 Thank you Hans, thank you Guilgin for the invitation. It's great to be back after having assisted almost every year, I think. Great to see the property and freedom society back in its place. The title of my talk may seem like a truism to you, schooling and state-making, and I guess almost every one of you will assume that in particular public schools are an instrument to coerce and indoctrinate our children into statism. If you are now slumbering off because you assume that I'll tell you only what you already know, then of course you don't know me well. I have some surprises for you, but don't be too afraid. After this little purgatory, thanks Carl Peter, of some complications and surprises, I think a stark truth will reemerge ever more clearly at the end. I'll base my observations on the history, mainly the history of the German speaking countries, it's the history I know best and luckily for me, it's the segment of history which is most important for the universal history of schooling and state-making and the reason for that is that in particular, Prussia, but also absolutist Austria, and even some reform pedagogues in Switzerland had an outstanding influence on the international development, even so far as in the US, schooling was copied from the Prussians and US representatives travelled, Prussia, the same in France, and almost everywhere. This institution of public mass schooling really had gone a lot of influence from the German histories. So let's start with the most obvious thing, and there I can pick up right after the marvelous talk from Alessandro before noon. The closest and most obvious link between schooling and state-making is war-making, and that's of course by the example of Prussia. It may seem so important even there was to saying at the time that the military advances and successes of the Prussians are due to their schooling systems. It's not as obvious as it seems, but let me start there. That's the most obvious link. I think the closest correlation is with a change in how modern governments looked at their subjects. They realised that human beings are a resource for the state. First of course is manpower, it's cannon fodder for war-making, but then, and that also pushed by advances in military technology due to wars getting more and more expensive, so the economic basis of war-making necessitated development of human capital as well, and the human population, and that insight seemed to be most obvious for the Prussians, more enlightened rulers like Frederick II. So I think the link here is in conscription. It's you want to keep track of every citizen of your country, and that of course gives the sinister and I think real meaning to the line that you all know from the US potentially leaving no child behind. Leaving no child behind means keeping track of every single child because he is a potentialist conscript and a taxpayer and you don't want to lose out on that human resource. How do you use education or schooling to this advantage? So it's on the one side is you have the keeping track. On the other side I think nationalism has to be considered a military technology as well, and it was a success story in military terms and schooling was considered at the time as one of the major instruments for nation formation or nation building. So when people talked about national Bildung, that's in German, very ambivalent, meaning very complicated term, the Bildung, which is education, but you could also translate it as nation building, nation formation, raising a nation, or cultivating a nation. And I read from a very important text from the time they give you an idea of Fichte, the addresses to the German nation. Fichte, a German philosopher, wrote about schooling and the role or the relation between schooling and state-making as follows. The state which introduced universally the national education proposed by us from the moment that a new generation of youths had passed through it, would need no special army at all, but would have in them an army such as no age as yet has seen. In the heart of each individual, there lives love of the community of which is a member of the state and of his country and this love destroys every other selfish impulse. The state can summon them and put them under arms when it will and can be sure that no enemy will defeat them. There it looks like a smoking gun, but there I have some surprise for you. Of course, Fichte was no government official and it was no government decree and only enough his addresses to the German nation were temporarily censored and prohibited by governments and the reason for that is that of course in nationalism, there's not only state-making but there's a cultural process as well and I think it's quite important to differentiate between the two and most people get causalities big-word in politics and they think that there's like the monolitical state and in the mechanical process the old seeing state issues something and then it just works out and the state just coerces its way. On the opposite, there was of course a phase of national formation within the German people where the German language became more important, more widely spoken and used and corresponded in correspondences as well and an obvious race in culture happening at the time and that was before the state used that as a reason for centralization. So most people assume that it's the state first centralizing and using nationalism to its advantages, but I think they are interlinked and correlated developments at the same time and I think there's quite an analogy to what Tim was talking about. Unfortunately, I missed your talk, but I followed the very interesting panel discussion about Japan and of course the Japans are considered the Prussians of Asia and there you see at the same time this discretion of polite society is a kind of raising a cultural level within a society and it leads to this ambivalence as well and this ambivalence was addressed I think by Thomas by asking how can a population which in the individual is so cultivated and so polite be so atrocious as