Samizdat #2

Interview with a teacher

So, how do you feel about working for Inequality Schools International?

Well, the name really says it all. No matter what sort of propaganda the school may make about making kids good or smart, the bottom line is that they are helping privileged kids continue to enjoy the advantages of privilege. I mean un-earned privileges. These kids are getting the tools which guarantee that they will enjoy their superior status in the future.

(Wait a minute! Are you a communist?)
No, but I don’t believe in capitalism either. Look, the problem is that a parent works hard and saves money. He gives it to his kids. The kids grow up with advantages that other kids don’t have. You multiply that and you get increasing wealth inequality.
(Editor's Note: This is a very sketchy argument, but it could be made more exact. See Robin Hahnel, The ABC's of Political Economy, Pluto Press, Chapter Three.)

(But that’s not the school’s fault.)
No, it’s not the school’s fault. But there are some facts here you can’t ignore. Let me put it like this. I could see what sort of place this really is the first month I worked here. We had a special meeting for IB students. There were maybe eight adults sitting around the table, teachers, the school’s director, and I don’t know who else. And we were all discussing, one-by-one, how each student was doing. We were micro-managing their performance. And these kids were not especially talented or clever. But here they were getting so much attention. And about the same time I remember reading a story in the local newspapers about Roma kids in the east of the country who don’t have running water or even shoes. That sort of drastic wealth inequality is immoral. Here we were paying obsessive, even superstitious detail to these kids, and other kids, probably no less intelligent or deserving, had no shoes and no running water. I say it's superstitious because I doubt whether such excessive attention really accomplishes anything; for example, it means the kids have little chance to develop independently. But the main point is that we have fantastic wealth inequality, inequality of resources, for no good reason. Is the school doing anything to%2