Westminister Church has a wonderful town hall forum that hosts interesting visitors in a its beautiful nave. Today’s guest was Keyu Jin whose book, The New China Playbook, Beyond Socialism and Capitalism, was recently published. I was not familiar with this professor from the London School of Economics but the title of the talk drew me in.
After the half hour talk, Prof Jin took questions from the audience. Tane Danger, the host, looks through the cards in order to group similar topics together.
One audience member asks about the nuts and bolts of the k-12 education system in China. She responded that the party originally was responsible for education and it was free to all. But the one child policy in conjunction with fierce competition to vie for the best spots in the work force, led couples to hire tutors. A high score on placement exams guarantee economic and social advancement. Thus, in response to demand, a large industry of private education providers was spawned. This led families of limited means to expend, according to Jin, as much as a quarter of their income on supplemental instruction.
Prof Jin saw this as a negative outcome to capitalism. People’s hopes and fears for their children’s success were being exploited by a private entrepreneurial spirit.
Which brings us back to a favorite topic here at Home Economics. The theory is that certain endeavors are better suited to cooperate efforts of resource providers, while others respond favorably to incentives. In the first instance, the common goal is achieved through public governance and provisions, whether informally within a group or formally via a state structure. Public education has positive impacts from all angles in a society which is undoubtedly why it was established and is still maintained as a public good in the US.
Prof Jin provides a counterfactual. When the state fails to prioritize education, private entrepreneurs jump in and fill the gap. In her example, their success in combination with the high stakes creates an inefficiency.
Home Economics 