We do give away a lot of welfare to people who are doing poorly. It might be more effective to stop giving people money and use it instead to create programs to provide better jobs and skill training.
For a simple reason - because we know, empirically, through decades of studies(some of which were done by the very US of A!), that it produces better results for the entire society. I've learnt long ago that it doesn't matter how I feel about benefits system personally - yeah I hate that some people get money for doing nothing. But it's literally irrelevant - we know through hard data that it works and produces good results. So the whole question of "how much effort has someone put in" is amusing to debate online, but it should be worth exactly zero when deciding policy.
>>The freedom to excel comes with the freedom to do poorly at the game.
Is it freedom though? How many of Americans can't get into these best education programs because they can't afford it? Yes, I am aware that there are grants and funds available if you really are poor - but you still have to apply. What if the chances were really equal - all higher education completely free to attend like it is in some other countries? Both the best university in the country and the worst both have the exact same cost of admission = zero. Isn't that what freedom is?
Is that why America's per capita GDP is higher than that of the EU? Why the US, not the EU, is the world's center of innovation and the strongest magnet for talent?
I don't think that trying to make everyone the same is good for society or conducive to high levels of human accomplishment. Striving for excellence will inevitably produce winners and losers, but if you don't do it, you just end up with mediocrity stew. I'm not going to cut off the right side of the distribution of human accomplishment on the say-so of people who have some weird ideological commitment to human sameness.
No, but it's exactly why US is far behind EU in healthcare, education, equality, social mobility and a number of other social metrics that matter to you know - normal people on the street, not traders on wall street. GDP doesn't tell the whole story.
>>Why the US, not the EU, is the world's center of innovation and the strongest magnet for talent
Because US is home to companies that pay ridiculous salaries which make it worth moving to the US for, despite all the other downsides. You're going to get just as good education at many world class universities around the world, but if your goal is extreme salary then US education system gives you a leg up at the start - that's why. Not because there's anything unique or super special about US.
>>I don't think that trying to make everyone the same is good for society or conducive to high levels of human accomplishment.
That's absolutely not the idea, I think you misunderstood me. The point is to give everyone the same chances. In many other countries it doesn't matter if you're from a rich family or a poor one - it doesn't give you any extra leverage when applying to universities. There is no educational debt to deal with. A medical condition will not put you in any debt whatsoever.
Look at it as a gift to the society, to every child and every adult in the country - if they do nothing with it, that is their choice. But if they take these opportunities they can achieve incredible things, exactly that pinnacle of human accomplishment that you're talking about. That's freedom, not the American freedom that's tied to worship of money.
For some, at the expense of others.
It's like having a race where some people start 100m behind others and saying "well if they try hard enough, they can still win! The race itself is fair after all!"
>>Success is hard work with a measure of luck.
Of course ,but the American system is 1) ignoring that some people started at a much worse position in life and expecting them to "just work harder" 2) assuming that any problem you might encounter in your life is of your own doing, after all if you get into an accident and end up in lifetime medical debt.....well you shouldn't have gotten into an accident, right? Or again - just work hard to pay it back and you're fine?
After all it is possible. Yes, and winning lottery is technically possible but I don't think buying Lotto tickets is a valid way of living your life either.
Everybody can do this. That is equal opportunity.
There is no promise in the rights granted to you that you will have 18 houses, a private jet, a yacht, and maybe an island or two. You are promised the ability to do as you wish to try to achieve your goals in life.
Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.
But hey. As long as we tell each other that with enough willpower they could just work extra hard and achieve all of those things that some other people get for free? It's all good.
And I'm not even against personal wealth. I'm not even against inheritance. I'm advocating for making sure everyone has equal opportunity through education, through safety in healthcare, through social policies that don't put you in crippling poverty if you fall on bad times. I don't believe in this whole "just work harder" adage, because I know sometimes working hard is not enough, especially not when facing institutionalised discrimination and lack of opportunities through no fault of your own.
>>Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.
That's a social policy, not economic issue. And of course it affects your opportunities, if you get into medical debt due to an accident you don't have a whole bunch of opportunities that people without debt have, at no fault of your own. That is not a problem of economics to fix, it's a problem of the society to decide that maybe medical debt just shouldn't be a thing at all, which will put all citizens on an equal footing straight away. Or we can pretend everyone is 100% responsible for what happens to them and carry on as normal.
You are arguing that all these things are in the way of equal opportunity. I am arguing that they are issues on their own. Equal opportunity already exists.
High medical cost is an economic issue that is exacerbated by social policy. Insurance requirements and hidden medical care price both played into climbing medical care cost. Insurance companies and medical providers do not care about the high cost as both benefit from higher cost. There is no market feedback from the actual receivers of services.
