Today at Starbucks, my friend Bill Rough asserted that colleges were dumbing down because of capitalism -- because capitalism drives everything down to the lowest common denominator. My gut reaction was, of course, "No it doesn't." But we didn't have time to hash this out, as my wife, daughter, and I were leaving.
The first point I would make in response is that to argue that the market drives things down to the lowest common denominator is to argue that things become less valuable in the market. We know, in fact, that value increases through trade. If it did not, a trade would not occur. So on this point the statement makes no sense.
The second point is that only if only the "market winners" are what survive, while all other competitors die off, could it be possible for the lowest common denominator to dominate. But this is not true. What i just described would be more accurately termed as a "democratic economy." In a market economy, one has a wide variety of choices --some better than others. Not only that, but not just the most popular survive. There are markets in rare tastes -- sometimes you have to pay a lot for them, and sometimes you do not. Think of music, where a C.D. for a popular band costs the same as a band almost nobody listens to. With MP3's, those marginal bands are even more likely to get their music out there. As the market has expanded -- using new innovations in technology -- more and more marginal bands are able to get their music out their to fans, no matter how few those fans may be. Thus, it actually becomes more likely that excellence will have a chance to survive, even if it only survives as a marginal taste. In a democratic economy, only the most popular would survive. More, in a truly democratic economy, you would have to please 50%+1, meaning you would get a drive down in quality, as such products would have to please almost everyone somehow to "win." So in a market economy, there is certainly room for excellence -- at the very least as a minority taste. Someone will always be willing to cater to whatever tastes are out there, including the taste for excellence.
This then raises the question of what he said about colleges. Is it the market that has driven out excellence in the push to get more and more students through the doors? Not necessarily. One should in fact expect there to be a mixture of colleges, with a mixture of goals and reputations -- if there is truly a free market in education. For those who value excellence, and are thus willing to pay for it, one would expect there to exist colleges advertising that they will deliver excellence in education. Others, while certainly not advertising that they aren't excellent, will advertise rather that they provide different kinds of educational services. They can use terms like "student focused" or "learning what you want to learn" as codewords to let the consumer know that not much will be expected from them academically. They will provide job training -- which is fine, and what many people both need and want. More, places will hire based on their needs -- meaning, if they need someone who received an excellent education, they will hire from those colleges proven to excel in excellence. If they need someone with a certain kind of job training, they will hire from colleges which provide those educations.
The fact that this seems not to be happening -- the fact that there is rather a drive to the bottom in higher education across the board -- suggests, then, that something else is going on. I have already indicated what this could be in my comparison of the outcome of a democratic economy vs. a market economy. The colleges are all becoming democratized. The problem with this is that it results in the same education for everyone, regardless of need or ability. There are many things which have contributed to this, including affirmative action (which has outlived both its usefulness and its mandate), the dominance of egalitarian ideologies at all levels in our universities, and a fetishization of higher education by those same egalitarians, who in fact look down on those without college degrees and see physical labor as shameful. These same people then blame capitalism for the dumbing down of education. These are the people I heard this from before I heard Bill repeat it (and I'm guessing he heard it from some of the same people as I have).
So the bottom line is this: the dumbing down of education cannot be blamed on the free market system, precisely because the free market would never create such a situation across the board, as we see happening. Rather, it is the dominance of egalitarian ideologies in our educational system at all levels that is driving education down to the lowest common denominator. (Re)Read Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron for one of the best examples of this phenomenon in literature.
21 comments:
What I said was that you cannot treat education like capitalism because what happens is like what has been happening in the rest of society. Many distinctions are in order, but in any economic system, per your first point, things do not always go up in value when they are traded, so that first point does not apply at all so far as I can tell.
Basic economics: a trade does not occur, unless both parties are better off. I must value what you have more than what I want to trade, and you must value what I have more than what you want to trade for there to be any kind of trade at all. Thus, each of us experience an increase in value. Thus, value increases overall with each and every trade. Thus, when a trade of good occurs, those goods necessarily go up in value.
What has been happening in the rest of society cannot be blamed on capitalism, either. The same problems are a result of the widespread ideology of egalitarianism throughout society. The free market does not encourage greed, but rather transforms it to a social good. That is exactly what the free market economic system does: it turns certain kinds of vices into social goods, without necessarily encouraging those vices. It also rewards many other things of value: hard work, intelligence, education, etc. These are all virtues. More than that, it punishes cheaters, fraud, laziness, and theft (people get caught out on these things eventually in a market system -- when we have a large number of them, one should immediately look to what laws are on the books that encouraged and protected such behavior, and one will almost always find them). So the free market punishes some vices, turns other vices into public goods, and rewards virtue, all while creating more value in the world.
