Firstly, and as always, examples of civil discourse are paramount during this time period in American consciousness, so I commend both of you for proceeding with your arguments amicably. Secondly, I used to believe that property tax did give higher wage earners better schools, thereby providing their children with a better education. (I did question if equal distribution of federal funds would ever really solve that problem, considering that the States must make up the deficit with the taxes they impose. Since municipalities are not equal in regard to property values, let alone States, there would always be an imbalance of funding for public schools. ie Mississippi schools would always lack in funding compared to New York schools, simply because Mississippi cannot tax its citizens at the rate New York can.) However, when i taught high school for eight years, I soon realized what was meant by the old axiom "throwing money at a problem." The second to last high school where I taught was T.C. Williams of Remember the Titans fame. Located in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the wealthiest cities in America, T.C. Williams had just opened its doors to a new, state of the art facility. Every student received a tax funded laptop as well as access to city wide free WIFI. The class sizes where reduced, which not only made my life bearable (I taught four classes of English rather than five), but students had a better learning environment. The laundry list of new public school services funded through tax dollars was extensive. BUT T.C. Williams had a student population in which 54% were on free or reduced lunch, meaning the majority of students came from economically poor households. The high school, I believe, was 130th out of 134th in state performance; in fact, all this money was poured into public education because the State Government of Virginia was threatening to take the school away from City Officials. And still, midway through the school year, I had sixteen students in danger of failing for the year simply because they did not do the work assigned to them. My point is that the equal distribution of tax dollars to fund education will never solve the problem of an elitist ideology that values a college degree over functional skillsets NOR the inexorable conditions of a child's home life, where many are without one or both parents and have no cultural understanding of the value and, yes, privilege of a free education, even one that is funded at the bare minimum.
Bessner seems not to have learned the salient point about planned economies. When an economy is planned, bureaucrats limit the number of attempts where people can be successful for a variety of non-market reasons. But market-based economies (meritocracy) offer an infinite number of attempts because it is politically neutral. In a planned economy, the odds of an Elon Musk or a Bill Gates making it through the system is much lower than in a planned economy. This is the reason why there are so few important inventions that were produced by the Soviets, and why so little of the art and culture they created is of use today.
I think we have heard about enough from Bessner in this format. This is the third time I’ve heard him on this show. I’m disappointed Dr. Loury doesn’t push back more. I understand why bc Dr. Loury is not a historian and Bessner is. But when Bessner makes what seem to me to be statements unsupportable by facts without strong refutation, it becomes difficult to continue to listen. Bessner had a smug know-it-all delivery that is quite off putting. Dr. Loury’s humility in knowing the limits of his knowledge is not matched by Bessner in any meaningful way. Bessner comes off as wholly anti-American as well as anti-capitalist. At least on that latter point, I would expect Dr. Loury to vigorously contest his assertions. Long story short, I hope if he is invited back the counter arguments to his assertions are more robustly delivered.
I was really struck by how through the whole interview he keeps saying he's a historian and he looks at history and the history is this. Then when it came to the topic of what is human nature, that is apparently a great mystery yet to be unpacked.
Really enjoyed this discussion; Dr Bessner is an awesome guest. Though I see 3 major errors in his reasoning in this discussion:
(1) Merit Motte and Bailey: Dr Bessner starts off the meritocracy discussion by saying meritocracy is a "joke" (the "bailey"). Dr Bessner makes the strong claim that all instances of success / hierarchy are based on things other than merit (such as the intellectual capabilities between ivy league and non ivy league schools). He even extends this argument to scientific ideas (like game theory), saying the defining factor for the emergence of scientific ideas is Power, and not intellectual merit (which may be true in the history literature, where falsifiability and a priori predictiveness seem to be forgone conclusions). This argument on its face is reductionist, and pretty easy to discredit (by simply making an appeal to variability in competence levels within any species, including humans --- or by appealing to the predictive utility of different theories that "Power" has no control over). But interestingly, when Dr Loury presses Dr Bessner on the predictive utility of game theory and other foundational theories in economics, he retreats to a position that's easier to defend: the theories do have intellectual merit, but Power played a role in their selection (the "motte").
