What we're discussing, and what's important, is relative income differentials.
You're right. This is what we're discussing. And I'm saying that comparing relative income differentials is pointless when the bell curve of America is skewed so much farther ahead than Finland's and most other nations. If your argument is that Finland's education system is superior because there is more equality, then fine. But I do not believe that this is what education is about. I believe that education is about providing options, and that in measuring an educational system it's important to examine things like: Best colleges available, and what outcomes the system produces. If you are going to have an equal system that produces a median level that is close to our poverty line, then in my view you are just shooting blanks.
If the outcomes for Americans are 75% better than the median of a given nation that has very equal results, then what do I care about those equal results? We have better mean and median results to rest our laurels on.
I don't want to live in a society that promotes equal poverty. That is my choice, but the Fins can have their own thing, and they can measure their happiness however they feel. But the bottom line is that their basket of goods, even with that great education, doesn't measure up to America. Their contribution to the world isn't quite what it is in America.
I also think it is improper to point at differing outcomes and not take into account the individual decisions that lead to those outcomes. Again, if everyone just plops their butt in the seat and pays attention to the teacher, we don't have this problem and America would likely have a median income of at least $50,000 a year, a mean income of about $80,000 a year. A higher HDI, a higher Peace Index, and maybe, just maybe, even a higher self perceived happiness rating. I went to a poor school, and had a less than ideal circumstance growing up. And although I didn't go to Harvard, I still went to a university that is categorically better than any college in Finland. And that's what meritocracy, capitalism, responsibility, integrity, and hard work is all about. That is what produces a genuine level of happiness, and leads to a productive society. To begrudge our system over Finland's when a middle class country boy who grew up in the sticks of depressed Ohio is silly in my book.
Also, what you describe in your criticism of education in America isn't an unequal distribution in opportunity. What you are criticizing is an unequal level of results. The bottom line is that if every poor family raised their kids like my poor family (we were poor starting out) raised me, we wouldn't have to talk about this. I imagine that Finland's great educational are a result of their culture. Not because of socio-economic conditions. They are obviously poorer than Americans, yet have higher educational achievement in high school. This indicates to me, that Finland, despite their economic inferiority to America, is able to plop their butts down in the chair and pay attention to their teachers, resulting in better results (but not necessarily accurately gauging opportunity). America's problems when it comes to economic or educational outcomes is a social problem, and does not in any way shape or form reflect the actual
opportunity that is there. If everyone went to school and paid attention, the results would be better, but it wouldn't change the opportunity presented. I also do not thinking that banning private schools and shuffling the deck of teachers and having equal per capita student spending will change outcomes, or adjust opportunity.
I also think that socio-economic mobility is an erroneous economic indicator when compared to more broader statistics such as average or median income. What does it matter that you can move up a quintile in Europe if the quintile you move into is still a worse condition than living below the poverty line in America? American's earn more money and our income brackets are larger than any other nation. Therefore it will
always be more difficult for people to move up to the next rung of society. And what does moving up a rung on societies ladder even matter to society? I move up, some other chump moved down. Hell, he might have even gotten a good raise this year, but that schmuck is still in the lower bracket. The quintiles will always be filled. What matters much more to me than whether people move up income brackets is what the brackets actually measure and the real opportunity that exists to climb them, not the measure of results in education or socio-economic demographics. It's just an awful measure if you look at it through a critical lens. Even more worse when you ignore individual decisions that lead to individual results in life.
And also, of course GDP is evidence of good educational opportunity. Are you really, seriously, arguing otherwise? Your country has two or three colleges in the top 100 on earth. And none of them are all that spectacular. We have dozens. We dominate the top ten, the top 20, the top 50. Schools that service thousands, upon thousands of students. What do you think has led to this? Egalitarian ideals? No, of course not. Production has led to it. Commerce has led to it. The willingness to spend money on education has led to it. Our production and our money attracts the worlds best and brightest professors. Those dozens of fantastic universities paid for by production (a non-coincidental circular relationship mind you) is opportunity in and of itself. You will have an exceptionally difficult task at hand trying to convince that a student who plops himself down in the chain in the American classroom, no matter how underfunded or under resourced, has a better chance at success than in any of your universal European models.
