It seems as if American schooling is totally based on the LTV. Let’s look at college as an example: courses are given a given a specified number of “units” or “credits”; and to graduate with a bachelor’s, most colleges require 120 “units” or “credits” of course work. However, each “credit” or “unit” represents one hour of in-class lecture per week. That is, a 3-unit course would require 3 hours of lecture per week. What is more, the government-approved accreditation organizations require a certain number of hours of lecture, course work, and so on of for every class. However, what is the basis for having such requirements? Does calculus really require 3 hours per week for 18 weeks of lecture plus and extra 3 hours a week of homework? Does not this assume that all students learn at the same pace?
I remember reading about how the was penalized for not implementing the minimum number of “credit hours” in some of their courses. That is to say, that the accreditation institutions penalized U of P for offering courses that required less time of attendance. In other words, it was unacceptable for U of P to provide an accelerated course in calculus that was thought in 6 weeks instead of 18 weeks. I cannot help but to think that most of college is based on the LTV, although, I recognized that some colleges to offer placement exams that allow students to surpass having to actually take a course; however, this is besides my argument.
The fallacy is “amount of time and effort spent on something” equals “knowledge learned”.
For example, you can spend 4 years studying Keynesian economics. However, you aren’t learning anything actually useful. You’re just learning State propaganda.
You can spend a month or two reading mises.org or my blog, and learn more than in a State-sanctioned university economics education.
The vast majority of stuff you learn in State brainwashing centers (schools) is a waste of time.
You make a really great point. This also occurs with professor tenureship. That is, many colleges (and any public school for that matter) require certain number of years as non-tenured professor before the professor can be considered for tenureship. But contrast this to what occured in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In the movie there was no minimum age or minimum amount of hours required of work in order to be promoted. There was one kid (probably around 12-14) who promoted to a position where the others in that same position were much older. Likewise, there were old men who served in much lower ranks on the ship. In other words, the captain of the ship promoted men based on merit and skill versus tenure or age.
Tenure and seniority are always to protect older workers. Which is why I laugh when so-called radical libertarians get excited about tenure. They are enthused to be removed from market competition, and who wouldn’t be? But privilege and protectionism is not very libertarian.
There’s nothing unlibertarian about tenure, it may well end up resulting in peverse incentives, but it’s most certainly not “unlibertarian”. In any case, “older” workers and individuals in general are excluded from market forces all the times by various institutions such as the family.
Ah, OK, glad you cleared that up. Now, I’ll get to it and drop out of my course to economize on time that would be better spent reading your blog. Of course, there’s a few unfortunate facts that you might be somewhat inconvenient to this thesis of yours. For example, the scholars associated with the Mises Institute are usually university professors with PhDs in economics or other related disciplines. One can’t really subsistute the dedicated study of a PhD programme with a few hours a day reading a blog.
This is just the usual pipedream that people here entertain, “if I read enough daily article’s maybe I’ll make an impact on economics”.
I don’t see how this relates to the LTV, the credits one obtains for completing the subject are nothing more than an objective unit used for comparison purposes. You can’t add up the subjective evaluations of teachers such as “good”, “excellent” and “poor”, so they substitute it with the system you’re complaining about.
If you want to complain about it being a poor system, go ahead. But you’re going the wrong way about it. AFAIK, the state does a far better job of promoting science than the free market ever could.
Nope, “Austro-Libertarians” such as Hoppe and Rothbard claim that intellectuals are general sympathetic to the state because their employment is somewhat difficult to come by in a free market (I don’t buy this, by the way). However, given this, it makes little sense to turn around and say that science would advance in a free society because the state doesn’t exist.
Willful ignorance. OECD data shows that for every dollar of state funding to research, crowds out private research investment by more than a dollar. I’ve posted this before.
Since you’re not a libertarian, and you benefit from, and intend to continue benefiting from state privilege, you’re not a serious participant in this debate.
Apples and oranges. The family does not use a gun to keep the young out of the work place.
No, and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never said they are. Nobody regards credit hours earned at a crappy community college as the same as those earned at an Ivy League. But that’s besides the point, to the extent that you’re shifting the goal posts. The point I was making is that there needs to be some objective way of defining what work a student has done.
The fact is, as Austrians should know, you can’t add “has learned Keynesian macroeconomics” to “has learned real analysis”.