Tag: decency

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free trade & free markets media and media people political economy

Dollar Store Plague

dollar store, cheap food

Tucker Carlson said harsh things about “Dollar Stores” and “libertarian economics” on Glenn Greenwald’s System Update for December 16, as summarized in the show’s tweet:

“Libertarian economics was a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system that they were defending …

I think you need to ask: ‘Does this economic system produce a lot of Dollar Stores?’

And if it does, it’s not a system that you want, because it degrades people — and it makes their lives worse and it increases exponentially the amount of ugliness in your society.

And anything that increases ugliness is evil.

So if it’s such a good system, why do we have all these Dollar Stores?”

At Reason, Liz Wolfe fell for the same trap that has apparently ensnared Mr. Carlson. She defended progress in the U.S. since the time he was born. What? 

Contra Liz Wolfe, and in defense of Tucker, I’d say we are indeed living in tough times. Inflation’s way up, the birth rate is down, life-expectancy’s dropping, and a whole lot of Americans struggle to pay bills and keep even, financially, much less “get ahead.” The proliferation of dollar stores shows that the upscale stores are too expensive for too many.

They are a refuge for the poor.

But are they evilly uglifying, though? 

Perhaps not as pretty as Safeway or Target, but they’re clean and you can buy a can of soup for four bits, a dollar less than at an upscale market.

Are the rise of discount consumer goods stores, like Dollar Tree and Dollar General, especially hideous and indicative of a blow to … the American spirit? 

Seems more revelatory of a weird elitist streak in Tucker.

And what does libertarian — free-​market — economics have to do with it? Libertarian economists have opposed all the major drivers of the current system: central banking, deficit spending, sovereign debt accumulation, taxation for redistribution, subsidy. The policies that have truly “hollowed out” the last semblance of progress.

But Tucker blames libertarian economists’ defense of equity markets for not only social decline but Dollar Stores.

He’s fallen for the progressives’ perennial scam: see a problem in our mixed economy and blame the freer part … not the role of elitist schemers with political power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

dollar store, decadence

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education and schooling ideological culture

Why Homeschoolers Make Good Citizens

Horace Mann promoted the “common school” not primarily to increase literacy or prepare kids for college. No, the movement that gave birth to the modern public school system in America was designed to inculcate good citizenship by putting all kids through a “shared experience.”

A few years ago, Mann’s notion was re-​iterated by a college professor in an essay called “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling.” Public schooling, he wrote,

is one of the few remaining social institutions … in which people from all walks of life have a common interest and in which children might come to learn such common values as decency, civility, and respect.

Are we really supposed to believe that public schools instill decency, civility, and respect?

In “Does Homeschooling or Private Schooling Promote Political Intolerance? Evidence from a Christian University,” Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform, 8(1), Albert Cheng left bald assertions aside and conducted some research. He concluded that private schooling does not decrease social tolerance, and “those [college students] with more exposure to homeschooling relative to public schooling tend to be more politically tolerant.”

Why might this be the case? Cheng himself offered two possible reasons — greater self-​actualization in homeschooling, and religious instruction — but I can think of others.

For one, public schools bring together many, many kids, but through regimentation and Mann’s desire for “shared experience,” the results tend toward more conformity, and bullying, and less tolerance.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers are doing something different than the crowd, and perhaps are that much more wiling to accept others doing their own thing, even if not the norm.

So, hooray for homeschooling! The cradle of liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.