Incomes, education and inequality

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Incomes, education and inequality

Post by lpm » Sat Apr 08, 2023 10:18 pm

Not really.

This obsession with coffee shops and "barristas" must end soon.

The underlying problem isn't urban design, but capitalism making profit from pushing humans into meaningless jobs. The author of that comment should either get coffee another way or should pay more so that workers can earn the city's living wage. This sort of service needs to cost more, enabling workers to live locally.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 09, 2023 1:26 am

lpm wrote:
Sat Apr 08, 2023 10:18 pm
Not really.

This obsession with coffee shops and "barristas" must end soon.

The underlying problem isn't urban design, but capitalism making profit from pushing humans into meaningless jobs. The author of that comment should either get coffee another way or should pay more so that workers can earn the city's living wage. This sort of service needs to cost more, enabling workers to live locally.
And if they were living in a theme park, the coffee would cost way more...

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Grumble » Sun Apr 09, 2023 5:42 am

lpm wrote:
Sat Apr 08, 2023 10:18 pm
Not really.

This obsession with coffee shops and "barristas" must end soon.

The underlying problem isn't urban design, but capitalism making profit from pushing humans into meaningless jobs. The author of that comment should either get coffee another way or should pay more so that workers can earn the city's living wage. This sort of service needs to cost more, enabling workers to live locally.
But there will always be low paid jobs, for barista read care worker or road cleaner.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by lpm » Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:28 am

Why? Why should there be any low paid jobs?

The coffee should cost more. The local taxes should be higher.

Capitalist enterprises that only survive by exploiting the low paid are a curse on society.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Grumble » Sun Apr 09, 2023 8:16 am

lpm wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:28 am
Why? Why should there be any low paid jobs?

The coffee should cost more. The local taxes should be higher.

Capitalist enterprises that only survive by exploiting the low paid are a curse on society.
What should be is very different from what is. Reducing inequality is a big problem it seems.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 09, 2023 10:50 am

Grumble wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 8:16 am
lpm wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:28 am
Why? Why should there be any low paid jobs?

The coffee should cost more. The local taxes should be higher.

Capitalist enterprises that only survive by exploiting the low paid are a curse on society.
What should be is very different from what is. Reducing inequality is a big problem it seems.
It's actually pretty simple (at the top level) But politically unpalatable in the UK or US.

Raise minimum wage, raise taxes on the richest, raise taxes on property owning corporations, actually enforce tax law, increase income related tax credits, give more statuary rights to tenants. Build better public transit.

Many other countries do not have the same problem to anything like the same extent as the UK.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Herainestold » Sun Apr 09, 2023 2:33 pm

lpm wrote:
Sat Apr 08, 2023 10:18 pm
Not really.

This obsession with coffee shops and "barristas" must end soon.

The underlying problem isn't urban design, but capitalism making profit from pushing humans into meaningless jobs. The author of that comment should either get coffee another way or should pay more so that workers can earn the city's living wage. This sort of service needs to cost more, enabling workers to live locally.
Yes late stage capitalism. Any attempt to fashion 15 minute cities is going to require government intervention in different aspects of society.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Apr 09, 2023 2:49 pm

Reducing inequality so that people can get services without those providing them being left with untenable commutes due to being priced out of the areas they work or forced to live crammed in like sardines Kowloon fashion would be great. It's a worthy goal and we should strive towards it.

But much like improving accessibility of public transport, you have to do that first, and limit private transport afterwards, otherwise you're just going to hurt a lot of already disadvantaged people.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 09, 2023 11:51 pm

lpm wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:28 am
Why? Why should there be any low paid jobs?
Because the nature of some jobs is that the work only affects a small number of people in small ways. A barista may make excellent coffee, but however good the coffee, it ultimately makes only a small difference to the customer's life and the people affected is limited to how fast you can make coffee. In contrast, if you write a song that millions of people enjoy as much as one coffee, you have affected more people. Or if you sell a car instead of a coffee, you have affected the customer's life much more than a coffee. Or if you are in charge of a large company or a government, you may affect very many people in quite big ways.

That's assuming jobs are considered low paid in comparison to other jobs. If you take pay as an absolute, then there are no low paid jobs in places like the UK.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by lpm » Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:39 am

Wow, teachers must be paid a fortune.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:29 am

dyqik wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 10:50 am
Grumble wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 8:16 am
lpm wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:28 am
Why? Why should there be any low paid jobs?

The coffee should cost more. The local taxes should be higher.

