The Case for Mutual Educational Disarmament
1st November 2021
The theory of signalling likens many educational credentials to peacock’s tails: costly encumbrances, useful only as conspicuous proof that their owners are intellectually strong enough to bear them. And in “The Social Limits to Growth”, a book published in 1976, Fred Hirsch, once a writer for this newspaper, pointed out that education is often “positional” in nature. What matters is not only how much you have, but whether you have more than the next person. For many students it is not enough merely to acquire a good education. They must obtain a better education than the people jostling with them in the queue for sought-after jobs.
Positional goods are, by their nature, in strictly limited supply. Everyone can in principle live in a good neighbourhood, attend a good school, and work in a good job. But logic sadly dictates that not everyone can enjoy the nicest neighbourhoods, best schools or most prestigious jobs. As Hirsch pointed out, “what each of us can achieve, all cannot.”