In John Dewey’s article, Education Reform = Compulsory Community Service, the blatant disregard for capitalism and individual freedom is abhorrent. He claims that he “will not accept anything less than a complete reform of the way we educate our youth today and every day until our education system reflects our democratic values.” Those are the very values we should reject! This “democratic system” is just a disguised communism designed to brainwash citizens into believing everything should be handed to them, instead of working for it in a capitalist fashion.
The whole second paragraph of his article is completely flawed. To begin, he believes “in mandatory community work for every citizen,” which is as unjust as taxation. He goes on how each person, especially seeking an education, should be enriched in their community. The most outraging part of this argument is that he blames the education system in place for the acts of criminals! “Incarcerated youth who grow to unfortunately become incarcerated adults cannot succeed in a democratic society that does not incorporate the value of community service and social support into an already compulsory education,” he claims, as if the perpetrators do not have any idea about right from wrong. Nobody is to blame for a crime but the criminal himself. He continues by saying that working hard for your own selfishness is bad for the community.
Dewey further argues that instead of valuing the “capitalist gain of self-service,” a value that has single handedly built this country into the economic powerhouse that it is, we need to teach children and citizens to value the “harmony of service,” whatever that means. The free market capitalizes on the more dominant force winning the economic battle of business, so Dewey is wanting citizens to fail in the free market. He moans on about how teaching “our sons and daughters a trade that will only benefit a capitalist machine in place of an emotional and empathetic education” is letting them down, which seems like a Stalin-esque quote in effort to convince citizens that total government control is even the least bit acceptable. Only letting them down to be successful in their future endeavors as productive and competitive citizens. He says “compassion and service are more likely benefit the society as a whole as well.” The only thing that betters society is the competition based capitalist system that has been built here in the United States, and proves the idea that hard work, determination, and talent all mix together to produce success.
Finally, it is well known that a smart dictator sees it as necessary to focus time, energy, and money on feeding propaganda to the helpless citizens to have no power to deny or defend themselves against the propaganda. The simplest person in the community, if he were to somehow realize it, would rebel with everything he had. Asking the government to use more of our taxes to pay for education instituted on a federal level would be like giving a bear his 15 inch paws to destroy us with.
This is the main ingredient to an irrational society. One that is full of cowardly men who cannot even take responsibility for their own actions. If people really believe that the education system is to blame for criminals, especially repeat offenders, we are truly one step closer to communism. The heart of a thriving capitalist system is responsibility, and we move away from that if we are not even responsible for simple reasoning thoughts, like inherently knowing wrong from right. If our citizens are not capable of taking responsibility for actions, how can they take responsibility of contributing to the capitalist economy that makes this country go? The issue therefore does not lie in lack of educational handouts, but in lack of self-improvement through competitive opportunities.