(2) Selective appeal to "history" as evidence: Throughout the discussion, Dr Bessner frequently rebuts Dr Loury's points by saying something along the lines of: "Where in recent history do we see evidence of that happening?". Then when Dr Loury poses the same question, (paraphrasing) "Where is this utopian, non-capitalistic society", Dr Bessner's response is (paraphrasing) "Nation-states have only been around for 350 years, give it time". Dr Bessner, if you really believe that's a good defense (which it very well may be), then you have to retract all your prior rebuttals where you use the same argument against Dr Loury. Otherwise, you aren't being internally consistent.
(3) Unclear terminology: Dr Bessner's central thesis is that all bad things in the world (poverty, inequality, war, colonialism, environmental waste and destruction) are caused by capitalism. While the argument itself is a bit weak on its face (given all the historical instances of poverty, inequality, war, imperialism, env damage that predate modern capitalism), it would still help if he gave a clear definition of what he means here. My guess is his definition of capitalism is: modern industry & technology, massive corporations, and regulatory capture. If so, he should specify, otherwise his claims are vague and unfalsifiable.
I love the back and forth between Dr Loury and Dr Bessner, and very much appreciate his perspective. I hope he continues to be a guest on the Glenn Show. However, in this discussion specifically, I think it would have helped if he was a bit more consistent and a bit more specific.
Side note: Dr Bessner laments that modern science "fetishizes" quantitative theories. He blames the irrational want for certainty. However, the emphasis on quant could just as easily be explained by the frustration of dealing with unfalsifiable, vaguely defined, internally inconsistent "theories" from historically nonscientific disciplines. Obsessing over certainty might be irrational, but Dr Bessner clear overconfidence in his own discipline (history and political science) seems much more intellectually problematic than the "fetishization" of mathematical theories, who's predictions can actually be empirically tested a priori and are required to be internally consistent. I understand that history is not necessarily aimed at being a science (where predictiveness, consistency, and counterfactual reasoning are), that's totally fine. Taking aim at the quantitative nature of the sciences from the humanities department is throwing stones from a glass house.
I was impressed with Bessner's previous appearances on the Glenn Show. It's very disappointing to discover how warped his view of the Cold War is. I agree that US power has often been misused its power and I'd like to see less foreign intervention. OTOH, I find it bizarre that he thinks the US did more damage than the USSR, which had an explicit goal of spreading socialism across the entire world.
Like Bessner, I am skeptical about the proper role of NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, former members of the Warsaw Pact joined NATO to gain protection from Russia, not because they were forced by the US. I agree that Europeans should be more responsible for European security and am happy that Europeans seem to feel that way more in the last few weeks. I think Ukraine shouldn't have given up their nuclear weapons.
Overall, Bessner is right to criticize bad US foreign policy, but has giant blind spots WRT the authoritarian and increasingly totalitarian states of Russia and China. He should be aware of how difficult it would be to criticize them as a citizen vs. criticizing the most powerful state in the history of the world as a citizen. Perhaps it is good that the US does not have the unquestioned dominance it did in 1991. Would things be better if the Chinese Communist Party had influence in every developing nation because of its development projects? Maybe they don't want to export Communism with Chinese Characteristics, but they certainly aren't in favor of liberal values like individual freedom.
The property taxes argument is a red herring. The implication that more money = better outcomes is not supported by anything. Ever since the federal Dept of Ed was founded, more money has gone into schooling with results going in the opposite direction. Property taxes are not the sum total of school funding, just a portion of it, and every district includes kids from a variety of backgrounds. You cannot excuse the state of the Chicago public school system on the basis of how ad valorem taxes are distributed.
Much of what has happened is Human Behavior 101, specifically that you will get more of what is tolerated or encouraged. When a classroom is run by the few knuckleheads within it and they are not held to account, not only do the remaining kids lose out, the few are emboldened and perhaps additional knuckleheads emerge. When schools refuse to enforce either discipline or standards, you cannot pretend to be shocked by the lack of discipline or standards. There were stories months ago about Baltimore "graduating" young people who are illiterate. That's not due to property taxes; it's due to professional malpractice on the part of professional educrats who traffic in self-interest rather than student interest.
