CatherineM Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 How about this, let people work off their student loan debt. There used to be a way of doing that by working at certain inner city schools, peace corps, military, but how about expanding that to include a multitude of volunteer activities. We have fine options here for people to work off their court costs and stuff. It would be nice if working at a soup kitchen once a week would help you pay off your loans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 How about this: No government involvement in schooling. It distorts the market. You want to know why students are so deep in debt? Look no further than the government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 How about this? People go to school for education and expertise in specialized jobs. If you cannot afford it or don't desire the student loan burden, work someplace else and deal with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 How about this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socrates Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 [quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318122822' post='2318187'] Employers are free to set knowledge qualifications, but they should not be free to require someone to have gained knowledge by attending a school. Once schools are disestablished from our social life, then they will no longer be able to force us into the enslaving debt that this thread is about.[/quote] Whether or not schooling should be required by private employees is simply not the place of the government to determine. If a formal education is not really necessary to the skill necessary to perform the job, or is largely worthless, employers will recognize it. Most employers in job ads I've seen will allow relevant experience to take the place of an educational degree. In any case, this is outside the scope and competency of government. Incurring school debt and not being able to pay it is a risk entailed by the person who enrolls in the school. Those who don't want to take the risk can choose instead to pursue careers not requiring expensive formal schooling. There are high-paying jobs that do not require a formal degree, though these may entail other risks or inconveniences of their own. We don't need more government busy-bodyness to ensure that nobody has to undergo risk. [quote]I believe in public resources, but I don't believe in institutionalizing those resources, because institutions are by nature undefinable and insatiable, and as institutions grow beyond necessary limits, they lead to situations like we have now where indentured servitude in schools keeps us in massive debt.[/quote] For one who talks so much against "institutions" on principle, you sure seem to have little problem with expanding the power of the institution of the federal government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socrates Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 [quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318125209' post='2318203'] The same penalty he would suffer for other forms of unjust discrimination (racial, religious, etc.). [/quote] In other words, it would become the job of government bureaucrats and courts, rather than the actual employer, to determine whether each job candidate for employment with private companies has the ability to perform the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatitude Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 [quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318119559' post='2318172'] We probably have very different views on hospitals, but I view them as as I view schools: they create the illusion of health for everyone and divorce us from our own autonomous action. The professionalization of health (by which healthcare has become an institutional service that only doctors are allowed to deal in) has led to the same situation that schools have created: massive debt and inability to pay for the services we are told we need. So, instead of investing in neighborhood medical workers who can deal with common problems, we invest in a system built around health institutions like hospitals where doctors, like teachers, have become a sacred caste, and where most of the stuff doctors do benefits the rich who can afford expensive medical care...common medical problems could be just as easily dealt with by investing in a system of local medical workers...but this would not fit in with our system where, as I said before, we invest in institutions rather than resources. Healthcare, like learning, like living, is no longer something we do for ourselves, it's something we have done for us. [/quote] This critique doesn't make sense to me. There are already plenty of people without high-level medical and nursing qualifications working in hospitals. You refer to them as medical workers; in this country they're known as healthcare assistants (HCAs). In other places I think they get called nurses' aides or orderlies. I've been a HCA myself. It's true - you don't need a college education to comfort a frightened old woman with dementia and to help her go to the toilet with dignity. But you do need someone with a college education when that woman needs to undergo an MRI scan, or receive speech and language therapy, or have her blood tests interpreted. I think it's reasonable to argue that doctors are sometimes treated as little tin gods, to the detriment of the nursing staff and the rest of the medical team, but that doesn't mean that their qualifications are at fault. If I go to hospital with a nasty cut, I'm not going to complain if a HCA dresses it. That's the sort of thing you can learn on the job. You don't need a degree. But if I go in needing an operation under general anaesthetic to fix my fractured leg, you can bet I want someone with full medical training. A lot of common medical problems are also serious problems that require specialist knowledge to treat - heart attacks might be common, but that doesn't mean they can be dealt with by your local community health worker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 (edited) [quote name='beatitude' timestamp='1318201565' post='2318739']But you do need someone with a college education when that woman needs to undergo an MRI scan, or receive speech and language therapy, or have her blood tests interpreted. I think it's reasonable to argue that doctors are sometimes treated as little tin gods, to the detriment of the nursing staff and the rest of the medical team, but that doesn't mean that their qualifications are at fault.