So What?

My argument against regional economics did not satisfy ML. She asked the most important question, so what? Localities think they can increase their welfare. My logic will not change them. Complaining is fine, but eventually, you have to make suggestions. One of my problems with Michael Moore's movies is that he offers no suggestions.

Here is my first suggestion for a better society:

Public education needs to be eliminated. The most destructive bureaucracy in the US is public education. Children's first social experiences come in a institution that is based on entitlement. Students cannot see that productive individuals fund public schools. School has nothing to do with learning or increasing your self-worth but something every child must do because it is the law. There is a disconnect between what education is and what it should be. Privatizing education would solve this disconnection as students and parents confront education as a decision under scarcity.

Privatizing education would not decrease the overall level of education. It would make education more specific to the individual. Some students need to specialize before they are eighteen years old. These students would be able to get the education they need without wasting taxpayer dollars.

Pre-existing fixed assets like buildings should be auctioned to private firms taking over primary education with the agreement that tuition would stay below a certain level for five years as parents adjust. Secondary education should be handled in a lassiez-faire manner.

Taxes will have to immediately be decreased. Many local governments will cease to exist as education takes up the majority of their budgets. All government will decrease as people see that its only proper function is in enforcement.

I could expand on this argument in a Veblenesque way, but my point is that public education breeds socialism into students. It is a socialist product best suited for a socialist society.

Side Note:

Every able person should read Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" and Bastiat's "That What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen" (linked to the right). They should also read Krugman's "Pop Internationalism" and Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" (or one of the many substitutes.) I despise Galbraith's work because I read Hayek and Bastiat, but Galbraith's fallacies reinforce the evil that happens when individual liberty is given to the collective. "Pop Internationalism" is much better than anything Krugman has written for the New York Times. It shows that an economist who is wrong on many things still understands the greatness of exchange.

Responsible citizens require a proper philosophical foundation that they cannot get in a public system.