Nor am I describing a utopia. One can point out any number of shortfalls. But it's the best system to have ever come about for the benefit of humans. Every other system has proven to create corruption and reward vices while punishing virtues far more often than not.
What we really need in education is some capitalism. Education is precisely where it's lacking. That's why excellence suffers in education.
The aspect of college education being treated as if the students were consumers, and the college or university is a "service" to them is active in the actions of administrations. The humanities do not make money, so they get less funding. A university education with less or little "humanities" classes misses the point and purpose of getting a University education. Back where our conversation started, universities are acting like trade schools rather than universities. This was what I said and the reason for my comment about capitalism. It is not the best term to use but the point is there to be understood. I was not speaking technically however.
As for your supposed "basic economics" of a trade always increasing in value. Nice ideal but preposterous. Things increase and decrease in value. It is that simple. That is "basic economics." The new car was worth 20,000 and is now worth 5000 10 years later. Whatever you are talking about does not seem to address what I am talking about.
And trades do not happen only in the condition of the one who wants to trade valuing something else more than the thing that they are trading. Huh, inflation made bread cost 1 billion during the thirties in Germany. You are missing what I am talking about. Trades do occur when one of the two parties are worse off. Think of those fleeing Germany and having to take pennies on the dollar for the value of their jewels and other possessions. True it was to flee and save their lives, which they value more than the possessions. But the possessions or things traded as you say lost their value. There is such ugliness in economics. Don't ignore it. Happens all of the time. There is not only evolution but devolution. Come back to earth Mr. Scientist ;)
And you more or less talk in the next section of Machiavellianism in a nut shell. You say, "So the free market punishes some vices, turns other vices into public goods..." How can a vice become a good? That is Machiavelli speak in its most basic form. It further enrolls others in its corrupting effect as well as blurs any consideration of the distinction of what a "virtue" would be about and mean. How could a vice ever be a "public good?"
And don't diminish what I am saying by that it is not a utopia and that there are shortfalls. I am the one pointing out the shortfalls. Also the cliche of "it" or "free-markets" or "capitalism" being not the best but better than all the rest of the "systems" while perhaps having a truth, I hardly think it immune to the same problem considering the nature of consumer society and pop culture today. There are still good people so don't go accusing me of being pessimistic or something. There are criticisms to make of the practices in the U.S. today. Not having the value of education in the proper perspective would be one of them. Treating education as an economic unit in the sense of some sort of consumer and provider will only continue to cheapen education. The fix is in the direction, as you agree already, understanding the "true" value of things, of which a "good" education is about the most valuable thing in any culture.
What though is a "good" or "valuable" education? Rather than defending economic markets, you could be talking about why the education system has fallen so far as to treat itself as if its value were not known but rather it should be set among the highest goods known to man whatever the cost. It is a good in and of itself and really is priceless. And it is being cheapened at every turn in our culture.
The humanities departments have been arguing for years that what they do has no value (Stanley Fish has done this quite recently), so we should not be surprised when, after a while, college administrations begin to take them seriously and treat them accordingly. It has nothing to do with the market per se, but with the fact that the humanities departments have devalued themselves.
I remember David Orman telling me that when he decided to do consulting, he decided to charge a low price. Nobody wanted him. He raised his price above his competitors, and suddenly everyone wanted him. When he placed a low value on himself, people placed a low value on him and his services. When he placed a high value on himself, people placed a high value on his services.
Please note that I too conflated "price" and "value," as have you. Price is a way the market assigns value, but value is not the same as price. That is a categorical error you have made. We measure the value of economic goods according to price. If the value of a car goes down when you buy it, that simply means that you will find it difficult, at best, to find someone who will pay you the same price for the car that you just paid. It doesn't mean it's possible. Also, you gain more value in the use of the car than you "lost" in purchasing the car. Over time, the value of the car at least remains what you initially set that value at, if it doesn't in fact go up. There is thus a temporal aspect of value. Further, the car loses value because it is undergoing entropy. It contains less information after a while than it did when you first bought it (I've been playing around with an information theory of economic value that explains this phenomenon you mention). Having thus used up the value of the car, you should not be surprised when, later, you can only sell the car at a lower cost. You value the car less, so you are willing to sell it at a lower cost. Yet, you will still think yourself to be better off from selling the car than you would have been if you'd have kept it. Economic value is subjective.