I would like to thank you Glenn for asking the obvious question: What society would you point to that is achieving the ideal you hold. There isn’t one, of course, and the question was almost dismissed out of hand. What I found fascinating was that Bessner actually believes that human nature itself can be changed. Not only that, but that it can’t really be accurately described. I would suggest he consult the Bible, Aristotle, or perhaps the great Russian novelists of the 19th century. I find it difficult believe any one remotely acquainted with the western canon could not form a reasonable idea of human nature. Finally, he blames capitalism for creating an “elite” he disapproves of. What would he replace them with in his utopia? I suspect he would replace them with himself. Somebody’s got to be in charge...
I must admit I struggled to listen to this. I'm a bit bummed that Dr. Loury didn't push back more aggressively on some of Dr. Bessner's more ridiculous points. Bessner is seemingly a Howard Zinn disciple. Every step the US has made has been in error and that we are the true evil. It lacks nuance. Many times in US history we have chosen not to intervene and it's often worked out to horrific ends. We have also intervened to exceeding results (I'll site the post WWII occupation of Japan). Created equal rights for the people, ushered in democracy, ultimately a largely market based system and created an example for the region of prosperity as their GDP and standard of living rose from obscurity to the 3rd largest economy in the world.... From a relatively small island. Capitalism is the root of all evil in Bessner's world and the US hegemony has been a predominant reign of terror. We have had our missteps, but this relatively short reign as the global hegemony has to be among the most benevolent in world history. It's educators like Bessner that make me concerned to send my kids to public schools. I'm 100% open to fair critiques of US engagements. I am, however, not okay with propaganda openly slandering this nation. I'll note - the nations he holds in such high esteem produce virtually no value (GDP/Capita is a joke) and have leaders that place the relative plight of their citizens about 20th on their list, while those politically connect to them are enriched beyond measure. Capitalism isn't perfect. Rent seekers ought to be sought out aggressively. I'm all about platforming people like this, but please don't treat them with kid gloves.
Bessner's wrong on school funding for four reasons:
1. Federalizing all school funding will diminish local power over their own schools. Schools, unions, and boards will have less incentive to listen to parents. They'll only need to satisfy party bosses to ensure they get proper cash flow. This is human nature (even if Bessner refuses to believe human nature is real or knowable).
2. School quality will suffer everywhere. As is the case with essentially everything run from the federal level. Again, it's human nature: things managed from afar are managed worse.
3. Educated parents will still find ways to give their kids a leg up whenever possible. Unless you're gonna outlaw tutors, extra schooling, private schools, parents helping kids with homework, and educated parents teaching kids passively through daily life, then you're never gonna get everyone on equal footing. It's a fool's errand. This is common knowledge to people who understand human nature.
4. Lastly, he ignores that school funding is actually not so disparate as it might first appear. I live in the DC/Balt area, and those two school districts are among the very highest in the country, and have some of the worst outcomes. The problem here is not lack of money. It's systemic. It's the way the money's (mis)spent, but more importantly, it's the fact that too many of the kids in those two cities grow up not valuing education, and grow up in homes where they get no support. Federal funding isn't going to fix those problems. In fact, both places enjoy heavy federal subsidies as it is. It hasn't made them better, and has likely made them worse.
Bessner may reject human nature, but this is exactly the problem with so much leftist thought: claiming the ability to change things deeply imbedded in our psychology and biology while ignoring the hard work that needs to be done by people, families, and communities to improve themselves.
I have learned in my 57yrs that the old saying is absolutely true... "Those who can't do, teach.." The VAST majority of professors are nothing but theoretical windbags who couldn't survive in the real world... and vastly, when from students, to teaching without ever being in the real world. Most professors could problem solve their way out of a wet paper bag if their life depended on it! They teach these lofty principles as though they are fact... when in reality, they could never, and will never work in the real world. The only ones who think they are smart are the 50% of the idiot students who, like the professor, have zero common sense or any experience what so ever.