an occupying force and the same of course could be said of the Prussians and it was good to famously observed that he feels great pain when he thinks about the germination. So 8th by the Einzelnel so miserable in Ganzen. I think it's a great line. It still applies to the Germans today They are so respectable in the individual and so deplorable as a collective and of course there are quite a few misunderstandings here in Fichte as well He thinks that society and the state are more or less the same but you could read Fichte and other idealist philosophers of the time of national awakening as people thinking about raising the cultural level of the population and thus you could read it in a sense of a spirit of self-government of responsible people who form a militia That's one possible interpretation of people more equal before the law not being not Necessiting an absolutist ruler because in themselves they have the moral law and they apply it and together they're capable of being a grand nation and I think that's One of the reasons why of course the story isn't as easy as it seems that it wasn't just nationalism imposed from above But it was an uneasy relationship and the same uneasy relationship we see with schooling But still Fichte Realizes something as a progressive and enlightened mind That coercion and the state apparatus does not depend so much on physical Coercion and force, but a lot of it is mental games or mind games And I think that's a crucial insight from praxeology Which I would apply to questions of coercion as well I I was supposed to talk about the praxeology of coercion So I'll give you a little summary or teaser of what you may have missed We're talking about that. I think when we consider coercion, of course, we can't just apply the mechanical cause effect Relations and think that they are all important most important our mental states is anticipation and the cause effect relations in our minds and The actions of other people so the state of course depends mostly on coercion not being necessary Because it's based on fear so it's threats not all of those threats are backed and it's compliance It's of course changing the mindset of the population And that has been understood and I think it was one of the Outcomings of enlightenment of people with a critical state of mind thinking about government not all good people unfortunately and I think a lot of the evil in government, of course was stirred on by enlightened thinkers By realizing some very dark truths about Mastering government and it's of course the macawillion tradition But that Lived on in a bit different spirit more unconsciously in in the french and german traditions as well And I think one line I have to cite to you Which puts it to the point most clearly and that's by françois guizot Gizot was the french minister of education. He was an enlightened liberal spirit considered as such, but he was the main force in institute in government mass schooling in france Of course following the example of prussia So he sent his friend and employee victor guizot to prussia to travel there and figure out how they are doing it And he wrote to him The reason why why that's important why he has to go there and the line says The greatest problem of modern societies Is the governance of minds Is the governance of minds? I think there's a crucial insight here and that's why of course there was a lot of begon forth about schooling But it was an uneasy relation the first Inside about why schooling would be necessary or what a function schooling could have because of course there was schooling before The state took an active interest in schooling And the first insight by more progressively more enlightened Governors like frederick the great Was that schooling could be a device to increase the homogeneity of the population and for prussia There was a particular importance due to the polish regions that they occupied over became part of prussia So it was considered as an instrument to homogenize The population but not only in in the linguistic aspects and the cultural aspects more importantly Frederick the great realized that he had to fill a gap that was left over by the receding importance of religion And he really worried a lot about that vacuum potentially being left himself as an atheist Potentially homosexual as well a very modern spirit modern mind but troubled by The problems he saw on going from an old agrarian society to a more modernized industrialized society And so sometimes I mean of course you could cite frederick the great as being an enthusiastic about schooling achieving that purpose But I think if you read more from him you realize that on average he was much more skeptical about it. So I think Mostly he doubted that schooling would achieve that and he thought that schooling Actually could be dangerous and it could reduce the lack of homogeneity Because of course it wasn't obvious what could replace religion as the controlling institutions Of course the state potentially but the state was lacking the homogeneity that it wanted to impose So it's a kind of vicious circle here and it wasn't obvious to frederick the great and it wasn't obvious to governments Since then so there was a very interesting back and forth with Over time I think the more important forces in government tended to be reactionary. That means they wanted to avoid increasing schooling Wanted to roll it back in a way Wanted to limit the subjects that that are schooled and control it most importantly control what is schooled But not really expanded as such and if it's expanded keep it separate between the different classes of society so not to endanger the kind of equilibrium of society and Certainly not at once progressive and revolutionary thought as potentially fichte Was a member of that class not that easily controllable these enthusiastic Nationalistic forces which are not that easy to control from a government point of view Of course this uneasy relationship in schooling and religion and schooling as a means of homogeneity was of particular importance after