Problem being (besides your shaky grasp of history and basic macroeconomics) that markets don't work that way....And infallibility/perfection isn't and cannot ever be an option.rainier wrote:Ogie want a cracker?Ogie wrote:You mean to say that the free market has distinct advantages over monopoly and forced use?
Who would have ever guessed?
Original thought is allowed on this message board, you know.
Unleash the free market on all of our schools? Okay, then when some company (let's call them Educorp), comes along and starts to purchase schools, let's see what happens.
1. Educorp gets a foothold in MN schools by buying a few strategically placed schools.
2. Educorp grows large enough to offer educational services for below cost, a loss they are willing to sustain so they can undercut other schools and force them out of business.
3. Educorp becomes dominant education company in MN, and soon all other companies sell out to them instead of ending up in bankruptcy.
4. With their monopoly firmly in hand, Educorp begins to raise prices and cut services in order to increase profits. Teachers' salaries are slashed as they have no other choice of where to work. Students' educations suffer, but nothing can be done because everyone has swallowed the idea that free markets are infallible.
5. Government is eventually forced to intercede and break up the Educorp trust, and the educational system will return to how it was before, until people once again forget the lessons learned and substitute their own thinking with that which they hear on talk radio.
Theodore Roosevelt, a man whose face happens to be carved into the side of a mountain alongside Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, knew that a totally free market ultimately ends up in screwing the consumer and he broke up the monopolies created by the free market.
I can't think of a worse idea to apply to our entire education system.
Markets give us competing stores like Target, Wal Mart and K Mart....I don't see any of those three becoming a monopoly in the retail world anytime soon....The same model could work quite well in the market for education, at least as well, if not better, than the antiquated middle 20th century model currently in place.
Now, I believe you were muttering something or another about original thought?