I would have to reject that a world with Hayekian free markets is utopian seeing as free markets are supposed to be the best at negotiating priorities system-wide in the face of imperfections and scarcity. Free markets epitomize the phrase "there are no solutions, only tradeoffs" and thusly are better categorized as anti-utopian. Up to this point, I firmly believe that the perfect is the enemy of the good, much in the way that any genuine vision of utopia will come with it drastic consequences if honestly pursued.
Now if he were interested in an honest and empirical look at the ramifications of school choice in an inner city setting, Bessner should check out Sowell's "Charter Schools and Their Enemies," which actually came out rather recently. In it charter schools are not always miracle schools, but rarely do worse than their public school counterparts. The most crucial part in my mind was the analysis, in which Sowell outlines his criteria upon which to compare schools and qualifies these criteria thoroughly.
And lastly about his rebuttal to the Ivy leagues being meritocratic, which I am very much open to, the explanations given by Charles Murray in the first half of "The Bell Curve" might be satisfactory to explain why so many Ivy-leaguers come from the richer side of the spectrum. Briefly, the idea was that the Ivy leagues were more meritocratic in the early-to-mid 20th century and basically became a highfalutin way for more intelligent people to network with each other, equipped with a pipeline to positions of prestige within the business world. Inevitably when these people marry and have kids, most such families will be quite wealthy relative to the rest of the population, which contributes environmental pressures towards scholastic achievement. Further, the heritability of cognitive ability would further predispose children of these families to be successful in school. From there, the Ivy leagues can capture with frightening efficiency the top however many students into their graduating classes without looking outside families from the top 10% of the wealth distribution, and then the cycle continues when those students marry and have kids. And of course the Ivy leagues are happy with this setup because then they can seem virtuous by being need-blind in their admissions while still extracting plenty of money from the rich families of kids populating their rolls, both in the form of tuition and later in charitable giving to the school.
Firstly, and as always, examples of civil discourse are paramount during this time period in American consciousness, so I commend both of you for proceeding with your arguments amicably. Secondly, I used to believe that property tax did give higher wage earners better schools, thereby providing their children with a better education. (I did question if equal distribution of federal funds would ever really solve that problem, considering that the States must make up the deficit with the taxes they impose. Since municipalities are not equal in regard to property values, let alone States, there would always be an imbalance of funding for public schools. ie Mississippi schools would always lack in funding compared to New York schools, simply because Mississippi cannot tax its citizens at the rate New York can.) However, when i taught high school for eight years, I soon realized what was meant by the old axiom "throwing money at a problem." The second to last high school where I taught was T.C. Williams of Remember the Titans fame. Located in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the wealthiest cities in America, T.C. Williams had just opened its doors to a new, state of the art facility. Every student received a tax funded laptop as well as access to city wide free WIFI. The class sizes where reduced, which not only made my life bearable (I taught four classes of English rather than five), but students had a better learning environment. The laundry list of new public school services funded through tax dollars was extensive. BUT T.C. Williams had a student population in which 54% were on free or reduced lunch, meaning the majority of students came from economically poor households. The high school, I believe, was 130th out of 134th in state performance; in fact, all this money was poured into public education because the State Government of Virginia was threatening to take the school away from City Officials. And still, midway through the school year, I had sixteen students in danger of failing for the year simply because they did not do the work assigned to them. My point is that the equal distribution of tax dollars to fund education will never solve the problem of an elitist ideology that values a college degree over functional skillsets NOR the inexorable conditions of a child's home life, where many are without one or both parents and have no cultural understanding of the value and, yes, privilege of a free education, even one that is funded at the bare minimum.
Bessner seems not to have learned the salient point about planned economies. When an economy is planned, bureaucrats limit the number of attempts where people can be successful for a variety of non-market reasons. But market-based economies (meritocracy) offer an infinite number of attempts because it is politically neutral. In a planned economy, the odds of an Elon Musk or a Bill Gates making it through the system is much lower than in a planned economy. This is the reason why there are so few important inventions that were produced by the Soviets, and why so little of the art and culture they created is of use today.