the reformation and There we see a lot of focusing on Like leaving no child behind in the Protestant traditions in particular the Calvinist traditions because I think one of the expectations of Protestants was that you could find a new homogeneity in the purity Of belief and the purity of course in solar scriptura And and so on and it was interestingly the Calvinists in the us as well who were a major force behind the homogenization of schooling and rolling out state controlled schooling And with luta already we have a line where he writes or he warns that Missing out a single child leaving behind one single child is morally equivalent to raping a virgin That's a crazy thought But it's like leaving a child to be spoiled by parents Which are not as insightful as they should be and you can really trust the parents You need of course some state guarantee of the purity Of that kind of schooling And that thinking is still behind today's german legislation in schooling and Germany is one of the strictest countries in really keeping track of children making sure that they are not tainted by their parents Who may teach subjects not in accordance with the state degrees As as well it And so on so of course, there's a quite long history going back But it took a lot of time for the state to create an apparatus out of that And it wasn't as easy not as straightforward and at times it seemed like the state was Pushing the brakes as much as possible And that's of course modernity. That's modernity. You have a lack of homogeneity a lot of doubts Some people for some people it's not going fast enough and other people's react in a forceful way You have all these reactions and reactionary forces And there are like 180 degrees changes even if you have a monarchy government With the succession you can have a total change in outlook and with Advisors ministers changes you can have changes in outlook and they changed in prussia So at times prussia was a really progressive in education. What does that mean? They followed examples of the best teachers and one of major influence was pestalotsi who was a swiss teacher and I think people like pestalotsi and humboldt of course reflect some of the positive things of that Feeling or worrying about schooling worrying because there it's really a worry about the development and the cultivation of the child And I think there's something sincere behind that and in really understanding that there's childhood Because before that it wasn't seen as really separation between adult life and childhood So coming from parts of the nobility, but in particular Of the the burgers in the cities came this reflection of a face of child development Where you should protect the child and enable it to become a fully developed personality And so I think there's some good in that but it's very interesting that prussian state officials In charge of one of the most imposing coercive apparatus of the time Had no better idea how to create an apparatus of schooling than sending government employees to learn under pestalotsi So pestalotsi had a private institute in switzerland and the prussian government begged him To take up some government officials and they would pay handsomely for them And so he got he took at most two or three people at the same time and he charged The government and they would be allowed to learn under him for two to three years And then of course they should start new seminaries for the formation of more Teachers because there we see and that I find very interesting and of course you can have all this grandiose thinking about The government and the state and you forget that it's people and you need actual people to do the stuff And so you have all these grandiose addresses to the nation and degrees And plans and they don't really work out because if you look at the teachers on the ground you figure out Okay, most are really not functional because you have to figure out who are teachers I mean, how are they selected? How does someone happen to be a teacher? And there we need to look back. What was the state of schooling before state schooling? So I tell you a little bit about that, of course there were schools and most schools as you can imagine were church schools, but it's more of the Local church organization, and I think it had a very practical thing. It was just Controlling of childcare more or less So you needed one person to look after the children to of course bring them up a little bit in the christian culture Have them read the bible And so on but it was considered a fairly low ranking task So the teachers in this church control education were usually on the social ladder The downmost people they were working on the side of sacristan. So they were helping The priest with the menial stuff that you need for service And of course, I think the reason for that is in an agrarian society in the villages Who's taking care of the kids? The person you don't need because he's not that useful elsewhere I mean because otherwise you need every hand you need every working hand you need every mind capable Because just a lot of work in our climate To live on the basis of the land is a lot of occupation. So usually you only had school in winter and then it was lowly People with very low pay. So that's what you find when you start out looking trying to control teachers They found that they are not the most literate Not the most advanced people But they are just keeping or doing a job and the most important job seems to be Childcare and I think that has remained true until today. I think most parents still have grandiose ideas or thinking of school I think mostly school has the function Of taking care of your children while you're working So they they don't Disturb you in particular if you have a pandemic then most parents realized. Oh my god schools are closed I have to work at home. How terrible. I'm so grateful for the state to have a school running usually And now I see how important schooling is Because really the it's a fancy word for childcare Apart from that rural tradition, of course, we