Vouchers

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

In the neoclassical orthodoxy, with its focus on partial/general equilibria
and "particular" equilibrium solutions, supply and demand for any given
product are assumed to be determined--each--by "ultimate" or "given"
independent variables with supply and demand interacting with each other yet
independent of each of each other (no co-determinacy) as otherwise (if
supply shapes demand and vice-versa) talking about specific or particular
equilibrium solutions would be practically and mathematically nonsense.

But the bougeois types who tout neoclassical orthodoxy know better about the
real world. They know that although there will be no "effective supply"
without relatively and potentially highly profitable
(risk-and-after-tax-adjusted) demand, so effective demand is shaped
by/to/for prototypical or existing supply. Businesses tout "since---" to
show they have been in business for a long time and presumably wouldn't have
been without having done something right. Consumers look for established
"brand names" often knowing nothing about the product other than the brand
name. And how can you effectively "demand" something that does not exist?

Now the neoclassicals love the fiction about consumer sovereignty, casting
dollar votes etc because they know that that game is as rigged as any house
game in Vegas: "Success breeds success; failure breeds more failure." They
know that under regimes of ultra-privatization and so-called "free" markets,
with consumers casting their "dollar votes" and rewarding the "efficient"
and punishing the "inefficient", possessing with given/limited/shaped
information, "competing" under conditions with highly unequal distributions
of wealth and incomes, that the race between secular/public/universal
education and religious/ideological/privatized/elite education will be like
a tennis match between the Williams sisters and two multiple amputees. We
will see a proliferation of institutions like "Billy Bob's Academy of
Christian Family Values" while secular public education dies on the vine.
And the so-called "minorities" demanding vouchers, along with certain
"progressives" will likely be the already middle-class and educated seeking
the same for their children (seeking relief from higher education costs
impinging on maxed/taxed-out middle-class incomes). The poor minorities,
even if they are aware of the deficiencies in public education in their
neighborhoods, even if they had the information as to where the best
alternative public/secular or private/religious alternatives might be, will
be denied access on other grounds (so-called "standards", entry test scores,
etc). Further the ultra-right has a plethora of hidden transfers and
subsidies to their own "magnet" institutions that will likely draw-in the
chosen while freezing out the unwanted.

In their own literature, the ultra-rightists say that World War III has
already commenced and it is about a global war for "hearts and minds". They
do understand that capitalism is potentially its own grave digger and that
capitalism generates, by virtue of its own inner and defining imperatives
and logic, and derivative trajectories and ugly consequences on the many in
the interests of the privileged few, forms of anti-capitalist consciousness
and resistance. They know that part of the key to survival or capitalism
means control over the levers of power, curricula, content, "permissible"
paradigms and "permissible" pedagogy in education in order to create future
corps of functionaries at the upper levels as well as maleable and
controllable worker bees at the lower levels--and that means "privatization"
and religious indoctrination in education. That is what this shit is really
all about; it is not about "free choice" or minorities finally getting
"access" to a piece of the pie and access to "quality" education or access
to those "prestigious" institutions that are virtual career makers for
merely having attended them regardless of actual performance or
knowledge/skills after leaving. (like Bush from Yale and Harvard).


They say that the definition of a "conservative" is a former liberal that
has been mugged or that the definition of a "liberal" is a former
conservative that has been downsized. Perhaps we can add that the definition
of a voucher advocate is a former leftist with a kid in failing public
schools. But the lack of resources, inefficiencies, poor environments etc of
some or many public schools are due primarily to calculated neglect on the
part of the right-wingers in power who have presided over the decline of
public education in calculated ways to engineer the conditions that now lead
many nominal progressives to join in the chorus for vouchers and privatized
education (much like the Reaganites openly engineered deficits to produce
the "imperatives" and "political will/support" for cuts in social services
that were otherwise lacking in political support for being done). It is
classic social systems and public mind engineering and many progressives are
falling into the trap.

Vouchers are all about what capitalism is all about: mass socializing the
costs of the highly privatized/centralized/concentrated returns, profits,
privileges, power and access of the privileged few. Market "discipline" will
not force the failing public schools to get their act together, it will
force their total destruction to be replaced by class-stratified
"privatized" schools turning out homogenized, obedient, ideologically
tuned-up clones "taught" by compliant, non-tenured, non-secure,
ideologically-compliant and cheaply paid teachers hired on the basis of
ideological and religious purity tests. And inequalities in access, wealth,
incomes, power etc will become self-reinforcing/perpetuating.

Think beyond the immediate and the crumbs.

Jim C


James Craven
(Blackfoot Name: "Omahkohkiaayo-i'poyi-inaa")
Professor/Consultant Economics; Division (Business) Chairman;
Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.
Vancouver, WA. 98663
(360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863
blkfoot5@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5
*My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected
Opinion*



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