mohandasgandhi:

Noam Chomsky on Austerity, Education & Healthcare

Pay special attention to what Noam says about California’s current public education crisis and his comments about the attempts to privatize schools like Berkeley and UCLA.

What he says at the end is critical to understand what we’re currently seeing in politics, what the impacts of driving social spending and public funding out of government policy are, and why it matters:

Social security is based upon the principle of solidarity. You’re supposed to care if the disabled widow across town has enough food to eat and that has to be driven out of people’s heads. You’re supposed to be concerned just about yourself - same defect in the public education system. Look, I don’t have kids in school anymore, so if I follow the rules, I’m not supposed to care if there’s public education - I don’t want to pay taxes for public education. But if you’re infected with this disease of solidarity, you care if the kid across the street can go to school. Now, that’s got to be driven out of people’s heads - same reason for the attack on unions. So, you get these massive attacks and I think that’s what’s happening to the public education system.