had the city School and there is very little literature So it's um, we don't see that but that was really an extensive part of schooling and if you remember I think maybe it's 10 years ago or something like that I talked about the history of universities and I talked about the prehistory of state con before state controlled universities And there's a similar picture here It's just demand by parents and usually very practical demands and they sent their children to winkelschulen corner schools And where's the term corner schools implies that? Oh, they are terribly uncontrolled institutions You see a lot of correspondence between government officials that like oh my god Everyone can open such a corner school. How terrible I mean everyone who sees fit and who finds customers is allowed to open such a corner school. That's terrible There are some numbers I could find some numbers and they showed that number is surprisingly high So there was quite an extensive network of schooling before state controlled and state imposed schools But very little oversight. That's why there's a very little literature Because of course the state who has conscription who's keeping track of everyone wasn't keeping track of those schools And that was the main reason why he wanted why the state wanted to shut them down Of course because he wasn't keeping track of what's happening there. So there's an extensive network of more practical oriented More utilitarian I'd say schools in the cities For the needs of merchants and and other employees And so on and then the first segment where really state schooling has its main founding is the formation of the military Military education. So the brush and sometimes say the army is the school of the nation And things like that and they even had veterans Wounded veterans teach in schools because it's really hard to come up with all the employees For that mass schooling that you intended for but you have to train the people you have to figure out how to train them and You couldn't really find them because you have decided before that what was cooling before isn't really according to your needs So you can really take the people from the corner schools and you try to build up something a new and replace the church As The main institution keeping track of that Now I'll give you something more surprises there something maybe more surprising There is I think one good argument for state schooling And I'll try to refute it in a way But still I think it has to be taken seriously and I think it was The most convincing way to put it was done by someone who gave a lecture here many many years ago Heiner Rindemann who is a german psychologist And he his hypothesis is that this kind of schooling In particular how it was then instituted by by the state But of course taking over from the church tradition raised IQ points by free IQ points every year of this kind of formal schooling Even if it is repetitive schooling road learning as it is Of course, there's a correlation between memorizing and IQ intellectual analytical capabilities And of course you can take that hypothesis a bit further He even ventured and even more strongly that point was made by Öster Dikoff Who he cites a lot who looks into the human capital formation? That was needed for industrialization and it's all about the question What does it need for you and beings to function in the modern industrialized highly cooperative Society so that hypothesis says that potentially schooling could be a preparation First by homogenizing people using the same language and the same analytical skills being more capable to cooperate And secondly by raising their intellectual level analytical capacities and so on And again, I can't I can't entirely refute it This is really hard to tell as well alternative history We don't know what was crowded out by the state schooling We don't know the alternative history that could have developed I have my doubts about this hypothesis and I think I have some ideas Where that could be mistaken again, I assume that the causality is backward again Because then you see with literacy numbers in particular in Great Britain For example, which should be I mean that the main if really it goes from literacy schooling To industrialization then great Britain should be first But actually literacy rates were lower in Great Britain than then in prussia Even though they are industrialized first and they preceded schooling a lot So schooling was or compulsory Schooling was instituted fairly late in Great Britain when already almost universal literacy was achieved So I think that the causality is backward that you have a modern society with higher literacy Of course reformation was a process going hand in hand with higher literacy as well So a lot of developments that started much earlier than effective compulsory government schooling Because of course you have the ideas of government schooling But making it effective like leaving no child behind as it works out in Germany today That takes Decades or even a century because you need all that stuff and then still it doesn't work out the way you assume It to work out And then of course if schooling would be behind the the Flynn effect That's that's the name for the raising of IQ numbers over time Investor nations that is observed. I think That It's more likely that schooling acted as a eugenics Device more or less because for a time school living exams were where the necessary Requirement to marry to get marriage in prussia in particular So and of course you have discrimination against unschooled people which hinders their Possibility to have flourishing careers and support families and so on. So I think there's some eugenic effect potentially there and Of course a selective effect As well and the highest correlation between schooling results in testing of which IQ is part of Is social socioeconomic status? So of course it works as a filter for socioeconomic status and enhances the possibilities For people of that according socioeconomic status who go for schooling to support families