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You can still gate these professions like we do today by selecting the bests based on grades (and remove that bullshit nepotism in the US universities). However, if you remove the financial barrier, people that come from poor backgrounds have a chance to try their luck on an education of their choosing and excel at it if they have the skills to do it.
Lots of people still like trade jobs for various reasons, and that will still be true if we remove the financial barrier.
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No, but you make sure that the people that could become a genius in their field have access to the right education regardless of their economic status. It would solve a lot of poverty, because right now, it’s a vicious circle.
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They can still choose a fullfilling career? Are you against removing the financial barrier for school because not everyone can a be a top candidate in their field?
I really don’t know what you are mad about.
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Capitalism is interested in your ability to enhance the bottom line of the company you work for.
That’s a very broad reading of Capitalism as a system of incentives. But when you break it down, you find that it isn’t holistically profit-maximizing. It is locally rent-seeking. Which is to say, if we all work for a freeway that moves $10M/day in commerce and I - personally - have the opportunity to erect a toll gate that earns me $100k/day but inhibits $1M/day in commerce as a result, I will build that toll gate.
We saw this problem play out with the collapse of the Sears Roebuck Company under CEO Edward Lampert. Lampert took the capitalist ideology to its logical conclusion and began pitting individual departments within the greater corporate behemoth against one another. Consequentially, he dissolved all the economies of scale Sears had aggregated. Far from enhancing the bottom line, his business strategy dissolved all the economies of integration and scale that the firm had built up over its 120 year history.
Wherever the tenants of rent-seeking are applied, individuals with power will attempt to extract surplus wealth from weaker agents beneath them, even when that would destabilize the system as a whole. This can be disastrous for the “bottom line”. We used to even classify it as such, labeling these behaviors as “price gouging” and “embezzlement”. Now we see these initiatives as “creative destruction” and applaud their implementation.
Wow I’ve never thought of it that way. That makes so much sense. This kind of implies all subscription based services will inevitably devolve into paying more for less in a race to the bottom until the whole thing collapses. Which is interesting because I remember hearing about an economics paper that showed that the most profitable business model is bundled subscriptions. It’s kind of amazing someone can say that with a straight face looking at what has happened to cable TV.
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lol.
lmao.
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Rent seeking is just the latest in a long line of buzz words invented by MBAs
Its definitely a term that’s been co-opted by MBAs, but the process of enclosure is centuries old and foundational to the process of capitalist profit-taking.
You seem to not like this.
I’m not a huge fan of negative externalities in business. And profiteering generates enormous externalities.
I would recommend putting down the phone that are using to browse this website, since it exists due to the aforementioned capitalistic system.
Oh no, buddy. I’ve got some terrible news for you. Cellular mobile telephones are a soviet technology. And the entire backbone of the modern domestic telecommunications service was created with public lands, materials, and labor.
The modern cell carriers are simply gatekeepers, charging exorbitant fees to access public works. When the western states copied the USSR’s homework back in the 70s and 80s, no single private business could afford to front the enormous costs associated with the infrastructure. So the Federal Government issued block grants and unleashed (literal) armies of engineers, surveyors, and construction teams to lay the original main arteries. They then tasked a handful of private companies to operate as retail brokers for consumer access and use.
every human on this Earth is already partaking in it to some degree.
The bulk of international digital infrastructure is public works. Always has been. And the cost of accessing these public works varies enormously by state, entirely due to who is tasked with gatekeeping access to the service. US telecomm costs are astronomical, compared to Mexico or Germany or India or South Africa, entirely because the American domestic retailers charge a higher toll.
Incidentally, that’s also why we have some of the slowest and least reliable networks in the post-industrial world. Once we gave up investing in public broadband, public wifi, and public satellite services, the gatekeeping private telecom firms failed to maintain pace with peer nations like Japan and Germany and China and India. Now you can buy a cell phone off the street in New Delhi with a plan that charges pennies and get higher speeds and better coverage than anything T-mobile or AT&T can provide stateside for $100/mo.
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the hilariously fake Soviet propaganda
the first handset was born in 1973 weighing in at two kilos.
You’re citing the first retail model sold in a western market, built on technology from 20 years prior.
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Technically the transistor was invented at Bell labs in 1947
We’ve understood electric diodes since 1874.
