Most animals in the world can’t be usefully domesticated. This isn’t because we can’t eat their meat, or feed them the food they need. It is because all animals naturally resist being dominated. Only rare social species can let a human sit in the role of dominant pack animal whom they will obey, and only if humans do it just right.
Cowen's Second Law: There is a literature on everything.
In this case it belongs to a long Marxist tradition. I think this view on education goes back to Marx himself, but a more modern variant can be found in Bowles' and Gintis 1976 Schooling in Capitalist America. Bowles and Gintis are also noted in the work on "non-cognitive" skills by Heckman.
Or you can hear Chomsky give a very similar description to Hanson's back in 1989: https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Prussian here. Among the first to mass-school. Our school "won", because it was forced on kids&parents. To form kids into obedient soldiers&workers. Who could read an instruction and fill out forms. Who could calculate how many bullets were left and what rent they could afford.
"When firms and managers from rich places try to transplant rich practices....poor place workers just refuse to do what they are told."
This is a sweeping statement Robin, what do you base it on? Are the firms also transplanting "riches" to the workers so they are no longer living in poverty, or just "rich practices"?
Wouldn't you think the two would usually go together? [Modify the claim to make it more precise. Do you hold that commie countries are libertarian regarding work norms?]
I agree that working in jobs where you must submit trains submission more than does school. But school still does better than did the typical childhood environment centuries ago.
Relative to early work experience, it produces young people less willing to submit.That's what Sam Walton thought, and it's why WalMart preferred smart h.s. grads back in the day to know-it-all college kids
Then why the requirement of a h.s. diploma?
[Added.]
Who most enthusiastically pushes school and why?Modern progressives love it.
So, school instills resistance to submission. Progressive and commies love it. Therefore, progressives and commies benefit from resistance to submission. Enough to make you a commie, no? [Doesn't assimilation as favored by cultural conservatives entail the submission of the assimilated?]
The problem with the idea that school is to submit is that, relative to early work experience, it produces young people less willing to submit. That's what Sam Walton thought, and it's why WalMart preferred smart h.s. grads back in the day to know-it-all college kids. We hear all the time nowadays about the unemployed lib arts major who won't submit to decent paying jobs that are beneath him.
I'm reminded of the geological idea uniformitarianism - explain a thing's history based on processes still operating today.
Who most enthusiastically pushes school and why?
Modern progressives love it. They're the ones flipping out when Thiel pays people to skip it. Commies bought lots of school. And I hear cultural conservatives, back in the day when they were powerful enough to influence schools, wanted schools to assimilate all those Italian and Irish Catholics.
Relative to early work schools can influence people more broadly; propagandize (broadly) and influence their worldviews.
That was always attractive to those running the show but propaganda is expensive.
The world's gotten richer, states have gotten WAY richer, and so they're buying more propaganda via more school.
Why do folks put up with it? Many possible reasons:-school is actually useful for the most prestigious folks who we look to copy-reading and writing and other basic things are useful and we're only a few generations removed from lots of variance in who was able to learn these things in school-"modern" countries do lots more school than 3rd world ones
So it's easy for the propagandists to tell a plausible story for how school is superior to early work.
Why won't they impose slavery? You need to propose mechanisms, not assume things will work the way you want by magic.
If the poorer country voluntarily emulates the culture and systems of the richer one, whilst retaining ultimate control and ownership, then they are fairly safe. But I would call that emulating, not submitting. And it happens a lot.
Is the causal factor there the ever-magical classical liberalism, or the Westies being scrupulous about ripping off their compatriots (and relatives) ?
Cowen's Second Law: There is a literature on everything.
In this case it belongs to a long Marxist tradition. I think this view on education goes back to Marx himself, but a more modern variant can be found in Bowles' and Gintis 1976 Schooling in Capitalist America. Bowles and Gintis are also noted in the work on "non-cognitive" skills by Heckman.
Or you can hear Chomsky give a very similar description to Hanson's back in 1989: https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Prussian here. Among the first to mass-school. Our school "won", because it was forced on kids&parents. To form kids into obedient soldiers&workers. Who could read an instruction and fill out forms. Who could calculate how many bullets were left and what rent they could afford.
Thank you, I'm downloading it now, I don't know how I missed that!
I did give a link, and quoted it in the followup post.
"When firms and managers from rich places try to transplant rich practices....poor place workers just refuse to do what they are told."
This is a sweeping statement Robin, what do you base it on? Are the firms also transplanting "riches" to the workers so they are no longer living in poverty, or just "rich practices"?
Wouldn't you think the two would usually go together? [Modify the claim to make it more precise. Do you hold that commie countries are libertarian regarding work norms?]
We're talking about submission to work bosses and work norms not submission in general.
I agree that working in jobs where you must submit trains submission more than does school. But school still does better than did the typical childhood environment centuries ago.
Relative to early work experience, it produces young people less willing to submit.That's what Sam Walton thought, and it's why WalMart preferred smart h.s. grads back in the day to know-it-all college kids
Then why the requirement of a h.s. diploma?
[Added.]
Who most enthusiastically pushes school and why?Modern progressives love it.
So, school instills resistance to submission. Progressive and commies love it. Therefore, progressives and commies benefit from resistance to submission. Enough to make you a commie, no? [Doesn't assimilation as favored by cultural conservatives entail the submission of the assimilated?]
The problem with the idea that school is to submit is that, relative to early work experience, it produces young people less willing to submit. That's what Sam Walton thought, and it's why WalMart preferred smart h.s. grads back in the day to know-it-all college kids. We hear all the time nowadays about the unemployed lib arts major who won't submit to decent paying jobs that are beneath him.
I'm reminded of the geological idea uniformitarianism - explain a thing's history based on processes still operating today.
Who most enthusiastically pushes school and why?
Modern progressives love it. They're the ones flipping out when Thiel pays people to skip it. Commies bought lots of school. And I hear cultural conservatives, back in the day when they were powerful enough to influence schools, wanted schools to assimilate all those Italian and Irish Catholics.
Relative to early work schools can influence people more broadly; propagandize (broadly) and influence their worldviews.
That was always attractive to those running the show but propaganda is expensive.
The world's gotten richer, states have gotten WAY richer, and so they're buying more propaganda via more school.
Why do folks put up with it? Many possible reasons:-school is actually useful for the most prestigious folks who we look to copy-reading and writing and other basic things are useful and we're only a few generations removed from lots of variance in who was able to learn these things in school-"modern" countries do lots more school than 3rd world ones
So it's easy for the propagandists to tell a plausible story for how school is superior to early work.
Why won't they impose slavery? You need to propose mechanisms, not assume things will work the way you want by magic.
If the poorer country voluntarily emulates the culture and systems of the richer one, whilst retaining ultimate control and ownership, then they are fairly safe. But I would call that emulating, not submitting. And it happens a lot.
I think Robin is proposing a hypothetical that assumes, for example, that SK wouldn't impose slavery on NK.
The idea is for the submitting nation to adopt the policies and culture of the richer nation - not that they become their property.
Is the causal factor there the ever-magical classical liberalism, or the Westies being scrupulous about ripping off their compatriots (and relatives) ?
You don't need to show it works out in some cases, you need to show that it works out well often enough to bet on,
It felt pretty damn farmer-like to me.
The day I left college I never felt so free.
The Dutch invasion of Britain seemed to work out OK. (1688)