Because they have better paying careers And so on so I would suggest That there's one potential explanation And another one is that we know from the twin studies that most IQ effects of schooling are receding That means after schooling it doesn't take long and the ecu level Goes down there, which is not correlated with other factors like socioeconomic status and heritability, of course So I don't think it's such a long-lasting effect that could really accumulate over time So I have my doubts, but it's really hard to refute that and I think it's one of the best cases for This kind of mass schooling as it's happening And I think most parents have that unconsciously or consciously that fear that if their children go don't go to school They'll miss out career wise income wise And not be well enough prepared for careers in a modern society And I think there are additional reasons for that Because mostly that kind of schooling is about status games And I think if you really look at the history of schooling you see that a lot of it is status games played really well To the benefit of a certain group And this group are the teachers, of course So the history of schooling and state-making is a history Of the social rise of a class of people from the lowest level in society With lowest income to a fairly high status and bourgeois status in society and not only of course this rise individually But the number of people In such employment has increased tremendously So I think one of the best ways to realistically analyze the history of schooling as with other government Institutions is through the kind of class theory Which is not marxist, but Rothbard and Hans Hoppe in their writings have remembered us as a much longer And a much more solid class theory going back to the French du Noye and Comte And looking at those who are benefiting By the schemes of the state and state mandated Schooling and other things of course mandated by the state So I think you can read a lot of that as Using status games in a society which is uncertain because this homogeneity is lacking So a lot of it is driven by private initiative of parents Who are in a way abused in their status seeking by a class of teachers Legitimizing schooling as of course always shifting with the zeitgeist with the spirit of the time That's why we have among the class of teachers At first the most or a very high proportion of reactionary voices Counter reformatary voices and then it shifts to enthusiastic nationalistic voices And then of course it explains to us why the highest number of nazi voters in any segment was among teachers So it's not the downtrodden It's really a class of people who expect to benefit the most by statement that it control And leaving not a single child behind because of course every single child as every poor person Is among the reason for more money for your salary your institution And so on So I think that explains most so it's not monolithically the state imposing it But it's a lot of high checking the legitimacy of the state for the interest of particular groups of people So That's why I doubt that school really is an instrument of indoctrination and let me tell you about that a little more Now most people assume that in public school, of course, you have the teachers who are nowadays mostly A very large proportion are in germany are voting for the greens And the social democrats and there seem to be very zeitgeist status, but I say okay nothing new here Of course, they pick the most uh Well-working brand of statism at the time to get more money towards their class So that's alone suffices to to explain the ideological tendencies And I think it's quite similar to what has happened in journalism That journalists and teachers have lived off an increased prestige for their institutions and making us all believe in the importance of education and schooling and If you think that you can use schooling for indoctrination, I think it's in doc You are or a children are indoctrinated. I think you have a wrong idea of the premise of schooling I think that's an illusion. I don't think that's how it works Schooling doesn't work that way that you have a package of knowledge coming from teacher And it's passed on to the children and it's really status knowledge that's passed on or that the state can control What kind of knowledge is passed on that's why the real experience by the absolutists was they were very very Because they were very skeptical because they realized. Oh my god. It really doesn't work like that. We have to control every teacher Because if we have more teachers, of course, what happens you have more and more teachers The average quality of the teacher goes down and the average controllability of the teacher goes down And you have a new class with a new class interest, which is not the same as the state's interest and the former government. So you have a lot of potential revolutionary Segment in in society. So it's really hard to just pass on knowledge. That's not how schooling works. So I think schooling is overrated a lot and by Parents as well and that illusion of schooling as transporting the necessary knowledge has been abused And I think it's a similar illusion to journalism as a control mechanism for democracy It's like schooling as a kind of knowledge conveyor for a knowledge economy and a modern society That is abused by siphoning off this prestige and legitimization for the class of people employed in schooling And so it's not really direct indoctrination. I think it's Indoctrionability that's a term by Ibel Ibesfeld an austrian ethnologist who thinks that Certain kind of indoctrionability is useful for large societies. He's a bit of a statist here And I think that unconsciously he was really behind it and what leads to this kind of indoctrionability I think first if you get to believe children in Things that turn out to be nonsense, which is unavoidable if you have a large number of teachers I can remember many times in school I because I was reading extensively very early and I would just say, okay, that's wrong. I'm