Capitalist enterprises that only survive by exploiting the low paid are a curse on society.
What should be is very different from what is. Reducing inequality is a big problem it seems.
It's actually pretty simple (at the top level) But politically unpalatable in the UK or US.

Raise minimum wage, raise taxes on the richest, raise taxes on property owning corporations, actually enforce tax law, increase income related tax credits, give more statuary rights to tenants. Build better public transit.

Many other countries do not have the same problem to anything like the same extent as the UK.
Yes, Denmark manages it.

But then if people want Danish social conditions they'll have to be prepared to pay Danish levels of tax and prices, and also certain restrictions on liberty, such as not being able to buy children an elite education.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Apr 11, 2023 12:42 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:39 am
Wow, teachers must be paid a fortune.
From
More than 40 Eton teachers paid at least £100K a year
:
More than 40 teachers at Eton College earn £100,000 or more per year, it has been revealed.

The salaries dwarf the pay of state school teachers in England, which ranges from around £25,714 to £41,604 outside of London, excluding extra payments - for example, for teaching and learning responsibilities.

At Eton College, 47 employees earn £100,000 per year or more, a figure that includes five non-teaching staff.
etc. But don't worry, there will be some lefties around soon enough to start levelling down as the left seems to be very keen on preferring everyone is poor rather than making the poor richer.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Lew Dolby » Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:27 am

. . . except if we want to make the poor richer, some of the rich(est) will have to be (a little) poorer.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Martin Y » Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:35 am

It's probably a discipline issue for Eton. You can't expect their pupils to belittle themselves by taking instruction from some contemptible worm not even earning 6 figures.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Apr 11, 2023 12:24 pm

I've split the discussion from the 15 minute cities thread and started a new thread here.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by IvanV » Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:32 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:35 am
It's probably a discipline issue for Eton. You can't expect their pupils to belittle themselves by taking instruction from some contemptible worm not even earning 6 figures.
I have previously mentioned my relative who taught at Eton in the 70s/80s. Bon viveur, fine wine lover, etc, he was nicknamed Bourgeois Bill by the students, doubtless as his Eton teacher's salary (and a degree of inherited wealth - he was the last of the better-off branch of my family) allowed him to merely ape the ways of the truly upper class and seriously rich.

Posh Boys is a recent book about how public schools ruin Britain, which has been well reviewed.

Some 30-ish years ago, a noted sociologist who has written a fair bit on education and social justice, who I was well acquainted with when I was a student, wrote a manifesto published in one of the broadsheets for abolishing public schools. It was somewhat ironic, for as you can see, he had a privileged education himself, and was also doubtless well connected given his famous parents. In that article, he argued that by abolishing the public schools, the extensive resources and superior teachers then educating the children of the better off would be shared to broader population.

To which my (unspoken) response was, no Adam, they wouldn't. Indeed it betrayed an ignorance of the practical economics of the matter. The government would not pay the cost per student required to keep those schools continuing to provide their superior, much more costly, educations. Many of the teachers, able to command a higher salary, would not stay for a normal teacher's salary. And management matters. Managed in the manner of state schools, at a state school budget, they'd quickly be just like other state schools. Indeed, doubtless their fine buildings would be sold off to be something else, as they would be too expensive to maintain as state schools. In fact, you'd have to increase taxes to some small degree now that the state become responsible for educating about 7% more students, if it wasn't to reduce the education to everyone.

So, that wasn't an argument for closing the public schools. Indeed abolishing the public schools would, in effect, reduce the level of spending on secondary education. Since a well educated population, even if an unequally educated population, was good for the economy, would it do damage to close them?

Meanwhile, over in the USA, with its even more unequal education system, and presumably an even higher level of wasted talent than the UK, they succeed in having the world's finest universities and research institutes, servicing the world's highest tech economy. And that despite a culture of rejection of basic science by a high proportion of the population. It is a substantial driver of the US's wealth. It seems that inequality in education is not inconsistent with technical and economic success of the country, despite the waste of talent. It makes me wonder whether, maybe, it is actually effective to spend more on the education of a minority, so that they can be well trained and able to do the jobs requiring a higher level of education.