Bell labs secured the first US patent for a silicon point-contact transistor in 1948 two years after Soviet scientists proved out bipolar diffusion in silicon. Two ahem German scientists, Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker, developed crystal rectifiers from silicon and germanium during WW2. They extended their discovery into a modern working transistor in 1947, at the Compagnie des Freins et Signaux, a Westinghouse subsidiary in Paris. Tadashi Sasaki pioneered the first Japanese transistor at Kobe Kogyo that same year.
American history loves to casually ignore the global race towards modern machinery, assuming anything that wasn’t filed at the US Patent Office simply didn’t exist.
I thought capitalism had something to do with capitalists owning the means of production and alienating labor from their work. Where I live most universities are public entities.
You probably live in a social democracy, universities being public means there’s some flavor of socialism (as in social democracy, not communism) in your country, with a regulated free market and capitalism.
capitalists owning the means of production and alienating labor from their workers.
Here. I fixed it for you.
Not to nitpick but I think both of sentences are correct. Labor can mean both the people who do work or the work itself.
That’s an America problem, not a capitalism problem. Free, or at least highly subsidised, higher education isn’t exactly limited to communist countries.
Even just free higher education is not enough under capitalism. You need to live somewhere and eat something while you learn. Also reminds me about one comment I wrote. Here’s copy-pasta:
American “left”: maybe we shold do some student debth relif? Just a tini-tiny. If you don’t mind.
Rest of the world right: universal education, more funding!
Rest of the world center: universal education, state must provide students with everything(including housing and food) so they don’t worry about anything else other than learning, state must provide teachers with everything(including decent salary) so they don’t wory about anything else other than teaching, state must provide universities with all necessary equipment, buildings must be maintained in good condition(so ceiling wouldn’t fall on students’ and teachers’ heads)!
Capitalism can keep people from studying because they need to work instead, or maybe they were in a low-income area and didn’t get the chance to go to a good school to get the grades or knowledge they needed before higher education, etc.
Capitalism effects every facet of our lives, even in developed countries where we try to spend money to counter it’s damages.
That’s a fair point, especially about the low income areas which is definitely also a big issue here in Germany.
Sure, but that’s kind of what Bafög is for. Sure that’s also a loan, but one with very favourable terms.
Doesn’t really help if you never make it to uni because your parents weren’t able and/or willing to help you out with schoolwork and couldn’t afford/didn’t care to get someone else to help you.
Bildungsferne is, sadly, often passed along from parents to children.
To be fair, it’s not just an America problem.
“Passion”… What a concept!?
Honestly, it’s not just capitalism. Education is anywhere from free to really cheap in Germany, and we still don’t get many people from poorer families into uni.
I see the main problem here as a sort of class divide between people with university degrees and people without. For example: if you work in a public library and don’t have a uni degree you will never get more money than salary level 9 (4k/mo) just having a degree and not doing any more/different work more or less instantly puts you on 12 or higher (6k+)
This I think understandably makes people without uni degrees kind of resentful of those who do have them. And if you grow up resenting a certain group of people you are much less likely to join them.
So, no. “Just” getting rid of the cost won’t magically get these people into higher education.
Education is anywhere from free to really cheap in Germany, and we still don’t get many people from poorer families into uni.
I am not German myself, but I am familiar with the system. Please correct me if things have evolved, but…
I thought the post-elementary education system in Germany was a tiered system. University admission requires completing the Abitur exams, but one can only feasibly do this if they’ve attended Gymnasium, or the “highest” tier of high school. It may be possible to do if one gets very high marks in Realschule (mid tier), along with Abitur preparation courses, but it’s virtually impossible if one attends Hauptschule (lowest tier). These schools are not intended to provide university preparation, but instead provide a general education to prepare students for trades/vocational careers.
Whether a child attends Hauptschule, Realschule, or Gymnasium is decided at 9 or 10 years old, and is dependent on performance in elementary classes and teacher recommendations.
And when one considers that a child’s educational performance is directly related to both familial socioeconomic status and parental educational attainment, it’s not surprising that poorer people are less likely to attend or complete university.
Capitalists’ dominant position within the class hierarchy necessitates exploitation of the working class, and this is maintained by fomenting division. This tiered system is just one manifestation of how society can be stratefied and divided.
It is absolutely possible to get to university after only finishing Hauptschule. You just need to go to BOS after finishing your apprenticeship and then you can achieve a fachgebundene Hochschulreife (maybe even allgemeine, im not sure) and attend University. Few people do it, because the desire is not there, or maybe not the tenacity to study further after already having trained for a job. Also you get Kindergeld and Bafög while studying.
