@BarackObama: Higher education should not be a luxury. http://t.co/67dGfBIW
Okay, that sounds awesome, until you stop to think about what it means.
A luxury good is something that all people do not need. So something not being a luxury means that everyone needs it. This is normally a category that includes food, shelter, and water. If we add higher education, that means we are talking about a society where shoeshine boys, janitors, clerks, strippers, mailmen, etc. all have jobs that require higher education. Do we truly wish that?
If it happened today, most people would then be overeducated for their positions, making them extremely unlikely to find their jobs fulfilling. It would also saddle them with unnecessary debt from college.
If you’re going to say all people should have the opportunity for higher education, fine. But don’t say it shouldn’t be a luxury. That means something very different, and potentially economically disastrous for society.
Comments (9)
but here’s the flip side, in order to have fully democratic republic, you need an educated populace who can properly participate. without that, you can’t have democracy – look at the situation in iraq and afghanistan.
so maybe he means, “in a true democracy, higher education should not be a luxury.”
@davidian - That’s a valid point. I’m leery about the implication that the cultural nuances in Iraq and Afghanistan can be depreciated to the point where we say they just aren’t educated. That seems unfairly dismissive. But I do believe that in the abstract, people understanding what they’re voting on is great. I often wish people had more science education for that reason.
I wonder if people appreciate how rare the Greek model of democracy is, in terms of being economically possible.
sounds like pedantry to me.
in this country, a very large percentage of young people study at university. this has come about as a result of a significant cultural change over the past thirty years or so. there is still far greater prestige in attending one of the very best universities, particularly Oxford or Cambdridge, and in the meantime the overall value of having a degree has not diminished.
i believe that what you are saying is either elitism or a misunderstanding of the statement.
just because a thing is not a luxury does not make it equivalent to the most basic needs. a spare pair of shoelaces isn’t a luxury, but neither is it necessary. a hobby is not a luxury. you have invented a definition for ‘luxury’ that encompasses everything that is not a fundamental human right. you may find yourself alone with a few fringe extremists in holding this view.
higher education is integral to addressing disadvantage in society. of course not everybody can work in investment banks or whatever, but increasing access to higher education won’t change that fact. it is a myth that an educated society is an aloof, feckless society that refuses to engage with so-called ‘dirty’ jobs. there will always be people willing to collect rubbish or clean toilets – what an educated society is more likely to do is to ensure that these people are compensated fairly for working such a job.
i’ve just switched careers to join a programme teaching primary school children in a deprived borough in london. none of these kids have parents who attended university. this is a cycle that needs to be broken if they and their children are going to be afforded equal opportunity to succeed in life as their counterparts in wealthier boroughs.
@twotothefightingeighthpower - I haven’t invented it; it’s the economic use of the term “luxury good.”
At any rate . . . isn’t the problem you’re describing that people aren’t compensated adequately, not that they aren’t educated sufficiently to do their jobs? Increasing education doesn’t change that; it just makes people overqualified for the jobs they do have, making jobs harder to find. This is the situation now in the US and parts of Asia.
Also, something else was interesting in your post. Do you propose that it is desirable both to have an upper class and to make everyone members of it?
@moritheil -
do show me where any credible source defines luxury as anything that is not an essential good. luxury is associated with affluence, and as such there is nothing wrong whatsoever with what barack obama said. like i said, you’re either being pernickity, or else you’re trying to justify an elitist view on class stations.
i have no idea where you got the ‘upper class’ idea from. my comment mentioned nothing of the sort. it’s you who is making the link between higher education and high society, and i’m telling you that it’s a load of horseshit.
the reason you have people overqualified for jobs is because the economy has crashed. you may have read about it in the news. increasing access to higher education has absolutely nothing to do with that, and if you think otherwise, i would absolutely love to see the research you have found to prove your case.
@twotothefightingeighthpower - Now who is the one who is concerned with semantics?
But very well. From wikipedia: “In economics, a luxury good is a good for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises, and is a contrast to a “necessity good”, for which demand is not related to income.”
Does this not show you the luxury good / necessity good divide promulgated by economic theory?
I freely admit Barack Obama may not have intended it in the economic sense, as I read it. That is why I included a statement that his writers should be more careful about his word choice. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing it up again?
Where did I get the “upper class” concept from? You mention people “escaping the cycle” whereby I assume you mean that they will no longer do work associated with their present situation. Logically, then, they will no longer be of the lower class. To continue, if you see upward social mobility as a good thing for all, then it will end in the upper class. If it was not your intent to imply this, I apologize for extending your words too far.
