British statesman Benjamin Disraeli once said that “Youth is the trustee of prosperity”. He was right. Today’s youth are the key to tomorrow’s prosperity indeed. But what if today’s youth do not learn how a free market economy works? Or worse, what if they are only exposed to ideas that are actually detrimental to the creation of wealth? Let’s face it, high schools and universities today could do a whole lot more in promoting free-market thinking. Students are more likely to hear about the evils of capitalism than the benefits of markets.
History records that most intellectuals passionately loathe capitalism. Pierre Trudeau and Jack Layton are good examples. What damage does this bias in academia cause to the national well-being? This imbalance in the education of our youth helps to maintain a climate of public opinion that is reflexively for big government and against markets.
Instead of giving markets a chance, people influenced by this thinking instinctively turn to government while vote-seeking politicians trip over each other to promise the electorate what they want. Teaching our youth that competition and profit are somehow wrong does not bode well for this country’s economic future. Just compare any market driven economy to one that is government controlled? Why do we allow so much of the wrong economic beliefs to penetrate so deeply into our educational systems?
The “Left” appeals to emotional ideology while conveniently ignoring and side stepping the real facts related to their “feel good” ideas. Youth, in general, are an easy target for the Left’s clarion call for support of social justice, Kyoto, increases to personal and corporate taxes, UN leadership and appeasement, universal health-care, multi-culturalism, bi-lingualism, higher minimum wages, price controls, government monopolies and high tariffs etc. Who cares that these actions cannot stand the test of history, reality and their unintended factual consequences. Many are simply inaccurate, meaningless and worse, harmful. But why let the facts stand in the way of any good cause eh? Youth have all the one-sided facts answers already conveniently supplied by their tax payer supported education system.
Why would teachers preach competition and choice when their unions and indeed their government supported levels of pay, benefits, work rules and pensions depend on them being protected from any real threat of taxpayer choice and private sector competition?
Mickey Moulder