Why is the West culturally antagonstic towards non-state-controlled institutions?

[Arrian]

Apparently, he won't stop until he's got the answer he's looking for (which is something that fits together nicely with his right-wing Hindu nationalist viewpoint).

aneeshm, you opened with a disclaimer about how you could be wrong. You then got all testy when some of us told you were way off base, and even quoted your disclaimer... and then you've spent pages and pages basically arguing with those of us who are telling you how things are in the West. We're not making this **** up - your basic assumption is largely wrong (or rather it just doesn't make any sense in regards to "the West"). We've told you over and over. You can either accept what you've been told and realize you cannot extrapolate this private school system in India to a treatise on how the West feels about non-public institutions, or you can ignore us and believe what you already believe. Your choice.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
Apparently, he won't stop until he's got the answer he's looking for (which is something that fits together nicely with his right-wing Hindu nationalist viewpoint).

aneeshm, you opened with a disclaimer about how you could be wrong. You then got all testy when some of us told you were way off base, and even quoted your disclaimer... and then you've spent pages and pages basically arguing with those of us who are telling you how things are in the West. We're not making this **** up - your basic assumption is largely wrong (or rather it just doesn't make any sense in regards to "the West"). We've told you over and over. You can either accept what you've been told and realize you cannot extrapolate this private school system in India to a treatise on how the West feels about non-public institutions, or you can ignore us and believe what you already believe. Your choice.

-Arrian

My question is this - in general, do you think that people in the "West" would be comfortable with leaving some vital aspect of society in the hands of a decentralised private institution? If yes, then I'm wrong. If no, then I may be right, in some ways. Please answer this in a simple yes or no and I'll be happy.

[Arrian]

I've already answered your question - in your highly unlikely scenario (highly unlikely in the West, anyway) wherein a private system springs up to perform an "essential" service and out-performs its public counterpart and is available to most... it's hard to believe that people would willfully chose the inferior system. Given the inherent distrust of government (not just tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists, but the more general "the government can't do anything right" feeling that most of us have), I'd rather think such a private system would be welcomed. Especially here in the USA. The only potential sticking point is those who are left out - that's a problem that would have to be resolved somehow. It depends, of course, on the % of the population who are left out, and exactly what we're talking about here (education, health care, etc).

The scenario makes little to no sense in the context of modern Western societies, though.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Much more likely is that the governmental system and the private organizations coexist side-by-side.

This is the case with education, as I've explain. Take something less essential (but still pretty important): the Mail. The US postal service is government-run, but it's not the only option for shipping stuff. You can send packages via UPS, FedEx, etc, if you choose. Yet the existance of UPS, FedEx, and other such private companies has not destroyed the USPS.

-Arrian

[Kontiki]

Utility providers also spring to mind.

[Arrian]

Yep, although that's very heavily regulated, so it's not really free of government interference. The companies are private, but are regulated to such a degree that they're sorta inbetween. At least in the US.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

Health care.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Health care.

That is what I tried to raise earlier with A.

A, there is a broad consensus in the West to use government institutions to help the poor. This actually goes back to the days of the Roman Empire where the state founded orphanages, and provided land and pensions for poor soldiers.

[VetLegion]

Aneeshm, I'm just curious: do you consider India nowadays to be a part of the West? I mean what with democracy, speaking English and all that.

[KrazyHorse]

They're way, way, way too poor to be part of the West.

On an exchange rate basis Canada's economy alone is 50% bigger than that of India's

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by aneeshm
"Antagonism towards" means not trusting anything the government does not have a finger in, either through regulation or through competition.

You mean like the way Americans are incredibly hostile toward cinema -- refusing to see movies because the government neither regulates them nor interferes with their competition?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Or do you mean the way we only consume porn that has a USG seal of approval?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
They're way, way, way too poor to be part of the West.

On an exchange rate basis Canada's economy alone is 50% bigger than that of India's

Hell, on a per capita basis, my daughter's allowance is bigger than the Indian economy...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ned
Guys, think of what A is saying in terms of medicine. I think most in the West do favor some form of government subsidies of medicine for the poor if not outright control of medicine by the government. Most in the West would, in fact, be hostile to leaving the poor to be cared for by the good will of doctors or private charities.

or Union Carbide.

[Sprayber]

aneeshm: Is schools in India a matter for the central goverment or more of a local issue like it is here in the US. Here schools are run by local school boards with varing degrees of State and Federal guidelines attached. Maybe someone else has statistics but most of a school system's budget comes from local taxes with differing amounts of State and Federal grants.

One of the current issues in my state is that the Governor and the state education board took it upon themselves to consoldate many of the small rural schools leaving many local residents enraged.

Also I can relate a story about the school district that my step kids currently attend. It's a very small district with less than 500 kids both from elementry and highschool. Last year the school was in terrible finacial trouble because of decisions by the local school board and the superintendent. The school district was in the hole financially and was about to be dismembered by the state and the kids divided between three other districts. Everyone was upset but the community pulled together and raised over 400 thousand dollars to save the school. These aren't rich people by any stretch of the term but it was a community effort. Kids gave allowance money. Local clubs turned over money ment for trips. The state did assign someone to come and take over for a year and now with better management the school is doing much better. The quailty of education is good. Not great as in larger districts but the teachers have small classrooms and everybody knows everybody and they make a tremdous effort to reach out to the kids. I don't ever remember anyone actually blaiming the state as much as they did themselves for not paying more attention to what was going on before the problems started. In our example the state gave the people a chance (two actually) to do what it took to make things right. Citizens, neighboring school districts and towns banded together and set things right. As an aside, it took the state several weeks to determine if what the people did was actually legal but people kept on giving even though there was a chance it would be in vain.

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