Really? When your mother has to hold down two jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table? Or when your mother doesn't need to work because she inherited millions from her parents? Which mother will have a child who goes on to a good university?
The income share of the poorest ten percent of the population is 1.8% in the US, in Norway it is almost 3.5%. In Norway university education is also free. In which one do you think a child from a low income household would have the best chance of having a better income than their parents?
See https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$bubble$encod...
And yes, not making sure that everyone has equal opportunities(not equal outcomes!!!!) is a failing of the system.
Not to be pedantic but there's really no such thing as free is there? Someone is paying for that college. Personally I don't want to subsidize these quote unquote elite universities but if people choose to use their money to go there that's great.
To your final point, no that is emphatically not what freedom is. I once heard that freedom is the ability to choose wrongly but at the core it's really freedom to choose. If everything is the same then there's really no choice.
That is pedantic - literally no one with an ounce of intelligence would think that money for those services comes from the moon. Of course it comes from out taxes. I'm happy to pay my taxes to make sure everyone has the same opportunities.
>>Personally I don't want to subsidize these quote unquote elite universities but if people choose to use their money to go there that's great.
That's an incredibly individualistic approach that I don't agree with.
>>I once heard that freedom is the ability to choose wrongly but at the core it's really freedom to choose. If everything is the same then there's really no choice.
But that's exactly what other countries do! I said this in another comment - want to be a doctor? Go ahead, no debt. Want to be a lawyer? No debt. But also want to be a map historian? No debt. Art PhD? No debt. Marketing and Business studies? No debt.
That's exactly what freedom is. You are free to chose what you want to learn. If you choose poorly and there is no job waiting for you on the other end, well you just wasted 3 years of your life. But we as a society made it possible for you to take that leap and have a choice.
How is that "everything is the same"???
I'm not denying there is free education out there. My point is in other countries you have freedom to chose and don't incur debt for your choices. Want to be an IT professional with a 4 year collage degree? No debt. Want to be a doctor with 8 years of education? No debt. Want to be a stylist? No debt. Study ancient history? No debt.
Yes, there is free education available in the US - but it's what other people have decided is "worth it", not what you want. That's where I see freedom.
I really dont think the difference is just in "effort". If I inherit money I did not put in effort, but I am getting super ahead. The luck plays role too. Plus, how much additional advantage I can get from being already little bit ahead is what creates a lot of inequality.
America is not known for a lot of welfare either. It is not country where it is comfortable or easy to be poor.
I grew up in Massachusetts, one of the most educated states, but I grew up around a lot of the kids in my town and surrounding towns who were "on the wrong side of the tracks" and I had many conversations with peers around middle school where they clearly indicated they had already decided it was not going to be worth it to work hard in high school and that there was little point in going to college. All of that was too much hard work and there was little point of it for them, their perception was that it was just too much easier to just go towards menial and low paying jobs just because it was easier today. Working hard in high school would just be too much of a detriment to enjoying a carefree teenage experience.
Now is that the fault of early education and/or parents for not making them understand the value of work today for a better outcome down the road? Who knows. But this is a prevalent mindset for a lot of people who grow up in the US.
This was such a pervasive thing my parents had to intervene and send me to a Catholic school. That mindset was completely absent at that school and it snapped me out of things just about instantaneously because the mindset there was 100% that hard work now is worth it.
To put it in context of the article a lot of that carefree teenage experience would have been going to parties and getting drunk.
Giving people money gives them better jobs by increasing their negotiating power. Also, it lets them be your customer, which is important if you want to sell things to them!
"Skill training" doesn't work, it was bad economics from the people who mismanaged the 2010 recession recovery. They just claimed people "didn't have skills" as the reason we didn't recover fast enough and unemployment was too high.
That's a false dichotomy. There's no actual lever for "provide better jobs and skill training."
In reality, it's either more money directed at the poors, or more directed towards the rich. And that's how people vote.
"Better jobs and skill training" means "give it to the rich so they can make the poors think they're doing something for them."
Honestly maybe a marketing campaign would be effective in letting people know that blue color work is honorable and needed and they can be productive and get a job that will support them and their family without having to go to Yale. I really like what Mike Rowe has to say about this issue.
Honorable? Maybe.
Able to support a family? Not without a secondary income from a spouse. And who's looking after the kids at that point? I hope you also have extended family that are willing and able to help, otherwise that's not much of a family.
> Able to support a family? Not without a secondary income from a spouse.
now i suspect that you simply don't know anyone who does blue collar work.
can all blue collar work support a family easily? no, but neither can all white collar work.
Incorrect.
HVAC, plumbing, elevator repair, landscaping, painting... These are all careers in my family. My dad was the only white collar of four brothers. Grandpa was AC/Refrigerator repairman.