The argument for closing the public schools has to focus on the social damage that the segregated system does. I would think that is large enough for it to count. And it has to be done alongside markedly higher taxes, markedly higher spending on education all round, etc.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by dyqik » Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:48 pm

IvanV wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:32 pm

Meanwhile, over in the USA, with its even more unequal education system, and presumably an even higher level of wasted talent than the UK, they succeed in having the world's finest universities and research institutes, servicing the world's highest tech economy. And that despite a culture of rejection of basic science by a high proportion of the population. It is a substantial driver of the US's wealth. It seems that inequality in education is not inconsistent with technical and economic success of the country, despite the waste of talent. It makes me wonder whether, maybe, it is actually effective to spend more on the education of a minority, so that they can be well trained and able to do the jobs requiring a higher level of education.
Its the US education system really more unequal than the UK's? Obviously it depends which end you are talking about, but I'm going to take the conversation going from Eton, etc. as a hint to focus on the top end. Obviously there's an underclass in US education due to systematic racism etc., but access to elite colleges is pretty good if you're above that underclass, and funding can be fairly significant.

There's also the thing that it really doesn't matter which high school you went to if you did well at an elite college, so there's not the classist effect of "the wrong kind of Oxbridge student" trying to get into the media or government. The classist effects are generally much smaller in the US (although present), which balances against the financial inequalities in complex ways. The racist elements are there in different ways to the UK's racism though.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by IvanV » Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:34 pm

dyqik wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:48 pm
Its the US education system really more unequal than the UK's? Obviously it depends which end you are talking about, but I'm going to take the conversation going from Eton, etc. as a hint to focus on the top end. Obviously there's an underclass in US education due to systematic racism etc., but access to elite colleges is pretty good if you're above that underclass, and funding can be fairly significant.

There's also the thing that it really doesn't matter which high school you went to if you did well at an elite college, so there's not the classist effect of "the wrong kind of Oxbridge student" trying to get into the media or government. The classist effects are generally much smaller in the US (although present), which balances against the financial inequalities in complex ways. The racist elements are there in different ways to the UK's racism though.
Apologies, I'm arguing from a level of ignorance here, and happy to be corrected. Let me explain my perceptions, which are not really inconsistent with what you say, and then you can help me come to a better understanding.

Overall, I understand there is even less social mobility in the US than the UK. Though we are both near the bottom of the table among wealthier countries. Of course there are multiple ways of trying to measure it. Intergenerational elasticity of income is one common measure, (not my favourite source, but it was to hand) and US is only a bit worse than UK.

My perception was that a substantial fraction of the people at US elite colleges are there because they can afford it. As you say, funding is available, but many don't get it, so what proportion of places go to those who pay? I don't know, but I imagine most of them. I also got the impression that high schools are crap in socially deprived areas, including in areas with small numbers of ethnic minorities. So you'd have to be able to walk on water to be able to get to an elite college if you grew up there. (Rather like people from the North East of England trying to get into Oxbridge, except perhaps even more pervasive?) And even in the US, if your local high school is rubbish, as so many are, I assume the local elite, if there is one, will often find a more acceptable alternative for their children somehow, perhaps if only by moving.

So, whilst it is good to hear it doesn't matter which high school you went to if you did well at an elite college, the elite largely went to the elite colleges, their children have a much better chance of going to them too because they don't need the funding, and they will have the fortune of rubbing shoulders with a few really clever people who got funding. So whilst the filter is at college rather than high school level, there is nevertheless an elite qualification through education which is substantially heritable to the extent that social mobility is lower even than the UK.

Meanwhile, all those terrible high schools in so many deprived, or just deranged, areas of the US. At least in the UK the funding per pupil is roughly constant, within each of England, Scotland, Wales & NI - in fact more deprived areas can often get a supplement - though it isn't enough to overcome the social factors. And that poor high school education in many areas of the US means that a huge amount of talent is being thrown on the educational rubbish heap. Isn't the fact that the education is terrible in White Trash Town, (which I mention because you point to racism as an exception) such that it means that hardly anyone from there goes to a good college, some kind of classism? (Or is that a mistaken assumption?) The mere fact of the existence of the term "white trash", some kind of a classism? I kind of feel embarrassed even using it.

So that explains my perception, and it isn't inconsistent with what you said. Very pleased to have my understanding of these things corrected and improved.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by monkey » Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:26 am

An observation from my part of the USA.

You don't need to be rich enough to send your kids to a good private school. You just need enough money to live in the right school district. The city I live in has underfunded schools. Go a mile over the hill, very good schools, best in the state. That's where the properly rich people live, in a different city. You don't need Eton when there's a system like that.

The classism is still there, they just pretend it isn't.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by dyqik » Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:28 am

Elite colleges fund more than half their undergraduates to some degree. Almost anyone who can get in from a middle class or lower background gets significant funding, although I don't know what the percentages are.

Getting in is something that needs considerable investment from parents and schools, of course.