I think we have heard about enough from Bessner in this format. This is the third time I’ve heard him on this show. I’m disappointed Dr. Loury doesn’t push back more. I understand why bc Dr. Loury is not a historian and Bessner is. But when Bessner makes what seem to me to be statements unsupportable by facts without strong refutation, it becomes difficult to continue to listen. Bessner had a smug know-it-all delivery that is quite off putting. Dr. Loury’s humility in knowing the limits of his knowledge is not matched by Bessner in any meaningful way. Bessner comes off as wholly anti-American as well as anti-capitalist. At least on that latter point, I would expect Dr. Loury to vigorously contest his assertions. Long story short, I hope if he is invited back the counter arguments to his assertions are more robustly delivered.
I was really struck by how through the whole interview he keeps saying he's a historian and he looks at history and the history is this. Then when it came to the topic of what is human nature, that is apparently a great mystery yet to be unpacked.
Really enjoyed this discussion; Dr Bessner is an awesome guest. Though I see 3 major errors in his reasoning in this discussion:
(1) Merit Motte and Bailey: Dr Bessner starts off the meritocracy discussion by saying meritocracy is a "joke" (the "bailey"). Dr Bessner makes the strong claim that all instances of success / hierarchy are based on things other than merit (such as the intellectual capabilities between ivy league and non ivy league schools). He even extends this argument to scientific ideas (like game theory), saying the defining factor for the emergence of scientific ideas is Power, and not intellectual merit (which may be true in the history literature, where falsifiability and a priori predictiveness seem to be forgone conclusions). This argument on its face is reductionist, and pretty easy to discredit (by simply making an appeal to variability in competence levels within any species, including humans --- or by appealing to the predictive utility of different theories that "Power" has no control over). But interestingly, when Dr Loury presses Dr Bessner on the predictive utility of game theory and other foundational theories in economics, he retreats to a position that's easier to defend: the theories do have intellectual merit, but Power played a role in their selection (the "motte").
(2) Selective appeal to "history" as evidence: Throughout the discussion, Dr Bessner frequently rebuts Dr Loury's points by saying something along the lines of: "Where in recent history do we see evidence of that happening?". Then when Dr Loury poses the same question, (paraphrasing) "Where is this utopian, non-capitalistic society", Dr Bessner's response is (paraphrasing) "Nation-states have only been around for 350 years, give it time". Dr Bessner, if you really believe that's a good defense (which it very well may be), then you have to retract all your prior rebuttals where you use the same argument against Dr Loury. Otherwise, you aren't being internally consistent.
(3) Unclear terminology: Dr Bessner's central thesis is that all bad things in the world (poverty, inequality, war, colonialism, environmental waste and destruction) are caused by capitalism. While the argument itself is a bit weak on its face (given all the historical instances of poverty, inequality, war, imperialism, env damage that predate modern capitalism), it would still help if he gave a clear definition of what he means here. My guess is his definition of capitalism is: modern industry & technology, massive corporations, and regulatory capture. If so, he should specify, otherwise his claims are vague and unfalsifiable.
I love the back and forth between Dr Loury and Dr Bessner, and very much appreciate his perspective. I hope he continues to be a guest on the Glenn Show. However, in this discussion specifically, I think it would have helped if he was a bit more consistent and a bit more specific.
Side note: Dr Bessner laments that modern science "fetishizes" quantitative theories. He blames the irrational want for certainty. However, the emphasis on quant could just as easily be explained by the frustration of dealing with unfalsifiable, vaguely defined, internally inconsistent "theories" from historically nonscientific disciplines. Obsessing over certainty might be irrational, but Dr Bessner clear overconfidence in his own discipline (history and political science) seems much more intellectually problematic than the "fetishization" of mathematical theories, who's predictions can actually be empirically tested a priori and are required to be internally consistent. I understand that history is not necessarily aimed at being a science (where predictiveness, consistency, and counterfactual reasoning are), that's totally fine. Taking aim at the quantitative nature of the sciences from the humanities department is throwing stones from a glass house.