And when one considers that a child’s educational performance is directly related to both familial socioeconomic status and parental educational attainment,
This is true and criticized by PISA every time.
I think it has a lot to do with how much the parents value education. east asian immigrants are famous for how much emphasis they place on education and as a result get into university. The only thing that would help immediately (i.e. does not require behavioral change for a large portion of the population) would be to separate kids more from their families via Ganztagsschulen, to weaken this influence.
Usually when people are in favour of getting rid of capitalism, they’re also in favour of getting rid of hierarchies such as class divide.
Sure, but one does not inherently include the other.
Capitalism does inherently include a class divide.
Do you know Aladin El-Mafaalani? I think this Interview (in german) with Jung&Naiv is totally worth to watch for everyone that is just slightly interested in that topic of the german educational system, its flaws and how to improve it.
Disagree about librerians because it is skilled profession and good librerian needs to be very educated, but yes,
“Just” getting rid of the cost won’t magically get these people into higher education.
Sure very skilled and such. But I’m not talking about librarians. Just library workers with and without a degree
Well, I don’t know why not librarians library workers would need a degree and it doesn’t make sense tu require them to have any.
My point exactly. They don’t do anything more than normal library workers, but get significantly more money
As soon as the selection criteria for access to higher education is less than meritocratic, it undermines the maximization of Economic outcomes because it reduces the chances for the best people for a job to end up in that job (you get maximum Economic productvity if all over the Economy the best person for a job is the one doing the job).
So even by Rightwing principles of better life by more money making, paid-for Education actually detracts from from it because it leads to less money being made (as people who would otherwise be the most capable for certain highly specialized positions are locked from reaching them due to not being able to afford the right education for it).
What paid gor Education does achieve, and really well, is making sure children with high-middle class and upper class parents inherit their priviledges, no matter how inept they are.
It’s basically Feudalism extended to cover the Burgeousie, which is why you see this kind of thing deeply entrenched in countries with barelly reformed monarchic systems such as the UK.
I feel like its almost a lottery in canada, I know a few people on their 4th-5th round of applications years after getting a university degree. These are good candidates too, 90-something average, volunteer… and then we wonder why theres a huge shortage of family doctors and wait times.
In some other countries-turned-shitholes the reason is shit working conditions and shit salary. By salary I mean 500€/mo
Serbia Moment x(
Huh. Russian regions. AKA not Moscow.
Yeah we need to increase the size of our medical schools, but investing in education isn’t a political priority. The “Why should I pay for sometimes education?” group is loud. “Who cares if it improves the country, I want lower taxes!”
Was much better before capitalism.
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Not being able to afford education isn’t limited to the cost of the education either. If I have to take time to study it means I have to spend every hour of every day either working, in class, studying or working on school projects to also afford to eat and have shelter, and even then I think I’d have to choose between the two.
Someone once said how many Einsteins have we missed out on because they were born in Ethiopia?
How many Einsteins have we missed out on because they were born in America to a working class or poor family or as a person in a marginalized group?
Less than in Ethiopia
Probably, I didn’t mean to make it a competition. In both cases it’s a nonzero number and every one is a tragedy.
I don’t think the comment was necessarily to dunk on Ethiopia per se as much as to make a point.
E.g. The person who worked out at least a theoretical model for faster than light travel was Mexican. So we are obviously not dealing with this situation in which the most intellectual necessarily are born into western society.
This is way more the problem than people missing out on going to medical school when they really wanted to.
Most people who are in the United States and want to go to a high paying career, can take out student loans and achieve something close, assuming good grades. Not that there aren’t problems with that scenario, but everyone wants kids to get high paying jobs, society is organized around helping those kids.
Meanwhile, some people would be great authors or philosophers or artists if they didn’t have to spend time making the money to survive. Those are valid goals that are being oppressed by the system.
And in the same way the global system is oppressing billions of people who are born as the rural poor and just not able to do much beyond subsistence farming.
More than this. People from different countries with qualifications are often denied to transfer their qualifications. We are missing out in more than one area here.
This is one reason why I advocate for free and open source software, this same exact reason. So many poor people/kids can’t afford to pay for software they need that could help them achieve something.
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All that pokemon has made Jaiden pretty smart.