The extreme examples almost never happen, disprove nothing, being mere emergency examples, and in fact don't disprove my thesis at all, as you yourself admit, since those people valued their lives, etc. more than trinkets. The value of the jewelry had gone down considerably for them. That happens. They traded a less valuable item for a more valuable item -- which is what I said happens every time.
If you agree that greed is a vice, then the greed of the grocery store owner, not his benevolence, is what gets you and everybody else the cheap food we all enjoy. Read your Adam Smith. And Bernard Mandeville's "The Fable of the Bees." Hayek corrects Smith slightly, by pointing out that not only vice is turned into a public good, but the facts remains that the free market economy is capable of doing precisely this -- and no other economic system does. In fact, in every other economic system, greed results in people getting ripped off, under the protection of the more powerful, rather than benefited. Again, the free market system does not encourage greed per se, but rather transforms it. Even though people may not want to do good, they are far more likely to do good, because that is what is rewarded. People are made more virtuous despite themselves.
The problem is that you believe there is a "true" value of things -- which is too Marxist for my taste, and simply not true. Value is subjective. I find education to be highly valuable. Others do not. Those who do not end up doing things that I also value just as highly as education construction, road work, etc. I need my dad to mine coal to provide electricity so I can read my books and argue with you about these sorts of things on my computer. Thus, I find his work extremely valuable. Again, if there are not schools which provide the kinds of education you and I value, that is not a failure of the market -- quite the contrary, it is a failure of there being a proper market in the field. Different people have different educational values. Who are you or I to say that everyone must be forced to accept our values, and that their values aren't worth having? Should they be persuaded? Of course. To a certain degree. But I don't think that the world is a terrible place if there are a significant number of people out there who don't appreciate "Almost Ithaciad." The world is made a worse place, though, if the intellectuals say that the arts and humanities in general are of no value. Of infinite value? Don't be absurd. If they are of infinite value, then there is no ends to which we should go to support the arts and humanities. We should fight wars for them, kill and destroy for them, take money away from everybody not an intellectual, and hand it over to the intellectuals, because they are the only ones making anything of "true value." Such things, including education, are not "beyond price" or "priceless." Of course they have a price. And they have a value. You and I think that value is high. Others do not. I find almost no value in watching football -- but I wouldn't deprive you of the value you derive from it. I place high value on reading intellectual materials and writing papers on them -- something I know would be torture to most others.
The problems with education, I repeat, have nothing to do with value-creating market economics being part of it. Sadly, the market is barely involved at all. Rather, we need to fight against the majority of our colleagues who think the arts and humanities are not valuable and cannot be justified. Saying they need no justification and that they are the only things of "true value" and are "priceless" only makes the same problem in the opposite direction. It cuts off all discussion, making claims that cannot be defended, only asserted. More, a cursory understanding of the wide variety of things people value and do not value shows it to be wrong. This isn't to argue that we shouldn't try to persuade more people to value the things you and I value -- but it's equally absurd to assume that what we both value in a liberal arts education are the only things of value -- that they have "true" value.
In the end, I think one can make just as strong an argument for football having "true value" as one can for philosophy. Would everybody be better off if they understood philosophy? Well, wouldn't everybody be better off if we could all agree to love football?
If saying Education is invaluable makes me a Marxist, so be it I suppose but what this sort of name calling has to do with anything is beyond me. I would not want anything resembling a Marxist sort of economy. I do think that there are some things that have inherent value, even unspeakably great value. When humans get involved with them that does not hold true for their practices. How a "true value" would be Marxist makes no sense to me. How about a reverse example. Much of what we do becomes good or less good or unhealthy or bad depending upon how we do them. But this is not the case for some actions such as murder, or adultery. How can you practice murder well? How can you commit adultery beautifully? Not that we could not understand why killing another might even be needed in terms of self defense, but that is not murder. We also could understand that a marriage may need to end, this end may be the best thing in this or that situation, but it does not become a good because of that, but it may need to happen. How though does breaking an oath become good rather than a necessary thing in this world we live in.