I was impressed with Bessner's previous appearances on the Glenn Show. It's very disappointing to discover how warped his view of the Cold War is. I agree that US power has often been misused its power and I'd like to see less foreign intervention. OTOH, I find it bizarre that he thinks the US did more damage than the USSR, which had an explicit goal of spreading socialism across the entire world.
Like Bessner, I am skeptical about the proper role of NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, former members of the Warsaw Pact joined NATO to gain protection from Russia, not because they were forced by the US. I agree that Europeans should be more responsible for European security and am happy that Europeans seem to feel that way more in the last few weeks. I think Ukraine shouldn't have given up their nuclear weapons.
Overall, Bessner is right to criticize bad US foreign policy, but has giant blind spots WRT the authoritarian and increasingly totalitarian states of Russia and China. He should be aware of how difficult it would be to criticize them as a citizen vs. criticizing the most powerful state in the history of the world as a citizen. Perhaps it is good that the US does not have the unquestioned dominance it did in 1991. Would things be better if the Chinese Communist Party had influence in every developing nation because of its development projects? Maybe they don't want to export Communism with Chinese Characteristics, but they certainly aren't in favor of liberal values like individual freedom.
The property taxes argument is a red herring. The implication that more money = better outcomes is not supported by anything. Ever since the federal Dept of Ed was founded, more money has gone into schooling with results going in the opposite direction. Property taxes are not the sum total of school funding, just a portion of it, and every district includes kids from a variety of backgrounds. You cannot excuse the state of the Chicago public school system on the basis of how ad valorem taxes are distributed.
Much of what has happened is Human Behavior 101, specifically that you will get more of what is tolerated or encouraged. When a classroom is run by the few knuckleheads within it and they are not held to account, not only do the remaining kids lose out, the few are emboldened and perhaps additional knuckleheads emerge. When schools refuse to enforce either discipline or standards, you cannot pretend to be shocked by the lack of discipline or standards. There were stories months ago about Baltimore "graduating" young people who are illiterate. That's not due to property taxes; it's due to professional malpractice on the part of professional educrats who traffic in self-interest rather than student interest.
I would like to thank you Glenn for asking the obvious question: What society would you point to that is achieving the ideal you hold. There isn’t one, of course, and the question was almost dismissed out of hand. What I found fascinating was that Bessner actually believes that human nature itself can be changed. Not only that, but that it can’t really be accurately described. I would suggest he consult the Bible, Aristotle, or perhaps the great Russian novelists of the 19th century. I find it difficult believe any one remotely acquainted with the western canon could not form a reasonable idea of human nature. Finally, he blames capitalism for creating an “elite” he disapproves of. What would he replace them with in his utopia? I suspect he would replace them with himself. Somebody’s got to be in charge...
I must admit I struggled to listen to this. I'm a bit bummed that Dr. Loury didn't push back more aggressively on some of Dr. Bessner's more ridiculous points. Bessner is seemingly a Howard Zinn disciple. Every step the US has made has been in error and that we are the true evil. It lacks nuance. Many times in US history we have chosen not to intervene and it's often worked out to horrific ends. We have also intervened to exceeding results (I'll site the post WWII occupation of Japan). Created equal rights for the people, ushered in democracy, ultimately a largely market based system and created an example for the region of prosperity as their GDP and standard of living rose from obscurity to the 3rd largest economy in the world.... From a relatively small island. Capitalism is the root of all evil in Bessner's world and the US hegemony has been a predominant reign of terror. We have had our missteps, but this relatively short reign as the global hegemony has to be among the most benevolent in world history. It's educators like Bessner that make me concerned to send my kids to public schools. I'm 100% open to fair critiques of US engagements. I am, however, not okay with propaganda openly slandering this nation. I'll note - the nations he holds in such high esteem produce virtually no value (GDP/Capita is a joke) and have leaders that place the relative plight of their citizens about 20th on their list, while those politically connect to them are enriched beyond measure. Capitalism isn't perfect. Rent seekers ought to be sought out aggressively. I'm all about platforming people like this, but please don't treat them with kid gloves.
Bessner's wrong on school funding for four reasons:
1. Federalizing all school funding will diminish local power over their own schools. Schools, unions, and boards will have less incentive to listen to parents. They'll only need to satisfy party bosses to ensure they get proper cash flow. This is human nature (even if Bessner refuses to believe human nature is real or knowable).