and the teacher would say no Can't be wrong. But of course, I mean obviously teacher can't read everything Of course, usually you look at who's becoming a teacher Usually someone who doesn't qualify enough to have a full degree. So they have to two half degrees I mean, I'm not trying to Put down teachers here, but it's just a certain segment and it's illusionary to assume that they are no old So just conveying knowledge. They are real human beings and the selection of human beings So it's that in a setting of coercion more or less you have to take in that kind of knowledge Prefilter from a curriculum from people who assume they are no old and no better and know what they have to teach you So because those are truths or useful stuff I think it prepares you to get used to take in nonsense And that's really the way propaganda really works. It's the induction abilities not by conveying lies It's by conveying endless stream of nonsense so that you're not able to Distinguish between what's right and wrong and you come to the kind of relativistic mindset Where you always have to ask the experts because you're always unsure about what's going on And then I think underestimated is the importance of same-age classes Because that's I think pretty solid evidence from development psychology that if you have If you select children of the same age and you keep them in artificial surrounding of always the same age You increase all the negative aspects of peer pressure because already by evolutionary forces we are in a sense pushed to more look into our peers than into our teacher authority or parental figures So I think the most pernicious effect of schooling is this kind of peer effect And I think most of what you assume is status propaganda is really pushed on by status games among peer groups Where you don't want to stand out So that's why it's easier to go along because you know you have to concentrate on other status games You can't afford to play games on like political fringe ideas or seam fringe and so on and risk unpopularity Which is not worth it in that sense But you focus mostly on of course how you dress Uh, what music you're into and all that stuff that makes you popular in class And those I think very well understood evolutionary tendencies But a very artificial surrounding of having people together in the same age group And I think that's the main reason it looks like they're all indoctrinated They all seem if you talk to millennials nowadays or the generation See or how it's called coming out of school. You immediately have the impression. Oh my god. They're all brainwashed They all say the same things but it's very shallow It's not that it's really that they seem like totally brainwashed that they've taken it into as a founding belief It's just they play along because they don't care that much And they had to focus on the status games In school and that prepares them a bit for the status games later, which of course enhance schooling and One of the main reasons That schooling works it works as a signal It works as a signal and that we know from evolutionary theory as well. I think there's some It's reason able to take signaling theory Signal theory tells you that sometimes you invest Useless cost for something in order to signal that you have high resources So you just do something really useless and of course education used to be signaling before In particular for the richer and noble classes. They went for very useless education Humanistic education and so on just to express they don't have to they did sports because they don't have to work So it's that signaling I'd say and the very same is true Of course with a lot of schooling today that you can afford to have your children Until not only age 18, but if they go on in the more and more school like university If you don't pay attention they'll turn out 30 and have never seen something else than a classroom before And but have high status and have signal that they don't need to work I mean because you are a well-off family And you can afford to protect your children as long as possible from doing anything useful for anyone else So I think that's one of the reasons it works. That's my I think there It's much less difference between private schools and public schools than most people believe My personal experience is there's less freedom of speech now in private Schools than in public schools, which seems very odd But one of the reasons is that government employees sometimes have of course much more secure contracts Then private employees and still private schools are working in the same industry Which is a very distorted industry and it's not about education. It's not about knowledge transfer No one pays a buck for knowledge transfer per se in schooling. It's about signaling And of course the highest payment goes for the brand the highest brands of signaling That you can pay for that you can get and Part of that signal is our status games, which I think are inevitable. They're part of human nature. So I wouldn't like to Uh Very that's not so much you can change about that. I I think what's crucial is Try not to interfere with Better status games in particular those concerning wealth. I think in a society where the status games based on wealth of your parents are not that possible schooling becomes ever more important and then connections become more important because people always look for something to express the status So I think that's part of human nature So it doesn't make sense to look at that and part of the signaling I think is useful in the sense that it shows Higher employability and the reason for that is if you have a child going for schooling It's a child that's able to sit from eight To five and later nine to five in a setting where they don't always understand What's the meaning of it all? Why is it useful? What is it for a lot of it seems to be nonsense But still I learned to function in such an environment and then of course the corporate environment And I think you can only understand why there's still so much private demand