But you want to hold that value is subjective? I can go with that for the sake of argument even. But who are you and I? To say what values? People should hold? What the hell are you talking about? Where did infinity come from. I said education is invaluable. Does that make it infinitely valuable? Could I be speaking with hyperbole? Are you even listening to anyone but the voice in your own head? This has nothing to do with what I was talking about. So when you want to get serious and as I said, deal with what I said, I will be glad to talk about this stuff again with you. This sort of conversation is not worth it to me.
But again, what I said was that universities are becoming like trade schools. This is happening in part because the administrations at universities are looking at education as a situation of consumers and providers of consumable "stuff." That humanities departments are reaping what they have sowed, I also know, and none of this is happening in a vacuum. Much of this is interconnected as well, but my point was much simpler than the rest of this conversation which is venturing on pathetic drivel. Would we be better off if every one "loved" football? Not so far as I could tell. Who would people who love football argue with when someone says that baseball is better?
It's not a question of name-calling, but pointing out where these ideas come from and are most commonly propounded. Marx argued that there was a "true" value to each and every thing that it was immoral to go below. That a sweater, for example, has an "inherent" value put into it via the labor, etc. that went into it. Marx developed an objective theory of value which I happen to find to be utter nonsense. Why is saying someone is using a Marxist concept name calling? If Marx has a good idea, I have no problem being a proponent of it. He just happens to be wrong about value.
In your examples of murder and adultery, you against conflate value with something else -- in this case, virtue. Should virtue have a high value? I think so. But virtue and value are not the same thing. I think any social system that encourages such bond-destroying vices is bound for the ash-heap of history, while those that promote the opposite bond-creating and -reinforcing virtues (almost a redundancy, I think, as almost by definition a virtue creates and strengthens social bonds through voluntary action), continue to grow and prosper. But the fact that there is a counter -- which you provided in the case of murder, with self-defense -- means not even you think a human life has infinite value. Nor do you think your own does -- or else you wouldn't get in a car, a plane, etc. A high value, yes. Infinite? Your behavior proves you think otherwise.
What does "invaluable" mean, then? WIthout value? Unable to place a value on it? Why can you not place a value on it? Because it has infinite value? Or none? Everything has value in this world. WHen I look up the definition of "invaluable, " I find: "beyond calculable or appraisable value; of inestimable worth; priceless" If it cannot be calculated or estimated, it is infinite for any practical purpose. Priceless? Education has always had a price put on it. Your accusations against me on this are mere projections about yourself in this regard. My argument has focused like a laser on the topic at hand. I have dealt with what you said -- you just don't like my responses, is all.
Now, as for your point about colleges becoming more like trade schools -- which only came up in this online discussion, btw, and not on the original discussion -- I don't disagree with you. As far as I'm concerned, some of them are and need to be trade schools, while others need to provide an exclusively liberal education. I would even argue that there should be certain schools -- Harvard, Yale, etc. -- which provide only a liberal undergraduate education, and do not even allow majors. Major in your Master's.
The fact that the market is not providing these options proves to me that there is something else at work preventing the market from providing what is wanted. If nobody wants it, whose fault is that? Not the market's. Again, I point to the humanities departments. Their anti-market attitude mad made them push in the opposite direction, devaluing themselves, and making what should be accessible to all into an elitist pursuit. They hate that the market economy makes what was once the sole property of the elite accessible to everyone else. Think cell phones in the 1980's vs. now. PLato and Aristotle are easy -- and give more and more the more time you spend with them. Derrida and Zizek are difficult -- and give less and less the more time you spend with them. The latter trend is a way to keep the humanities elite, to counteract market forces. In the end, the computer science, physics, biology, math, economics, etc. departments all advertise their value and worth. The humanities either argue they have no value, or argue that they are invaluable and priceless, and that advertising their worth is below them. They get treated as one would expect them to be treated. The humanities are trying to play football with baseball rules, and then whining that it's unfair that they never win. Every other discipline has to justify its existence -- what makes the humanities think they're any better than any other discipline? This "invaluable" nonsense just prevents people from having to deal in the real world with real people and real problems. Or shall we get back to the issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
What makes you say that I think "things" have an "inherent" value is beyond me!? And since I know little of Marxism, you would be wrong to ascribe it as the source of what I think about economics, except as something that I may have unknowingly inherited. So far as I can tell though, Marxism has little to do with why I think Education is invaluable. Again, how you are addressing what I am talking about makes no sense to me. If you want to have a discussion about what economics, I forget the term you would rather use, then I am all ears. But that is not and has not been what I am talking about. I would not nor have I suggested anything like "a sweater has an inherent value."
