Education in a democracy: rationalised rant

[David]

I sneered:

> > Surely one of the main aims of education policy in a democracy 
is to maintain an underclass to make the rest feel they are doing 
well?

Haggridd quivered:

> The theory is that an educated citizenry will be an educated 
> electorate.  It seems that a person's perspective on democracy is 
> affected by that person's allegiance to some other form of 
> governance.  I shudder to speculate as to which that might be.

That person?  Who?  Oh, you mean *me*!  **Turns pink with 
pleasure**  High praise indeed!  Who wants governance anyway?

(Do you mind if I don't start shouting 'I demand satisfaction!  Name 
your seconds!  Have at thee, varlet!'?  I would probably lose 
interest half-way through the duel and walk away, adversely 
affecting the entertainment value for spectators.)

Yeah, well, technic'ly, an educated citizenry will be an educated 
electorate.  *Technic'ly*, you could say that.

Here's how it works:

Assumptions:

Politicians are mostly decent, well-meaning, intelligent people who 
want to do what's right for their citizens;

People are mostly decent, well-meaning people who want to do what's 
best for their children;

People are mostly prepared to settle for an arrangement that is fair 
to everybody, even if they don't get everything they want;

People's perception (and here's the killer) of what is fair is 
biased toward their own interest.

Observation:

An organisation or any kind of corporate structure can have aims 
which are never stated, and are not held by any one person who is 
part of that organisation or body.

The argument:

People vote for the politicians who promise them the most, within 
some envelope of fairness and credibility (my dad claims that at the 
time of their precipitous decline between the wars, the UK Liberals 
campaigned on the slogan 'vote Liberal for free food' - promises are 
not enough).

The politicians then go about putting their policy into practice, 
always bearing in mind that they must work within the constraints of 
their mandate, public opinion, and the next election.  They may have 
some bright ideas that really do benefit the vast majority of the 
population without breaking the bank; if so, they are put into 
practice quickly, all the other parties claim it was their idea all 
along, and the electorate discounts the benefits long before the 
next election, which is fought on the differentials between what's 
offered at the time.

Pretty soon they come up against a decision which will involve 
sacrificing the interests of some for the benefit of others.  What 
do they do?  They make a political calculation.  Will the proposed 
change lead to a situation resulting in defeat for them (other 
things being equal!)?  If the answer is yes, they can go ahead 
anyway, see themselves punished at the polls, and the policy 
defeated.  Or they can pull the policy themselves: same result for 
the policy but they are still in power.  (Of course, it's far more 
complicated than this as there are lots of policy areas going on at 
once which the voters will be affected by, so if you can pull off a 
good war abroad you might risk some unpopular policies at home.  But 
then you've definitely left the zone of 'decent, well-meaning'.)

In essence, politicians are constrained by what they think they can 
get away with in front of the electorate, the key point being that 
this doesn't only apply to selfish and corrupt acts but also 
altruistic ones.

So, the crucial element is the political calculation.  I think, once 
you have got the easy ones out of the way (those which have a clear 
net win or are out of the question), the hard decisions will cluster 
around those which tend to benefit a small majority slightly while 
causing a few to suffer considerably, or a larger minority to suffer 
somewhat.  The majority who benefit will see such decisions as fair 
becasue assumption 4 above causes them to discount the ill-effects 
on others, while perceiving what is in fact a skew in their own 
favour as being a rectification of a slight injustice.  Some of the 
smarter politicians may well realise what is going on, but they are 
largely powerless.  The electoral dynamics paint them into a corner 
with the others.

(Note.  The precise meaning of 'majority' will depend on the system 
of elective representation; where proportional representation is not 
used, a large minority may at times be the beneficiaries rather than 
a small majority.  At other times a larger majority will have to be 
placated.)

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

So, if education is to *support* democracy, rather than merely be a 
by-product as I have described above, perhaps it should concentrate 
on encouraging children to see their own interests impartially.  I 
think such a project would be guaranteed to fail, because it would 
enrage parents.

On a more personal note, I'm broadly with Churchill on the question 
of democracy: I disapprove of it, but the other systems are worse.  
At least in a democracy 51% of the populace oppresses the other 49%, 
whereas in other systems the ratio is much worse.

Of course, I disapprove of the human race, too, so I'm not quite in 
the same corner as Churchill.

David