for schooling Because there is a distorted structure that sci-fi dean has been talking about before which he calls the fiat a world more or less that's really a larger structure in particular Schooling is important if you go for careers in finance and corporate careers And there is really a signal of your employability within those structures Which I think are the storage structures and that's why I think we are seeing signs That's the correlation which is still there. So there's still an imperial correlation between higher incomes and more schooling So of course, it's not parents are not stupid to go for schooling Even though it has all the problems I mentioned. So I think it's Easy to understand why schooling still has this importance. I think it's usually distorted And I think we're in the phase of correction here because this correlation will go down I think it's already starting to go down and we see that with the correlation between university degrees and higher incomes Which is going down even more faster. And I think we'll see that with schooling And I think that's also the reason there Why alternatives? empirically Don't Stand out in a very unexpected way. There's a lot of data in the us about the alternatives of homeschooling And unschooling even so there are more and more families Which don't do any schooling they just basically say, okay My kid does what he wants and or she wants and if he wants to play all-day video games I'm fine with that I don't believe in any kind of interference and of course you would expect and I would expect as well that it Must show in results if you go for testing in particularly testing for university admission and the interesting thing is They are doing better And it's varying so there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that schooling produces higher Knowledge or capabilities. So if you really check the results the success stories What have you learned after all those years you figure out? Wow, it's receding fast the curve and it's reaching zero pretty soon So you don't have a significant impact of schooling because of course the reason for schooling is not knowledge transmission and it has never been I think and and People use that as an illusion to And I think a lot in the philosophy of education is a nice coating for that illusion the humboldts And the fichters and so on. I think they were wrong Uh, not in everything but they were wrong in giving Nice sounding coating for something that just doesn't work that way because it's much too idealistic and of course all they all failed I mean there are many Enlightened philosophers who tried that out with their old children They read a meal from rousseau which has a tremendous impact And rousseau write more or less about the natural education because everyone is a genius by birth And just bring it out if you employ the right methods and then of course parents tried everything And the most progressive and light and methods usually failed And they failed abysmally It didn't feel if there was some kind of success story. So pastor lord see for example, he failed with his own child terrible failure He failed with his first project But the main difference why I think pastor lord see is great And and the government instituted Institutions are not is he did it then as an entrepreneur? So after failing he had to try a new and only the third Institution he created survived and he figured it out in the end and it was considered an example And I think he got to some Good findings which are still in accordance with what we know about child development and it's this really child centered Education more or less much less road learning much more progression from elementary Things going up. So to sum up I think we are or we have to see That a lot of what we consider the state is basically a kind of theater going on and we've learned that after 9 11 There was a lot of security theater. We've got used to that Now we are living in a time of health theater with a lot of Seemingly magical things doing their stuff and I would consider a large part of that the health theater and Most people don't see for how long that kind of education theater has been going on and I think it's not even it's more than a theater. I would use the term by david dur I think he caused the state on opera and I think it's even better Because it has like the grandiose stage with all these ideas of education and fulfillment of potential and transferring Useful knowledge To people by an apparatus doing that and which scales fantastically But in the end it's just keeping our minds occupied And it's incredible how much our minds are occupied with that theater How much of our resources are thinking either if The time you go through schooling just remember how much your time was occupied with that Education theater the time you have children How much about it's about worrying about school or doing schooling at home because they have to do their homework and all that stuff It's all about school school school Keeping you occupied or of course if you're working for the apparatus with a large and large number of people working for it And they legitimize it because now it's a lot of them are women And uh, of course they are working full-time so they can't take care of their children So they need someone to take care of their children. So they send him to school And of course the teachers are paid We are government and why does the woman have to work I mean I've not at all against the women working. Uh, I think it's fantastic to use the potential But I think there's a some very dark Reality as well that in many cases It's you can't a word have afford having one parent working at the other not because your text that highly So to pay the other parent to work to take care of other children because you can't take care of yourself So I really invite you to look behind the stage of the big opera that is schooling And hopefully not be too well entertained by what's happening there, but still have a cheerful look To alternatives. Thanks a lot for your attention