As for the term "value," I have not been trying to use it in a technical manner. I never suggested that human life has "infinite" value. There is an inherent nature to some actions was the point. Those actions while needed, do not there by become somehow "good" or virtuous. What the hell "value" means at this point is a great question considering the conversation to this point.
Still, what this has to do with what I suggested about universities makes no sense to me. I do not think that because something is incalculable that it necessarily needs to be considered "infinite" for all practical purposes. That is one way to go with it. But beauty has as part of it the sublime. How do you say the "value" of the sublime? The point would be that words fall short. Not that we shouldn't try to say. It just would probably be wise to not think that the whole of what counts as sublime or beautiful can be said in a limited set of words. Your suggestion that every trade "increases" value seems closer to the "inherent" aspect that you were arguing against than anything that I said. Education, and I mean the term broadly to include say a "street" education, as the surest means to bring about beauty in human life, though there are no guarantees, makes me want to suggest its value, especially since the phenomena being talked about here is so complex and multifaceted, is in the end not finally sayable. True that education has a price on it, but that is far from saying, as you have argued already, that it thus has some static value because it looks at value in a static way or from only one point of view at a time, which illegitemitely narrows the phenomena. It would be like talking about the human being as only atoms. While even true, it misses the point in part as you know.
You assert that in trade value always increases. I am still very skeptical of this idea and it seems, as I said once already, much closer to an assertion of some static "truth" at work than anything I suggested.
Mere projections of myself? So I have known you for 8 years and still know nothing of you? Whatever. I simply want you to address what I did say rather than your own current interests. It seems to me as if you hear what you want to hear, rather than really engage what I said. Not to mention, considering how much we have talked in the past, that what I said makes no sense to you apparently, surprises the hell out of me. But as the one who said something rather simple and clear, universities are becoming like trade schools, I do not think you have addressed it in any way. You are trying to say that "economics" or "capitalism" has nothing to do with why what is happening in universities is happening. Which may be true but it does not escape that what I said was that universities are becoming like trade schools. They are putting out specialists. The story of what this means is long, but part of the situation today has to do with looking at students as consumers and teachers as service providers. It may even be that this came after and is merely an exacerbation of a problem that really began else where at an earlier time. But I was not talking technically as I have said numerous times.
Your sentence was, "it's too Marxist...". To say that is to debunk an idea by its association with something disreputable. It is not an argument but name calling. As you said, if Marx says something true, you would not be against it. So what does bringing in Marx have to do with anything? But again, nothing I said so far as I can tell implies, and I did not assert it directly, that I think there is "inherent" value to things. You brought that to the conversation, not me. I did not say it, nor imply it, nor at least mean to imply it. But again, as a member of the discussion, I do not see how this addresses what I said in any way. With a Laser sighted argument or not, I do not see it; and since you are talking to me, ignoring what I say does not make much sense either. Shit, I have no problem admitting that I am wrong about economics and its relation to the current state of university education.
And if you are noticing that I am not liking the conversation, try another tack and as you said hash this out with me rather than from the start making me wrong while ascribing to me things that I say I did not say. Take me seriously enough to include me in the conversation, and begin "hashing" things out as you said we were not able to do for lack of time at Starbucks.
I can't believe you are taking an intellectual argument personally. That has been the gist of your side of the argument this entire time, that you are somehow personally offended that I would challenge you. I know you wouldn't do this in person -- is it a product of it being online? And if you don't understand me or why I'm saying something, just ask. What's the point in taking offense? Just because I think something is "too Marxist for my taste," again does not constitute name calling. I could also say "too transcendentalist for my taste" or "too utilitarian for my taste" and I doubt you would consider these name calling. Nor does it mean I don't find value in these philosophies -- I did call my nonprofit The EMERSON Institute, after all.
With value, something has no value if you don't want it, and nobody will trade you anything for it, or take it off your hands. Such things end up in the landfills. Or are lost to history. If someone wants to have it, it has value to them. That does not mean it has inherent value. It means it has value to that particular person -- even if it is a low value. Now, when you say, "you could be talking about why the education system has fallen so far as to treat itself as if its value were not known but rather it should be set among the highest goods known to man whatever the cost. It is a good in and of itself and really is priceless," you are in fact implying that it has "infinite value." That, at least, is how most people would interpret that statement.
