No matter how good our intentions are, government involvement in education is bound to create political struggles and choose winners and losers.
Tag: coercion
On Exploitation
There’s a very simple test you can apply to determine whether or not a market transaction is exploitative: If the transaction is made voluntarily and offers a better alternative to the parties involved, the transaction is not exploitative; If the transaction is made coercively and offers a worse alternative to one of the parties involved, the transaction is exploitative.
Gender Inequality Isn’t the Problem With the Draft
While draft registration does involve unequal treatment of men and women, the larger issue is Selective Service registration itself.
U(nspeakably) S(adistic) Foreign Policy
If you had set out to construct a foreign policy designed to impose indescribable suffering on millions of innocent people around the world, you’d have a tough time coming up with anything more systematic and effective than U.S. foreign policy.
John Stossel: Freedom and Its Enemies (1h3m)
This episode features a lecture by journalist and television personality John Stossel from 2016. Stossel looks at reasons to favor freedom and free markets over government control and coercion.
A Tool for Labor Negotiations
The movements against standardized testing has little to do with learning, children, testing, epistemology, or psychology. These movements are predominantly supported by teachers and unions as a means of leveraging school districts, parents and governments into minimizing accountability.
A Little Bit of Good Doesn’t Justify Evil
Responsible people who have worthwhile principles have to accept that they have no right to violate others just because they have (or believe they have) a good goal in mind.
Lysander Spooner: The Forgotten History of the Man Who Started the First Private Post Office
Lysander Spooner is an important – and not exactly obscure – figure in the history of the liberty movement. He’s an idiosyncratic figure from the 19th century with no small cheerleading section in the 21st century. A bit of a throwback to a very different time, Spooner was a champion of the labor movement and was even a member of the First International at a time when socialists and anarchists coexisted peacefully within that movement.
The Road to a Dim Dystopia
What has happened with tech companies over the last several years have really challenged certain perceptions I have held on government, private businesses, and markets.
Millennial Socialism, Teachers’ Strike, Fat Capitalist Bezos, & Work or Die (26m) – Episode 448
Episode 448 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following entries to r/shitstatistssay: @NathanHRubin writes, “Millennials don’t hear socialism & think about the USSR or the Cold War… we think about Canada, Switzerland…”; PixPls writes, “It’s time that teachers stood up to their states and just said ‘No’. And while they are at it, a 20% raise is in order.”; Wordsmifff2991 writes, “The biggest cause of poverty is greed… Yes Jeff Bezos I’m talking to you.”; and NeonDepression writes, “There wouldn’t be any value without labor period. The worker HAS to create it for there to be any wealth whatsoever. Property inherently is theft… There is no such thing as a free market when people are forced to work in order to live. Thats called coercion.”