12-31-2016, 04:11 AM
(12-30-2016, 05:45 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(12-30-2016, 02:32 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: The ideological support for privatization rests largely on the specious premise that the "market knows best." But we now have much evidence to the contrary when it comes to introducing a profit motive into the delivery of common goods: education, utilities, national defense, and so on. Think of the bankruptcies of not a few for-profit charter schools and universities; think of the tainted water (lead)scandal in Flint, MI.
That bad private schools go bankrupt rather than sticking around and miseducating more kids as bad public schools do is a good thing, not a bad thing, and illustrates exactly why education is an area where the market would work better. The Flint water supply was also publicly run; privatization couldn't have made things worse there, and might have made them better.
This is the primary advantage of the market over the state. What the state tends to do is indefinitely subsidize failure.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises