NationStates Jolt Archive

A Few Questions.

One of the options for my nation's issue titles "To Paint, or not to Paint" (I think) was the following:

"What's the point in allowing most young people to continue in further education anyway?" enquires Chastity Johnson, a factory manager. "Surely most students would be better employed in manual and factory work? You should handpick a select few to study medicine, the law, science, and business of course, and utilise the majority of youth to increase the country's productivity in industry. Academic freedom just gets in the way of a functioning society, I've always said."

This got me thinking about something a Fascist (Mussolini style, not Hitler) emailed to me advocating the exact same type of ideal meritocratic society.

What is this type of system called when the government decides who studies and/or becomes what based on educational performance?

Is it Meritocracy or something else?

Can this type of government hurt a Capitalist society?

Is it Meritocracy or something else?

Can this type of government hurt a Capitalist society?


One thing is sure, this isn't Jefferson's Meritocracy. It would be devistating to capitalism as well. Capitalism needs a free and open society; it is frankly impossible to tell at any stage of education who may later excel and produce valuable breakthroughs. The government needs as little imput as possible regarding who goes on to study higher education, especially when the student is paying their own costs along the way. Students benefiting from government assistance may need to be weeded out by acedemic performace standards.

You should read Plato, its basically his exact idea for an ideal society. Everyone is trained from birth to do whatever the ruler thinks he/she will be best at. Of course it is all a load of crap but they have to make you read something in High school.

Ah finally someone who has read Plato's Republic. :) Though i admit it's a rather dull book.

A few weeks ago i spoke with a girl from china. She said her government actually chose what study she would do (she was able to give a preference though). So in some form your form of meritocracy may really exist.
But no i wouldnt advise such a system. It's the same as with all aspects of totalitarianism: the state isn't allways right. If you put decisions of production or education in the hands of the state, decisions will be made by ppl behind a desk. Very often the man-on-the-street would do better.

I think the state could try to influence education choice in a more subtle way. Where i live (the netherlands) my government pays like three-quarters of my college fee. Normally my fee would be 6500 euro's, now it's 1500 euro's. By diversifying the study fee, the government would have a nice tool to influence our education choice. For example, if the government would like to see more students in physics and less in art-history, it could decrease the college fee of physics and pay for it by increasing the fee of art-history students. I think the government would have a right to do that, because in the end it invests in students in order to strengthen the economy. If having more art students doesnt help our economy, then they have the right to stop investing in that study.

Cool. Anymore feedback?

BUMP

There is this site:
http://phrontistery.50megs.com/govern.html

I do wonder about some of the types of government (strumpetocracy for example). Still, it may help clarify which govt you're thinking of.

isnt this the system used by the former soviet union and its protectorates? it is still in effect in china to some extent.

while it SEEMS to be an excellent system it has a couple of huge drawbacks in reality.

first of all its not all that great to choose a carreer path for a child. things change over time. to artificially emphasise one part of a childs education over the rest leaves out too many possiblities. and educational aptitude is different from actually DOING the work.

you dont get the BEST results if you only go by aptitude and ignore the preferences of the person involved. so if a child is academically inclined towards medicine but WANTS to be an artist. you wont get the best doctor.

the biggest downfall of the system is corruption. people with a drop of power move their own children up in the system regardless of merit. yes this occurs in EVERY method of deciding who gets what in education but its more problematic in a system that is supposed to be based on merit.

What is this type of system called when the government decides who studies and/or becomes what based on educational performance?

I believe you are thinking of technocracy, government and society dominated by the intellectual elite.

isnt this the system used by the former soviet union and its protectorates? it is still in effect in china to some extent.

you dont get the BEST results if you only go by aptitude and ignore the preferences of the person involved. so if a child is academically inclined towards medicine but WANTS to be an artist. you wont get the best doctor.

I remember years ago there being a documentary on TV about the former Soviet Union and their testing of children to see who would make the best sports stars. It was assumed that the ones with the fastest reaction times were the best ones to send to the special trainng schools.
Eventually, someone finally bothered to do an experiment to find who has the fastest reaction times. Guess what?
The ppl with the fastest reaction times overall are.....(drum roll please)....
Chess players.
Which makes sense when you think about it. It also shows that testing for a particular trait or ability can have no relevance on the activity/profession/sport.

I remember years ago there being a documentary on TV about the former Soviet Union and their testing of children to see who would make the best sports stars. It was assumed that the ones with the fastest reaction times were the best ones to send to the special trainng schools.
Eventually, someone finally bothered to do an experiment to find who has the fastest reaction times. Guess what?
The ppl with the fastest reaction times overall are.....(drum roll please)....
Chess players.
Which makes sense when you think about it. It also shows that testing for a particular trait or ability can have no relevance on the activity/profession/sport.
Although I haven't read it in 5 or 6 years I think that was pretty much the way they would do things in Plato's theoretical republic. For example if you saw some kid was always fighting and wrestling with other kids you would make him or her (he was very feminist) a soldier, if you saw a little kid learning to read really early then you would make him a philosopher etc. It makes some sense that if you train someone for example from birth for a particular function then they will be awesome at it. Of course you will have to convince mothers to give up their two or three year old kids to some kind of crazy academy, which I would think might be difficult, and some people would probably lash out against having their life plan pre determined at age 2. Of couse the entire system depends on having excellent "Philosopher-king" enlightened rulers to select people's carreers. If you get bad or corrupt leaders then the whole system collapses. Plato recognized this and wrote about how the whole thing would eventually collapse with the state begining to decay once a few bad apples got into the leadership. You go from a state run by philosophers, to a state run by warmongers, then a state run by greedy rich bastards, then the rule of the mob (democracy) and then tyranny.
I think it is basically a correct way of looking at authotarian societies. Take Saddam Hussien's Iraq for example. He started off pretty good, eliminating illiteracy, giving the people free health care promoting equal rights for women etc. Things weren't too bad until he started a decade long bloodbath with Iran, picked a fight with Kuwait and eventually ended up with pleasure palaces and concubines and was totally corrupt and without principle at the end.

Letting the kids find their own path would be a better idea...they'll naturally excel at things that they want to do, and this is the reason that they enjoy those things in the first place, because they naturally have a gift for them.

A Few Questions.

One of the options for my nation's issue titles "To Paint, or not to Paint" (I think) was the following:

"What's the point in allowing most young people to continue in further education anyway?" enquires Chastity Johnson, a factory manager. "Surely most students would be better employed in manual and factory work? You should handpick a select few to study medicine, the law, science, and business of course, and utilise the majority of youth to increase the country's productivity in industry. Academic freedom just gets in the way of a functioning society, I've always said."

This got me thinking about something a Fascist (Mussolini style, not Hitler) emailed to me advocating the exact same type of ideal meritocratic society.

What is this type of system called when the government decides who studies and/or becomes what based on educational performance?

Is it Meritocracy or something else?

Can this type of government hurt a Capitalist society?

Is that an actual quote?! Because that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. They wouldn't be "better employed" they would probably hate their job and really, who is more likely to get laid off? A factory worker or a doctor? It sure wouldn't be a very stable job.