Below the middle class, or at slightly lower tiers of colleges, then it all falls apart.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Millennie Al » Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:35 am

Lew Dolby wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:27 am
. . . except if we want to make the poor richer, some of the rich(est) will have to be (a little) poorer.
Not unless your definition of poor is based on envy. It's quite possible for society as a whole to get richer with more to go around in such a way that the poor get richer without anyone getting poorer.

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by jimbob » Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:04 am

IvanV wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:34 pm
dyqik wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:48 pm
Its the US education system really more unequal than the UK's? Obviously it depends which end you are talking about, but I'm going to take the conversation going from Eton, etc. as a hint to focus on the top end. Obviously there's an underclass in US education due to systematic racism etc., but access to elite colleges is pretty good if you're above that underclass, and funding can be fairly significant.

There's also the thing that it really doesn't matter which high school you went to if you did well at an elite college, so there's not the classist effect of "the wrong kind of Oxbridge student" trying to get into the media or government. The classist effects are generally much smaller in the US (although present), which balances against the financial inequalities in complex ways. The racist elements are there in different ways to the UK's racism though.
Apologies, I'm arguing from a level of ignorance here, and happy to be corrected. Let me explain my perceptions, which are not really inconsistent with what you say, and then you can help me come to a better understanding.

Overall, I understand there is even less social mobility in the US than the UK. Though we are both near the bottom of the table among wealthier countries. Of course there are multiple ways of trying to measure it. Intergenerational elasticity of income is one common measure, (not my favourite source, but it was to hand) and US is only a bit worse than UK.

My perception was that a substantial fraction of the people at US elite colleges are there because they can afford it. As you say, funding is available, but many don't get it, so what proportion of places go to those who pay? I don't know, but I imagine most of them. I also got the impression that high schools are crap in socially deprived areas, including in areas with small numbers of ethnic minorities. So you'd have to be able to walk on water to be able to get to an elite college if you grew up there. (Rather like people from the North East of England trying to get into Oxbridge, except perhaps even more pervasive?) And even in the US, if your local high school is rubbish, as so many are, I assume the local elite, if there is one, will often find a more acceptable alternative for their children somehow, perhaps if only by moving.

So, whilst it is good to hear it doesn't matter which high school you went to if you did well at an elite college, the elite largely went to the elite colleges, their children have a much better chance of going to them too because they don't need the funding, and they will have the fortune of rubbing shoulders with a few really clever people who got funding. So whilst the filter is at college rather than high school level, there is nevertheless an elite qualification through education which is substantially heritable to the extent that social mobility is lower even than the UK.

Meanwhile, all those terrible high schools in so many deprived, or just deranged, areas of the US. At least in the UK the funding per pupil is roughly constant, within each of England, Scotland, Wales & NI - in fact more deprived areas can often get a supplement - though it isn't enough to overcome the social factors. And that poor high school education in many areas of the US means that a huge amount of talent is being thrown on the educational rubbish heap. Isn't the fact that the education is terrible in White Trash Town, (which I mention because you point to racism as an exception) such that it means that hardly anyone from there goes to a good college, some kind of classism? (Or is that a mistaken assumption?) The mere fact of the existence of the term "white trash", some kind of a classism? I kind of feel embarrassed even using it.

So that explains my perception, and it isn't inconsistent with what you said. Very pleased to have my understanding of these things corrected and improved.
On wealth inelasticity
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... k-men.html

Paywall now, but quoting from myself in a thread on this
As this chart shows, a black man raised by two parents together in the 90th percentile — making around $140,000 a year — earns about the same in adulthood as a white man raised by a single mother making $60,000 alone.


And the companion piece

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... h-gap.html


Also a pdf of the paper

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ ... _paper.pdf
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Formerly AvP » Wed Apr 12, 2023 7:14 am

IvanV wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:32 pm

It makes me wonder whether, maybe, it is actually effective to spend more on the education of a minority, so that they can be well trained and able to do the jobs requiring a higher level of education.

The argument for closing the public schools has to focus on the social damage that the segregated system does.
I'm just going to pick up on the blue element of your comment first, and I apologise in advance that my notes and records are in storage, so I will be working from fallible memory.