“The economy has crashed” describes a situation. It is not a root cause. Treating it as such is disingenuous. It is certainly not a “reason that [we] have people overqualified for jobs.” Rather, the fact that we have people overqualified for jobs is included in the basis for the assertion that the economy has crashed.
Now, why has the economy crashed? People blame all kinds of things, but frequently I hear of commoditizing debt and increasingly abstract levels of financial derivatives. Many professors (notably in France, but also elsewhere) lament the “brain drain” that occurred when all their talented academics left academia to instead become financial executives. I certainly have no proof that this is the main reason, but if it were so – would it not be a result of people being too educated to happily do their jobs as financiers, and getting increasingly fancy and convoluted about it?
@moritheil -
firstly, an education can’t be an economic good. it is a service if it is anything economic at all. your entire post is based on a complete misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the quote, so it doesn’t matter that you paid lip service to the idea that he might not have meant his quote to refer to an economic good. the fact rests that you have invented a meaning for luxury to fit a preconception you have about people being educated beyond their station, and to fit a fallacious narrative about an overqualified work force.
secondly, education isn’t about gaining access to higher society, or to a higher class. it might be about getting a better job, but that’s not the same thing. and increasing access to higher education is not going to lead to a shortage of willing workers for less glamorous jobs. i’m really struggling to see what your actual gripe is with the quote. all people deserve equal access to higher education, regardless of their socio-economic background. that is what the quote means. higher education should not be a privilege for the affluent. that’s not exactly revolutionary stuff…
@twotothefightingeighthpower -
@twotothefightingeighthpower -
First: I have not invented this meaning; it is the meaning used in economics. I have told you this before and I don’t know how to get you to understand that. You’ve asked for references, you’ve asked for explanations, and none of it has satisfied you.
Second: in economics EVERYTHING is an economic good. Things are not “economic” or “not economic” and your assertion “if it is anything economic at all” is just absurd in an economics context. Economists calculate the equivalent value of everything, down to human lives. Everything is either an efficient or inefficient use of resources. They aim to discover inefficiencies in the way society handles things.
You know, the more we talk the more I’m convinced that this is due to me using economics as a frame of reference and you refusing to accept that it can be used as a frame of reference. I almost suspect that something in you is violently against being reconciled to this use of terminology.
You yourself admit that jobs of a certain caliber are limited: “higher education is integral to addressing disadvantage in society. of course not everybody can work in investment banks or whatever, but increasing access to higher education won’t change that fact.”
Let me lay it out for you: Where, then, will the people who now have higher education go? What will they do? You don’t argue that new jobs or new demand for this education will be created. So the only place they can go is into the same jobs they now have, right? You don’t see how pumping huge numbers of people through higher education could lead to people being overqualified for their jobs? And you have the temerity to claim that I am the one who refuses to see beyond some preexisting script?
Finally, your claim that education is irrelevant to class or social status is patently false, at least in America. The instant you walk into a discussion and it becomes apparent you are university-educated, people will automatically tell you that you have privilege. Education is most definitely a status symbol and an indicator of what type of labor or job you will perform. Those, in turn, determine your income and social status. Whether jobs are intellectual or menial is one of the fundamental distinctions of class, quite apart from the cachet of people sending their kids to a prep school like Exeter as opposed to a public school, so when you attempt to divorce education from class and status . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. You could argue – maybe – that this is an American thing, except that I happen to know that in many other places around the world, sending your kids to boarding school or university is equally a mark of social status.
PS: If there is any preexisting story that has biased my opinion in the matter, it is a Physics Today article I read two years ago – an overview of Physics as a career, written by the APS. Did you know that America continues to fund and push people through Physics majors, due to a cold war bias about the necessity of Physicists? Did you know that we produce at least 20% more Physicists in a year than we have demand for? Did you know that over 40% of undergrad Physics majors in the US are not using their Physics degree?
Now, I freely admit that not all fields may look like this. Physics is rather abstract. But I certainly want to point out that your assumption that pushing everyone through college is some kind of cure-all for what ails society is patently false on an economic level.
@twotothefightingeighthpower - You may want to see this thread, wherein overeducated people rage about their inability to find jobs: http://moritheil.xanga.com/767802429/start-saving-at-60/
I would love to see you discuss with @theladyofabundance whether education is indeed what all lower class people need to find jobs.