[/quote] You don't need someone with a "college education," you need someone with the ability to give MRI scans, provide speech and language therapy, or interpret blood tests. Colleges are just the places were we have chosen to isolate our tools and resources. A lot of what I suggest, of course, wouldn't work in our society. In a society where tools and resources are restricted to institutions and to authorized personnel who have gone through an 18 year schooling ritual, then of course you can't expect anybody else to be competent to do anything (since we are all beholden to approved professionals in approved institutions). To expect more of society would require a re-imagination where our tools and resources are open to everyone, and discrimination is not used to reenforce the power that institutions wield over us. I mean, it's getting to the point where hospitals are no longer even optional...we are now being forced to buy insurance (schools have long been obligatory, of course). These are not merely medical or political issues, these are philosophical and human issues. What is our relationship to our own selves? Our own health? Who is responsible for our health? Who has a right to determine our health? What is the proper role of a doctor in society? When has he overstepped his limits? Needless to say, I think our professionalization of healthcare makes for a more inhuman society. By "professionalization" I mean turning healthcare into a "need" that approved professionals have to serve. I have no problem with "professional" understood as a person with expert skill and knowledge, but I do have a problem with "professional" as a social role that replaces our autonomous action with professional services. Edited October 10, 2011 by Era Might Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesus_lol Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 I become leery of anyone suggesting that passage of medical knowledge and skill go back to what it once was in the "good old days", when medicine was much much much worse than it is today. There needs to be a centralized knowledge of medicine, and standardized methods of teaching it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfink Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Wow, I made a post and ignored this thread afterwards. razzle dazzle feedback n stuff I guess. Hum de dum... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 (edited) [quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1318207311' post='2318810'] I become leery of anyone suggesting that passage of medical knowledge and skill go back to what it once was in the "good old days", when medicine was much much much worse than it is today. There needs to be a centralized knowledge of medicine, and standardized methods of teaching it. [/quote] That's where we fundamentally disagree. I don't believe in "centralizing" or "standardizing" much of anything, unless you're trying to kill personality (that's the idea behind boot camp in the military, turn everyone into a standardized servant of a centralized authority). Certainly centralizing and standardizing is a requirement of industrial man. That's the idea behind our hospitals and school systems, where everyone is reshaped to fit our standardized institutions and techniques. But I don't believe that learning, healing, charity, etc. are helped when turned into a centralized, standardized, institutionalized, industrialized commodity. I don't think I said anything about "medical knowledge and skill" going back to some point in the past. What I've said is that how we use, share, and conceive our knowledge and resources needs to be re-imagined, and for that, yes, I do maintain that modern society is abnormal and unnatural, especially when seen in the mirror of the past. Edited October 10, 2011 by Era Might Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 [quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1318199385' post='2318712'] Whether or not schooling should be required by private employees is simply not the place of the government to determine.[/quote] We disagree. The government has an obligation to establish justice, as the Constitution says, and preventing unjust discrimination against workers is a matter of justice. [quote]For one who talks so much against "institutions" on principle, you sure seem to have little problem with expanding the power of the institution of the federal government. [/quote] It is possible to construct institutions that are rooted in freedom. The public library is an example of an institution rooted in freedom. Government is a necessary institution with obligations to society. I have never claimed to be an anarchist, and I believe government has a role to play in society, including establish justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisa Marie Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 I think students should just do a better job of knowing what they're getting into. As much as I sympathize with the proverbial "99%," I knew that I would have to go into debt to go to grad school, and that I would have to live pretty simply until my loans get paid off (how many ways can I cook ramen this month?). I have to wonder how many people that complain about crippling student loan debt do so on Facebook via their smart phones while watching Netflix and eating take out Chinese. Sure, we could replace the requirement of a degree with a degree and/or pass this test kind of system. I mean, medical school is really just extended, expensive specialized job training. But are people really doing all they can to find the cheapest option for schooling and then living in such a way that they can pay it off in a decade or two (at the outside)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 [quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318271439' post='2319174'] We disagree. The government has an obligation to establish justice, as the Constitution says, and preventing unjust discrimination against workers is a matter of justice. [/quote] Employers don't owe people jobs. They owe the people they hire just wages, but they do not owe a job to a particular person. If an employer absolutely could not stand working with Irish, it would hurt his business to hire them. That would hurt the other employees. Is that just? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominicansoul Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 i refused all loans and went with grants... i owed absolutely nothing after i graduated... when i came back from the convent, i looked to where the feasible jobs were close to home...they happened to be at my old alma mater... so, not only did i not get into any loan debt, my school is now paying me to work for them... its a sweet deal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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