Libertarian Milton Friedman, Betsy DeVos Aided Segregation, Privatized Public Education- 'Choice'

[appalachiablue]

= 1980.

- How Milton Friedman Aided and Abetted Segregationists in His Quest to Privatize Public Education.' - By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, Sept. 2021. - Ed.

Yves here. It should come as no surprise the Milton Friedman was willing to get in bed with just about anyone to advance his libertarian anarchist agenda. This post shows how Friedman, even in the era when his economic theories didn’t have much of a following, was nevertheless able to do real harm, here by backing school voucher schemes designed to preserve school segregation after Brown v. the Board of Education. - By Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History & Public Policy, Duke University. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website.

The year 2021 has proved a landmark for the “school choice” cause as Republican control of a majority of state legislatures combined with pandemic learning disruptions to set the stage for multiple victories. Seven U.S. states have created new “school choice” programs & eleven others have expanded current programs, with laws that authorize taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schooling, provide tax credits, & authorize educational savings accounts to invite parents to abandon public schools.

- “School choice” sounds like it offers options. But my new INET Working Papershows that the whole concept, as first implemented in the U.S. South in the mid-1950s in defiance of Brown v. Board of Education, aimed to block the choice of equal, integrated education for Black families. -

Further, Milton Friedman, soon to become the best-known neoliberal economist in the world, abetted the push for private schooling that states in the U.S. South used to evade the reach of the ruling, which only applied to public schools. So, too, did other libertarians endorse the segregationist tool, including founders of the cause that today avidly pushes private schooling. Among them were Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Robert Lefevre, Isabel Patterson, Felix Morley, Henry Regnery, trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), & the William Volker Fund, which helped underwrite the American wing of the Mont Pelerin Society, the nerve center of neoliberalism.

Friedman & his allies saw in the backlash to the desegregation decree an opportunity they could leverage to advance their goal of privatizing government services & resources. Whatever their personal beliefs about race & racism, they helped Jim Crow survive in America by providing ostensibly race-neutral arguments for tax subsidies to the private schools sought by white supremacists. Indeed, to achieve court-proof vouchers, leading defenders of segregation learned from the libertarians that the best strategy was to abandon overtly racist rationales & embrace both an anti-government stance & a positive rubric of liberty, competition, & market choice. Friedman published his first manifesto for “educational freedom” in 1955—just as conservative white leaders in Virginia were inciting a regionwide strategy of “massive resistance” to the mandate to desegregate public schooling...

- More, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/09/how-milton-friedman-aided-and-abetted-segregationists-in-his-quest-to-privatize-public-education.html
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- 'Milton Friedman, Betsy DeVos, and the Privatization of Public Education.' For almost twenty-five years, Betsy DeVos has been one of the most dogged political operatives in the movement to privatize public education. Joanne Barkan, Dissent Magazine, Jan. 17, 2017.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/betsy-devos-milton-friedman-public-education-privatization

[marble falls]

1. Took this long to recognize that?

[appalachiablue]

5. The number of people unaware of the origins

of the movement and duped by claims of choice, 'parents rights' and vouchers- the free market libertarian mantra, isn't as small as many would think. Including some teachers and minority groups. The articles trace the real motives and results over decades and the serious damage to public education. Warranted explanation.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Libertarian Milton supported the coup against Allende in Chile.

Libertarian Peter Theil supports closed borders/is openly hostile to minorities.

Every Libertarian is an authoritarian at heart.

[TheRealNorth]

4. Exactly

Think of them like wannabe medieval lords. They want to be free to do ANYTHING that THEY want to, and have the courts in their back pocket, and use the police/military if you object to being trampled by them.

[Dawson Leery]

11. Again, Libertarian Larry Elder is quite authoritarian.

[appalachiablue]

6. Libertarian authoritarian, a main danger to democracy.

[Faux pas]

3. Kickin'

[2naSalit]

7. Uncle Milty...

That SOB was the original organizer of the root groups who are now the domestic terrorists. They have been terrorist all over the planet and now they have come home to roost.

[alwaysinasnit]

8. k&r for visibility

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8049648