US Public Schools (K-12) and the Power Purveyor

The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. - Milton Friedman

The US education system (K-12) is a collectivist based firm delivering their product through monopoly. In other words, it is the worst of all worlds as the collectivist based firm always suffers from shirk, enrichment of the central planners (bureaucracy), and output is abysmal.....and this abysmal output is your only selection as the consumer (monopoly delivery system).


Its worth one's attention and hence worth pointing out that collectivist based firms arise in part from the notion of: the consumer being "exploited". That is a political notion. However, in economic theory a collectivist based firm delivering its output through monopoly is the exact conditions for maximum exploitation of the consumer. Why? There is no choice. Orwellian huh?

An interesting question arises of: why does one want to be on the Board of Education given the above conditions? Stated alternatively, why would one want to be a power purveyor over a collectivist based firm delivering product through monopoly which creates the condition for maximum consumer exploitation?

Four basic choices exist: (a) they [candidates] are in fact collectivists, (b) they are free market oriented yet think they can create barking cats, (c) they are free market based oriented and want to replace the collective with a free market system, or (d) they have no clue that they are running for office to become a purveyor over a collectivist based firm delivering product through monopoly.

Choice four, have no clue that they are running for office to be a purveyor over a collectivist based firm delivering product through monopoly, is worth noting. F.A. Hayek made the argument that "socialism is what you get used to". That is, after a socialist program is introduced, and when several generations go by, the socialistic program becomes second nature or "the way its always been". One might say the socialistic program becomes institutionalized. There is no doubt that some Board of Education members come directly from this perspective. That is, they don't even bother examining what type/kind of system they oversee, its merely a system that has always been. Yet they have elected to become a candidate for, and elected to, the most insidious of all models regarding consumer exploitation.

Public school education system dismal output: a counterintuitive proposition.

When researching the dismal output results of the public school education system in the United States one finds that over the past 40 years a 200% real dollar increase in spending on public school education (K - 12) has occurred. Yet the quality of output has remained constant or slightly declining.

Applying economics to the dismal results, given the massive increase in funding inputs, yields the conclusion that one is merely finding, viewing, experiencing the classic attributes produced by a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Hence the economic conclusion is that the increase in inputs have not increased quality of output due to the general output attributes of late stage collectivism.


However, here is a counterintuitive proposition: what if the 200% real dollar increase was never intended to be output related?

Skip by the concept of a collectivist model delivered through monopoly suffering declining output in its later stages and move to the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players. Set aside the output issue for a moment and concentrate on the input. Has the 200% real dollar increase (input) caused a maximization of the wage/benefit of the members of the collectivist model? Yes. Was the enrichment a blanket enrichment to all players in the collectivist model or was the enrichment skewed within the model toward the central planning power purveyors within the collective (administration/bureaucracy hierarchy)? Yes.

If the 200% real dollar increase is the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players, why and how would it happen? The "why" is related to politicos using taxpayer dollars to build a dependent political constituency. That is, politicos found that by increasing funding to public school education they built a political constituency that they could depend upon to vote for, campaign volunteer, and make political campaign contributions to the particular politico or group of politicos.

Directly related, the now dependent political constituency (dependent on the flow of taxpayer dollars) obtained leverage with the particular politicos or group of politicos to further accelerate the flow of tax payer dollars. The "how" is that the flow of taxpayer dollars, increasing at an increasing rate, was never intended for output it was intended for political constituency building. Hence the recipient of taxpayer dollars enriched themselves as the dependent political constituency of the politico. That is, the politico or group of politicos sending ever increasing taxpayer dollars to strengthen and solidify their dependent political constituency were in fact sending the money for the enrichment of their particular constituency and had no intention to send the money as an output related item.


If the counterintuitive proposition is correct then politicos have funded a dependent political constituency at no direct cost to them by merely funneling taxpayer dollars to a recipient class. The recipient class aka the dependent political constituency then enriched themselves with the flow of tax payer dollars. The flow of taxpayer dollars never reached, arrived at, nor are associated with educational output.

Government is a collective monopoly produced by politicos?

From an economics point of view, attempts rein in government spending and balance government budgets is in essence arguments to rein in spending and balance budgets of a collectivist organization. That is, the entire budget/operation of the government is in fact collectivist based and delivered through monopoly.


Hence the arguments to rein in the spending/balance the budget are basically arguments about the spending/budget of a collective based entity delivering its services through monopoly. However, its still a collectivist based organization regardless of spending patterns.


Spending is merely a symptom

Lets say you are successful in reining in spending and balancing a collective monopoly's budget. Then you have only succeeded in temporarily reining in the spending attributes of a collectivist based organization. That is, the real and basic problem is the collective itself and the monopolistic delivery system.

The collective will always accommodate rent seekers (special interests), will always suffer from the phenomena of "shirk", the purveyor of the public collective (politicos) will always attempt to use tax payer money for political constituency building through the mechanism of government as well as accommodate rent seekers, and the collective itself and purveyors of the collective will always attempt to solve its problems through additional monies (taxes).

Therefore, if you are successful in reining in spending it will be a temporary phenomena as the collective itself, by its very nature, will grind down the path of collectivism and seek more money to accommodate its attributes/organization/essence.

The collective monopoly, by, for and of the politico
If one was successful in reining-in and balancing the budget of an existing collective based organization the next step in to bust the collective monopoly. How?

It probably boils down to an observation by F.A. Hayek (paraphrasing): nowhere is it written in economics that the "state" must provide services. The state's obligation is to collect tax money. The services then can be provided by the private sector or state. State has chosen arbitrarily to provide services themselves in order to enlarge itself. The enlargement was done by, for, and of politicos for power. That is, the "state" doesn't think, discuss, or decide......only politicos think, discuss, decide. Politicos have decided to enlarge state by providing the services by the state as an avenue to additional power.

To bust the collective monopoly all services beyond protective services (police/fire) should be privatized when ever possible (which is the vast majority of the time) and the state's job is to merely collect tax and then pay for the public services rendered by the private sector. By busting the collective monopoly you create efficiencies which lower costs, lower rent seeking possibilities, lower “shirk”, lower political constituency building, and lower the power of politicos in general. Hence removing the collective monopoly is to remove the major cost driver.

However, to remove the cost driver of collective monopoly is to dismantle the politico's avenue to power. The politico has chosen to expand the state by delivering public services through a collective monopoly. The cost driver is of no meaning to the politico, the meaning is power.