When society breaks down, Mad Max-style, those who were once known as Republicans will gather in the rubble and worship the Laffer Curve.
Free enterprise works great for lots of things. I sell my labor and the output of my labor for money; I use that money to buy things like beer and video games. If I don’t like the current person selling me beer and/or video games, I find a different vendor. It’s not perfect. Without reasonable regulation, it is a system prone to generating tons of externalities such as pollution, cruel working conditions and useless smart watches. But, all in all, it works well for a lot of sectors of the economy.
The problem is many of our elected officials view capitalism, particularly the American-style corporate structure, as the ideal for every sector of the economy and the optimal environment for every worker. But health care and education don’t operate the same way as beer and video games.
We’ve seen evidence that free market forces don’t automatically make these systems work better. Milwaukee’s voucher system is almost 25 years old, and, by and large, students attending voucher programs still do no better than the students attending public schools. In fact, voucher students usually score a little worse on reading and math tests. But Republicans continue to dogmatically believe that competition will make schools better, so now the voucher program will get a radical statewide expansion.
This obsession with making schools operate more like business is doubly tragic. Milwaukee schools need change, but Democrats are too complacent with the status quo and Republicans keep pursuing the same voucher plans that haven’t done anything meaningful for a quarter of a century.
At least Milwaukee’s public schools were troubled. For some reason, Republicans feel we need to mess with a statewide school system that continues to produce some of the highest ACT scores and graduation rates in the country.
When it comes to schools, the mantra is: If it ain’t broke, well, keep trying to break it. I’m sure we’ll manage to break it eventually.
That same mantra is now being applied to the UW System. Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee just gave the chancellors of the UW campuses sweeping new powers over students, faculty and staff. The idea is that they want chancellors to operate as campus CEOs.
Our system of higher education has some problems with it. Tuition is climbing too fast, faculty members are directed to chase out-of-state students, powerful donors and federal grants instead of focusing on teaching and research. Giving chancellors more power solves none of these problems. In fact, giving faculty, staff and students less of a voice will only make things worse.
The failure of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) shows what happens when government acts more like a business. Sometimes government works best when it operates like government — focusing on collaboration rather than competition, serving citizens more than serving economic efficiency. But this is a legislature that focuses more on what best fits their ideology instead of what actually, you know, works.