That was the arguement advanced by Cyril Burt, which had a major influence on British education post war. It led to the establishment of 'grammer' and 'secondary modern' (love the circumlocution) schools. However, the total funding for grammar and secondary schools was about equal, which given that (from memory) twice as many pupils were sent to secondary moderns when they failed the eleven plus, meant that secondary moderns received much less funding per pupil. Since grammar schools were intended to equip pupils for University, and secondary moderns were not (emphasising manual skills and domestic science), they were also less attractive to the best teachers. Lack of resources, and being placed in low academic achievement environments meant that even those pupils who were capable of going to University did not have the opportunity. Grammar schools were significantly middle class, and secondary moderns working class. The stratification itself was harmful.
In countries with a high degree of social segregation in schools the variance in student literacy attainment between schools was around 60% of the total variance in student performance, compared to 10% or less in Scandinavian schools where social differences between schools’ intakes are much less. (Secondary Modern Schools: Are Their Pupils Disadvantaged? Rosalind Levačić, Alan J. Marsh British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 2007), pp. 155-178)
In addition, since girls outperform boys in early academic achivement, grammar school entrance had to be rigged against girls to ensure that the desired proportion of boys was admitted.
All of this is what the introduction of comprehensive schools was intended to address.
Even today, grammar and selective schools give an advantage to their pupils in getting into University, which is not justified by their subsequent performance. The difference is about 2 A level grades, consistently across the the ability spectrum. A comprehensive school pupil with ABB at A level will perform as well at University as a selective school pupil with AAA. Except a pupil with ABB would not generally have had the chance to be admitted to high-demand courses such as Medicine and Dentistry. 'Unfair advantage' for their children is, of course, precisely what well off parents are prepared to pay for.

Burt, of course, believed that intelligence was almost entirely inherited, and he supported this view by inventing the required evidence, and using it to influence government and education authority policy.

I personally would not 'ban', 'close' or 'abolish' fee paying schools, once the national and local systems are adequately funded from taxation. Just as with health care, at some level that seems too great a restriction on what people do with their money. I do object to financial incentives and administrative advantages provided by the national or local authorities to stratify society in these harmful ways.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by Lew Dolby » Wed Apr 12, 2023 9:34 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:35 am
Lew Dolby wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:27 am
. . . except if we want to make the poor richer, some of the rich(est) will have to be (a little) poorer.
Not unless your definition of poor is based on envy. It's quite possible for society as a whole to get richer with more to go around in such a way that the poor get richer without anyone getting poorer.
It's got nothing to do with envy to be appalled that pretty much the only growth sector in the UK is food banks.
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Re: Incomes, education and inequality

Post by IvanV » Wed Apr 12, 2023 11:07 am

Formerly AvP wrote:
Wed Apr 12, 2023 7:14 am
Even today, grammar and selective schools give an advantage to their pupils in getting into University, which is not justified by their subsequent performance. The difference is about 2 A level grades, consistently across the the ability spectrum. A comprehensive school pupil with ABB at A level will perform as well at University as a selective school pupil with AAA. Except a pupil with ABB would not generally have had the chance to be admitted to high-demand courses such as Medicine and Dentistry. 'Unfair advantage' for their children is, of course, precisely what well off parents are prepared to pay for.
...
I personally would not 'ban', 'close' or 'abolish' fee paying schools, once the national and local systems are adequately funded from taxation. Just as with health care, at some level that seems too great a restriction on what people do with their money. I do object to financial incentives and administrative advantages provided by the national or local authorities to stratify society in these harmful ways.
Thank you for drawing attention to this point (the first para I quote), it's clearly very important, and I was unaware of it.

On the latter, it is interesting to compare with France. There are private schools in France, but they are mostly religiously-orientated schools for parents desiring to impose religion on their children. When I ask French people why there are few academically-focused private schools in their country, they say, why would you pay when the state schools are perfectly good?

So indeed proper funding of state education could substantially drive out the private education sector. But I suspect it wouldn't drive out Eton and Winchester and that lot, which would remain a place for the offspring of the Top 10,000 (as they called them in the 19th century) to network.

I also worry about excessive restrictions on what people can do with their money. The damage that Eton, etc, does to British society is what makes me search for some method to reform it in some way that it ceases to act as that preserver of privilege.

Comparing with to the "funding is available" point for US elite colleges, Eton provides for 70 King's Scholars, who obtain their education entirely free, ie about 14 per year for the 5 year education. That is actually the same number set out in its original foundation by Henry VI - they never expanded it despite massively expanding the school. When my relative who taught at Eton drew attention to this opportunity, (which my parents did not follow up as they knew I would suffer at a boarding school) he said they even paid for your uniform, sports kits, etc. Prominent former King's Scholars include JM Keynes, George Orwell, AJ Ayer, Timothy Gowers (Fields medallist), and, er, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Kwasi Kwarteng. Remembering the point we started this with, one wonders how prominent the latter two would have been if they had not benefited from that, and the justice in that.

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