2016 Feb 18^th

Today we have some comments by that noted political/economic thinker, Dr. Thomas Sowell. Dr. Sowell chooses to focus on Senator Sanders and “The lure of socialism.” Dr. Sowell is particularly unhappy about Senator Sander’s promise to make a college education free. (Note that President Obama has already proposed a free community college education; that proposal caused some apoplexy among his detractors.) Thomas Sowell speaks of “the lure of socialism and has seen it fail time and again in countries around the world. Venezuela, with all its rich oil resources, is currently on the verge of economic collapse.”

Really, Dr. Sowell? Is that because of socialism, or because oil is now selling for 30 percent of what it once did. Venezuela‘s economy is not diversified; it has no other exports, but that has nothing to do with socialism, it has to do with stupid leadership! Sowell goes on to describe “socialism’s dismal track record” but gives no further examples. One might ask him about the economies of the Scandinavian countries, usually considered socialist by the vocal right wing in this country. They aren’t really socialistic because socialism is defined as the state owning the means of production and the means of distribution. Free enterprise is alive and well in Sweden; witness Volvo, a car and truck company, whose stock can be purchased on the NYSE. Sweden also has one of the highest standards of living in the world, as well as one of the happiest populations.

Sowell then tells us that if college “becomes free even more people can attend college without bothering to become educated…” He tells us that “making all sorts of other things free means more of those things will be wasted as well.”  Sowell claims that, “Today’s college students learn a lot less than college students once did.” But this is in spite of the huge amounts of debt incurred by today’s students. Their education is obviously not without considerable cost to them. In the late 1940s my college friends, nearly all veterans, were enjoying “free” college courtesy of the GI bill. I assume Sowell who served during the Korean War received similar benefits. Because they were then free did he waste them?

College is free, as I said yesterday, in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark and Brazil. Are we not wealthy enough to compete with these countries in educating our people? The difference, of course, is that we maintain an enormous military complex that syphons off at least a third or our wealth each year. Other countries do not have this burden so why do we?

 We ignored the best advice President Eisenhower gave us in 1961 which was to beware of the power of the military industrial complex; we have ignored his advice and now that complex and its supporters and beneficiaries largely control us. By instilling paranoia they seek and get an ever larger share of our national wealth. Many well-paying jobs depend on government contracts to the defense industry and congress will do nothing to change that. Until that happens free college like free health care is unlikely.

As for the notion that what is free is valueless I suggest that Dr. Sowell would be well to listen to Oscar Wilde who said that a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.