It occurred to me, however, that the real issue here is that you are thinking of education as a gift. Which is fine, since I too consider it to be a gift. If you give a gift to someone, and they insist on paying for it, you are naturally insulted. This, I think, is your attitude. However, Fred Turner observes that in any economic trade, there is necessarily a gift aspect to the trade. The person who is buying something from you is likely not paying entirely what they think it is worth. Thus, the rest is your gift to them. It would do us a lot of good to think of education as being on the borderlands of the gift economy and the market economy. There is a gift aspect, but there is also a market aspect. Some people want more of the market aspect -- and are looking for a good trade school. The liberal arts, however, are almost entirely gift. I like the gift economy, which is why I have a nonprofit and have a Ph.D. in the humanities. However, that does not make me denigrate the value of the market economy, including its value in education. Also, to return to the denigration of value by the humanities, would you want a gift that someone told you before you even opened it that it wasn't worth anything and they couldn't think of any reason you would need or want it? It would seem to me that you would want to avoid such a person. The gift giver has to believe in the value of the gift before the recipient will even want it.
If certain kinds of education is a gift -- and all is, to some degree or another -- then in that sense, such education does not have a cost. But if it is argued that it doesn't have a value, nobody is going to be willing to pay to get it.
I thought about this before I read your last postings. I think it clears up what we are really talking about. I think you think education is purely gift, while I believe that it is partially gift, partially market, with varying degrees, depending on what you are learning.
From reading this blog on and off, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Camplin calls everyone he disagrees with 'a Marxist'to a less degree 'a transcendentalist, and 'a utilitarian,' because he only sees in black and white. There is no shades of grey to debate here.
The Debsist
Not everyone I disagree with is a Marxist. My friend Bill and I are disagreeing here, but I don't think he's a Marxist. Just his one point on value is traceable to Marxist thought. I have been known to disagree with people with whom I agree on many things. I also have been known to agree with people whose ideologies I'm not particularly fond of. If disagreeing with something that is provably wrong, demonstrably false, and harmful to most, then call me a black-and-white thinker. Thus, I oppose socialism and it's worst form, Marxism. If you want a more nuanced discussion, let's talk about epistemology, certain ethical issues, ontology, etc. You might also want to read me more than every once in a while. Or, at least, better. I don't know how much black and white was in this discussion. Perhaps you're not familiar with that agonal approach to the discovery of truth.
Troy, if in the past I have not taken things personally, what would make you interpret what is happening here that way. Again, you miss the point. Your initial post on the blog ascribed to me things that I did not say. I am still trying, in vain it seems, to get you to at least acknowledge that, let alone deal with it. Be that as it may, I still am not clear on what I said that you supposedly "traced" back to Marxism. Rather than "traced" back you seem to rather have disagreed from the beginning, with what is not clear to me, then had reasons for this disagreement, then jumped to a conclusion that you privately think in a vocabulary that is also private to you, and then started accusing me of things again that I did not say. I would ask you questions if you had actually "traced" what you say such that I could see it.
The point about Marxism that I am trying to make is that to have me holding a view that is too Marxist, "for you", does not help in determining if what I said was in fact Marxist, nor help me know where the hell you are coming from, nor help make the distinction of that it be worthwhile or not to even consider its truthfulness. It ascribes to the unstated thought that it is family with a whole bunch other thoughts in such a way as to not bring about thinking about the initial thought to begin with.
I do not take this personally because I know you and you do not mean any of it maliciously. Still, you need to do better because I know that you can. And not to at least show that you are trying, by taking into account the things that the other person says, is very frustrating to a very high degree because I think the conversation could go in a much more productive way. It would be great to talk to you about your ideas about economics. Though you did not catch my point about Machiavelli, or his style of language.
Anyway, I will begin again from your initial post.
Okay, the first point you make is that trade increases value. Value of what? Trade does increase value, but entropy decreases value, but what's the significance of saying that "trade increases value?" I would suggest that Madonna's music decreased more value than it gained by having very much 'trade' going on with her music. Controversial example but again, value increases in what sense? That sounds like saying that an unjust person should be punished. Well so what!? How do we tell who is unjust? It is clearly true but useless for helping us distinguish anything we really want to know.
