>>But the scarey part is when those students show up in Mechanical

Ah no. Taxes, within the boundries of the Consti ution are part of the rules we must live under. Its all the other "from each according to their ability to those according to its needs" parts that are not.

The catchall phrase used to justify outright theft of money, property and lands is "...and promote the general welfare" and has been sadly abused by those who are indeed living with a leftist and socialist world view. "discretionary spending" is the justification.

However Madison had not missed this .....knowing human nature and all.

"James Madison The Federalist No. 41 General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution Independent Journal, Saturday, January 19, 1788

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. "

Madison and friends further waylaid their fears by agreeing to a Bill of Rights, including the 10th Amendment:

" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Since Congress is prohibited from exercising those powers not granted and enumerated by the Constitution, from whence do these "discretionary powers" come?

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Not much. Look a few messages up in the thread, and you'll see that I gave a description of what's going on in my part of the country regarding shop courses in schools.

Ed Huntress

Authoritarianism

state-ownership

healthcare.

institution.

themselves.

electricity

So your local highschools still teach shop?

Joel. phx

"Just curious - Do most high schools in the U.S. still have metalwork shops to teach the subject ? Or is it regarded as ' old rustbelt ' technology ? Perhaps metalshops are too dangerous in these days of litigation. If any people from the U.K. read this I'd be interested in the situation there as well.

Dean ( Australia )"

In my school district, they gutted the metal and wood shops to provide more funding for the school sports programs.

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Sorry, must have missed it & google hasn't caught up yet.

Joel. phx

'Nothing to be sorry about. My news server is missing a lot of messages these days.

Basically, I said that the shop courses have migrated to county-based vo-tech high schools, but that the real action, in CNC, CAD/CAM, and so on, is going on in the community colleges. Overall, though, the numbers of students in those courses has declined sharply since I moved here (central NJ) 25 years ago.

Ed Huntress

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Are you aware of any public schools that do not require attendence?

Or any compulsory schools that are not taxpayer funded?

The original incarnation was indeed public, and compulsory. That was the 'evil socialist' plot to eliminate child labor.

Jim

I disagree about the socialist part (as I am a pinko commie nutcase liberal) but it's nice to hear someone else notice the reality of teacher salaries. For the most part (and there are always exceptions to the rules), teachers make a darned good salary for the numbers of hours worked.

When presented with this, teachers seem to come up with "but what about all the hours we work at home". I have a simple solution to that....you don't get to work at home: You need to put in your 8 hour day at the office like the rest of the world. While you're at it, work all year at the office with a standard 2 or 3 week vacation like a real job.

Of course when this is said out loud people tend to throw rocks at you

Koz

Wrong on both. No state's compulsory education law requires attendance at a public school. Schools that meet compulsory requirements can be private or home-based. I should know, I run one.

Not the same thing - sure you can find a private school that

The notion of the state, requiring kids to attend 'school' for the first X years of their life, is one of those socialist ideas that made sense when it was first introduced. There were those who fought that concept.

Most of the time the requirement is met by public, taxpayer funded schools. True then, true now.

Jim

Jim

Keep your spirits up, Harold. Just keep working at it. Sometimes just the work is worth it.

Mark