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Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

theguardian.com

71–80 of 88 posts

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what about every university should get subsidies per student's head-count and let the universities decide what for the money is used? From what I understand it usually works better to pay for results rather than effort.

You may have a point with it's better to pay for results. But that lead to an chicken-egg-problem. Without chicken no eggs and without eggs no chickens. So, how to achieve good results, if they are needed upfront to get subsidies and subsidies are needed to offer opportunities to achieve results? It's not always better to pay for results. Paying for effort would also allow the headcount and university size to be regu…

I don't think that's a logical conclusion, just from looking at your argument.

Universities are pretty much always basically regional-monopolies, while it's true that not every university gets the same amount of applicants, I don't think they're struggling to get students altogether? But I'm not American, so maybe it's different in the USA?

If it's not different in the US, then this kind of subsidy is much worse then the result based one, because their incentive ends at getting people into courses, not successfully finishing them. So from a profit incentive, keeping them an extra year is highly desirable

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can take them there, you just need to move. Otherwise what you're suggesting is that you should be able to place your child in a school that you yourself do not pay taxes towards since you're not in that district. So other people in that district should disproportionately support your child's education compared to what you are?

> Well you can take them there, you just need to move. This is what I meant earlier. Since you don't see a problem here, we're basically just talking past each other. The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me. > So other people in that district should disproportionately support your child's education compared to what you are? This is a symptom of the brok…

> The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me.

Moving is the current market solution or private schools.

> For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice.

Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education.

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well you can take them there, you just need to move. This is what I meant earlier. Since you don't see a problem here, we're basically just talking past each other. The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me. > So other people in that district should disproportionately support your child's education compared to what you are? This is a symptom of the brok…

> The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me. Moving is the current market solution or private schools. > For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice. Sounds like a good solut…

> Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education.

I'd certainly be in favor of that. I don't expect anyone to subsidize my children's education. Granted, as one commenter pointed out, some people believe it to be a societal good (like state-sponsored health care), so you're likely to get a lot of pushback.

But I think the current system lacks the correct incentives. My theory is that free market competition among public schools, similar to what we have in universities, will align the incentives more than they do now. The first step is introducing consumer choice back into the system.

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me. Moving is the current market solution or private schools. > For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice. Sounds like a good solut…

> Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education. I'd certainly be in favor of that. I don't expect anyone to subsidize my children's education. Granted, as one commenter pointed out, some people believe it to be a societal good (like state-sponsored health care), so you're likely to get a lot of pushback. But I think…

Making public institutions compete with each other for funding seems like a rather inefficient use of public resources.

Why not just remove the middle man and eliminate public education then?

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#75
post #57

One thing I think is interesting about the fascism label is - if you time traveled the US government leadership from 1945 to today, who would they align with more? How would they treat these issues? Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship? That seems, like, massively more “fascist” than anyth…

> historically no one considers 1923 America to be fascist. Many scholars consider that Nazism was greatly inspired by American racism. Calling 1923 America fascist would be anachronistic, but also American racist policies were less related to Italian fascism than to Nazi doctrines. But plenty of scholars make the connection. Here is an example: [0]. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-American-Model-United-States/...

If you do a poll of people who call current events fascist and ask them if America was fascist in 1923 or 1945, I’m quite confident that upwards of 95% of respondents would say no to both. Do you disagree?

I’m commenting on the apparent worldview contradiction or blind spot in people who are calling current events and people fascist.

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it will only be 4 years!

It was the first time. How much do you want to wager?

No one wants to put their money where their mouth is, and just move the goal posts.

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#77

One thing I think is interesting about the fascism label is - if you time traveled the US government leadership from 1945 to today, who would they align with more? How would they treat these issues? Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship? That seems, like, massively more “fascist” than anyth…

A time traveller from 1945 would probably assume the side snapping off Sieg Heils to be fascist

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#78

One thing I think is interesting about the fascism label is - if you time traveled the US government leadership from 1945 to today, who would they align with more? How would they treat these issues? Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship? That seems, like, massively more “fascist” than anyth…

> One thing I think is interesting about the fascism label is - if you time traveled the US government leadership from 1945 to today, who would they align with more?

I’m guessing not the people literally using the slogans of the American movement that opposed fighting fascism.

> Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship?

It was racist (which, alone, is not sufficient to be fascist, though fascist governments are often racists and the Nazis were specifically inspired by US race policy in their racism) when it adopted the naturalization law that the Supreme Court interpreted in that case, sure.

(The fixed country-based caps in current immigration law are also largely based in racism, but a much more mild expression of it than the whites-only naturalization rule.)

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#79
post #77

One thing I think is interesting about the fascism label is - if you time traveled the US government leadership from 1945 to today, who would they align with more? How would they treat these issues? Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship? That seems, like, massively more “fascist” than anyth…

A time traveller from 1945 would probably assume the side snapping off Sieg Heils to be fascist

Probably also wouldn't be particular partial to those using the “America First!" slogan (because to them its use as a KKK slogan in the Second Klan Era would be very familiar, but even moreso because its subsequent use as a slogan of opposition to US fighting fascism overseas would be even more familiar.)

Re: Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what about every university should get subsidies per student's head-count and let the universities decide what for the money is used? From what I understand it usually works better to pay for results rather than effort.

Paying for results sounds efficient, until you start thinking about what those results should be and how you'd prevent policy makers anyone politicizing them and educational institutions from gaming them.

This. So how do you compare physics outcomes with humanities outcomes or creative fields of study versus science or engineering?

"Success" is often neither quantifiable nor immediately obvious.

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