The tone of your postings made me think you were taking this dialogue too personally. But let's leave that aside.
One thing you should know by now about me and how I argue is that I don't stick to the surface issues, but aim to try to get at the real issue underlying the overt statement. As a consequence, I tend to talk about what you have implied in your statements, the ideology behind a statement (there is much to unpack in a claim that capitalism is to blame for the state of education -- a whole set of assumptions, etc. that underly a statement like that, and you know it). This is why I went straight to the issue of value.
Now, let me address your direct questions.
Yes, entropy does decrease an object's value. But entropy is the opposite of information. Thus, the more information an object has, the more value it has. A new car has high informational value. An old car, having undergone the ravages of time -- entropy -- has less value. However, a classic car regains in value to to its increased informational content as a classic and collector's item. Certainly, it's rareness also contributes to this in the same way that gold, being rarer than iron, has a higher value. Of course, in absolute terms, iron has more value than does gold -- if you were to ask which we could do without if we absolutely had to, iron or gold, I would say we could do without the gold. But we don't have to make such choices. Of course, to any particular person, there may be more value to iron than to gold -- that valuation of iron over gold would cause that person to trade a certain amount of gold for a certain amount of iron -- which is exactly what people did back during the gold standard.
Let's take on something more ephemeral, like comparing Madonna to Bach. Who has more value? Well, it depends on whether you are talking about lasting value or not. Bach certainly has more lasting value. He has more information that can be tapped into by more people over a longer period of time. In the end, the music of Bach is more generative than the music of Madonna. However, as you well know, there are people who would happily smash every Bach recording in the world for a pair of Madonna tickets. While it certainly is unlikely that Madonna will continue to retain her value after her recording career ends, that does not negate her value now. More, Madonna shows that she has more current economic value than does Bach -- though Bach has lasting value. Thus, value is not found exclusively in the realm of economics. In the economy, value is measured by money -- thus, we often confuse price and value -- but that is not the only way to measure value.
It is important to understand these distinctions so we are not misusing the term "value," as people too often do. The value of an education is measured differently than the value of Madonna tickets. But one pays for both. One pays for Bach as well, but that's not the entire measure of his value. If one is measuring "lasting value" as we find in the arts and philosophy, at one time, and economic value another, we are in one sense measuring two different things. Whatever value an object has above its immediate cost is a gift -- things with lasting value are a gift to generations on end. In capitalism, one may have a hard time measuring and adjusting for this kind of value, precisely because it's not measurable by cost (and there has even been research done to show that economic value is not entirely measurable by cost, as a great innovator only earns less than 5% of the value of his innovation -- the rest is distributed throughout the economy, to the benefit of everyone), but that is not the fault of capitalism per se. It is more a fault of the measure of value itself, which is difficult at best, in no small part because of its being subjective. If something has lasting value, that is only because a certain number of people over time have continued to hold it in value. There is a changing group dynamic that results in the retention of value over long periods of time, precisely because those objects, ideas, etc. retain high informational content.
In 2005, by April, Frankfurt's philosophical treatise "On Bullshit" had sold 150,000 copies. Alain de Botton was a best seller too with his "Consolations of Philosophy," which also became a series for PBS. I honestly don't know what the numbers are for works of philosophy in general, but I would guess that far more philosophy is being read and discussed now than ever before -- and I would argue that that has everything to do with capitalism. And, perhaps, with whatever scraps of capitalism are actually involved in our educational system. Of course any work by some idiot politician or demagogue sells better than a great contemporary philosopher -- but 1) that was something Plato complained about in his own day, and 2) I would be willing to bet that even Plato is more readily accessible and more widely read now than he has ever been. I would say that the numbers of people having high quality discussions of philosophy are much greater now than ever before, even if their percentage has gone down -- only meaning that, there are far more bad discussions of philosophy simply because there are more discussions of philosophy overall. That has come about with the wealth created by capitalism, the access to great works created by capitalism, and the education provided by capitalism. Which doesn't mean we can't still do a better job. I think we do a horrible job of educating our children up through college -- and don't do too much better there anymore. That has everything to do with bad education theories, though. No second language until high school? Complete nonsense, with what we know about language acquisition. And middle school kids love Homer -- but no Homer for them. And no philosophy, because you can't teach ethics or values in school (even though, in fact, everyone does).
Just a few more thoughts I just now had.
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