2. School quality will suffer everywhere. As is the case with essentially everything run from the federal level. Again, it's human nature: things managed from afar are managed worse.
3. Educated parents will still find ways to give their kids a leg up whenever possible. Unless you're gonna outlaw tutors, extra schooling, private schools, parents helping kids with homework, and educated parents teaching kids passively through daily life, then you're never gonna get everyone on equal footing. It's a fool's errand. This is common knowledge to people who understand human nature.
4. Lastly, he ignores that school funding is actually not so disparate as it might first appear. I live in the DC/Balt area, and those two school districts are among the very highest in the country, and have some of the worst outcomes. The problem here is not lack of money. It's systemic. It's the way the money's (mis)spent, but more importantly, it's the fact that too many of the kids in those two cities grow up not valuing education, and grow up in homes where they get no support. Federal funding isn't going to fix those problems. In fact, both places enjoy heavy federal subsidies as it is. It hasn't made them better, and has likely made them worse.
Bessner may reject human nature, but this is exactly the problem with so much leftist thought: claiming the ability to change things deeply imbedded in our psychology and biology while ignoring the hard work that needs to be done by people, families, and communities to improve themselves.
My IQ dropped listening to Bessner's arguments. He equates Adam Smith to Santa Clause, a fabulist .
My IQ went down listening to Bessner's idiotic arguments.
I think I could make just as strong of a case that we don't live in a democracy. Nobody rolls their eyes when someone claims that we do, though.
I'm a Glenn Show supporter and I'm logged into his Substack site, why can I only see a 13:24 excerpt of the full show?
I have learned in my 57yrs that the old saying is absolutely true... "Those who can't do, teach.." The VAST majority of professors are nothing but theoretical windbags who couldn't survive in the real world... and vastly, when from students, to teaching without ever being in the real world. Most professors could problem solve their way out of a wet paper bag if their life depended on it! They teach these lofty principles as though they are fact... when in reality, they could never, and will never work in the real world. The only ones who think they are smart are the 50% of the idiot students who, like the professor, have zero common sense or any experience what so ever.
I would have to reject that a world with Hayekian free markets is utopian seeing as free markets are supposed to be the best at negotiating priorities system-wide in the face of imperfections and scarcity. Free markets epitomize the phrase "there are no solutions, only tradeoffs" and thusly are better categorized as anti-utopian. Up to this point, I firmly believe that the perfect is the enemy of the good, much in the way that any genuine vision of utopia will come with it drastic consequences if honestly pursued.
Now if he were interested in an honest and empirical look at the ramifications of school choice in an inner city setting, Bessner should check out Sowell's "Charter Schools and Their Enemies," which actually came out rather recently. In it charter schools are not always miracle schools, but rarely do worse than their public school counterparts. The most crucial part in my mind was the analysis, in which Sowell outlines his criteria upon which to compare schools and qualifies these criteria thoroughly.
And lastly about his rebuttal to the Ivy leagues being meritocratic, which I am very much open to, the explanations given by Charles Murray in the first half of "The Bell Curve" might be satisfactory to explain why so many Ivy-leaguers come from the richer side of the spectrum. Briefly, the idea was that the Ivy leagues were more meritocratic in the early-to-mid 20th century and basically became a highfalutin way for more intelligent people to network with each other, equipped with a pipeline to positions of prestige within the business world. Inevitably when these people marry and have kids, most such families will be quite wealthy relative to the rest of the population, which contributes environmental pressures towards scholastic achievement. Further, the heritability of cognitive ability would further predispose children of these families to be successful in school. From there, the Ivy leagues can capture with frightening efficiency the top however many students into their graduating classes without looking outside families from the top 10% of the wealth distribution, and then the cycle continues when those students marry and have kids. And of course the Ivy leagues are happy with this setup because then they can seem virtuous by being need-blind in their admissions while still extracting plenty of money from the rich families of kids populating their rolls, both in the form of tuition and later in charitable giving to the school.