

Want a Stronger Democracy? Invest in Education - vincentchan
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/want-a-stronger-democracy-invest-in-education/

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yummyfajitas
A nitpick with the article. He argues that education -> democracy by using a
test case to rule out democracy -> education.

But he makes no attempt to rule out the possibility that XXX -> {education,
democracy}, where XXX might be { wealth, free markets, socialism, various
other relevant factors }.

The real problem here is that he seems to want to do 2-variable correlations
rather than multivariate regerssion.

~~~
jacobolus
A major nitpick with the whole line of reasoning (and basically much of the
work in comparative politics).

We've (in political science) been trying to study democratization in a
formal/quantitative way for at least the last 50 years, and every single
explanation we come up with, however many variables we put into our
regression, fails to informatively explain the data. We have too poor a grasp
on the independent variables (what they are, how to measure them, etc.), too
poor a collective definition of democracy ("I know it when I see it",
essentially), and way way too little data to make definitive causal models.
Running experiments to test our hypotheses would take decades, at least, so
instead we mine through historical data looking for trends. As Feynman said,
“To report a significant result and reject the null in favor of an alternative
hypothesis is meaningless unless the alternative hypothesis has been stated
before the data was obtained.”

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maudineormsby
Very interesting, but nothing new. Plato's Republic says functionally the same
thing - that an educated citizenry is essential for the proper function of the
polis. Plato takes it to an extreme in the Republic, and people are still
arguing whether or not he was serious about the extent to which he argues the
point, but he definitely argued that education was essential.

And Aristotle says similar things in the Politics and Poetics. The citizens of
Athens who participated at the Agora were literate, concerned men
(unfortunately, only men).

The Roman Forum was open to any citizen, who bore the responsibility of
educating himself before speaking.

Even modern political philosophers recognize that without an educated
citizenry, democracy is impossible. Alexis de Toqueville in "Democracy in
America" found the concern of the commoner for the welfare of the nation to be
a key to the success of the American experiment of self-government under law.

Looking at how poorly educated our citizens are about the real issues of the
day, it's no surprise that we are seeing problems in public policy. I'm not
suggesting it's inevitable that the nation will collapse, in fact the article
gives me hope we can turn it around. But it has to start with educating
citizens about their basic responsibilities.

Of course, there are good and bad ways to do this. Heinlein had a model to
ensure only concerned/educated citizens, and he presented it in Starship
Troopers. So some thought should go into HOW we educate.

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pelle
I agree with other posters that his conclusion is flawed. Specifically
Argentina has very well researched reasons why they ended up the way they did.

Argentina were an extreme free market country in the late 1800s with little
taxation or duties. They had essentially open borders and were one of the main
immigration countries of the world in that period. All of this grew the
economy for it to end up at the turn of the century as I believe the 6th
richest country in the world.

What also happened though was a huge influx of workers from Europe. This was
during the a large wave of unionizing and radicalization in Europe, this
movement was brought with the immigrants across to Argentina. This spawned a
period with many strikes, bombings etc throughout the 20s. Strangely enough
that in itself did not lower the economy. What it did do was create enough of
a backlash (remember 9/11) that a coup was made possible and the whole
downward spiral started.

Read more on Wikipedia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_argentina#Yrigoyen.2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_argentina#Yrigoyen.27s_administration_and_the_Radicals)

Since then Argentina has had essentially a mix of either military rule by
juntas who carried on strong protectionist policies or democratically elected
governments carrying on strong protectionist policies (the Peronistas). The
current state of the economy is mainly due to the common factor here "strong
protectionist policies".

The current government is carrying on the exact same idiotic policies.
Argentina has many great programmers. Many of them are now working for US
startups bringing in valuable foreign currency. What is their main tool? Well
naturally a MacBook Pro.

In the US the cheapest 13" model costs $1199. In Argentina that costs 8,249.00
Pesos (US $2,162.25). If you're lucky enough to have US dollars it's only
$1889. Now the current protectionist peronista government have just approved a
further %35 electronic gadget tax that will go on top of this. See more
<http://econotrix.com/archives/000648.html>

You have heard of import duties, well this current government tried to impose
export duties on the agricultural industry the number one foreign exchange
earner. I could go on.

As always while it is really cool to be able to plot to sets of data on a
graph it is not terribly useful with some individual explanation.

I think this that the reason why this study is so attractive to certain people
is that it plays into a variation of a classic flaw intelligent people have.
Hayek called it the Fatal Conceit. Basically I am more intelligent than the
masses, thus I know better. This translates into "I am intelligent, if you
disagree with me you must be dumb". In the case of the study author and just
about all intellectuals further mutates into "My ideas are obviously right.
The masses ideas are obviously wrong. I'm educated. Lets educate the masses to
the level where they are at my level so they agree with me."

I am all for education, but I'm much more in agreement with PG's approach to
education than the traditional form that tends to be pushed.

Developing countries with poor education often have large classes of people
working in informal businesses. These people are often not educated. But in
almost all of these countries (where the culture allows it) the parents are
pushing their children to be educated. (eg
<http://econotrix.com/archives/000640.html>). Economic development will
increase education unless there are certain cultural issues (such as not
educating girls etc) that halt it.

~~~
CulturalNgineer
Pelle, You give a good analysis! Here's an additional distinction between
Argentina and the U.S. which (I believe) is also a factor...

In the 19th Century, both nations had vast tracts of land relatively
undeveloped...

The U.S. essentially "gave" the land away to vast numbers of its citizens if
they'd work it... encouraging and then creating a great class of free-
spirited, industrious entrepreneurs with their own capital!

Argentina transferred its land in vast tracts to wealthy landowners and
created essentially a division between the wealthy elites and the landless
peasant!

The secret to capitalism FAILS when wealth becomes too concentrated...
(remedying this is a focus of mine).

~~~
pelle
I agree. Similar to the grid lock mentioned in the latest EconTalk
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/11/heller_on_gridl.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/11/heller_on_gridl.html)

I am also working on the same in the financial space.

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Ras_
Better education = more engagement in democratic initiatives in the USA. Ok, I
accept. Same rationale does not seem to fit Scandinavia, where engagement is
low.

I'm guessing that education might be key to stronger institutions, which do
create stability. Institutions are very strong in Scandinavia and probably in
every other Western country as well.

Education is a prerequisite to functional democracy, but some other skills
and/or needs are required for us to actually pursue initiatives. External
threats? Common goals?

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bbg
A related post, in case anyone wants the link, is here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=866889>

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Gormo
This is quite a dilemma to someone who greatly values education, but is very
apprehensive about democracy.

~~~
tomjen2
Democracy doesn't have to be total, it can be limited.

But you are right, it isn't without some very big costs.

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known
And instead of empowering its citizens, governments are operating in terms of
profit & loss.

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doki_pen
Where is china? I think democracy leads to more wealth, which creates better
public education.

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DavidSJ
Correlation ≠ Causality

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neilc
Did you read the article? The author explicitly notes this point, and argues
for why the evidence points toward a causal relationship, rather than simply a
correlation. (Although yummyfajitas points out, that argument isn't
necessarily convincing.)

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elimisteve
Too bad the ruling class _doesn't_ want a stronger Democracy, and thus _won't_
invest in education...

~~~
johnnybgoode
What do you think has been going on for the last century? The "ruling class"
has greatly expanded the education bureaucracy. They love democracy; when
combined with their schools it makes it easier for them to achieve their
goals.

