Democracy is correctly touted as a good form of government. The will of the people will turn it in a good direction. In reality a democracy cannot exist without a democratic economy. When 40% of the people control only .3% of the nation’s wealth, democracy doesn’t exist.
Thomas Jefferson said that democracy needed an educated electorate, if it is to survive. Just exactly, what are the things should that electorate know?
I taught in a public school for 26 years. Never once did I tell my students that 6 out of 10 of them would be competing for 4% of the nations wealth, or that the 1% of the population that holds 50% of the nations wealth would make life and death decisions for them, their families, and future generations.
I didn’t teach my students to be independent and free. My job was to teach them the curriculum that was handed to the school. That curriculum was, and still is, totally devoid of the very information that is most important in creating a democratic society, economics.
The vast majority of any people who know nothing of economics will be pawns for those who control the money. Free speech is of little value if exercising it costs your family a future. Thomas Jefferson said, “A despotic government could restrain its citizens and deprive the people of their liberties only while they were ignorant.”
The world’s despotic rulers want us to be stupid. We need to know — Who has what? Why do they have it? Are these resources used for the betterment of humanity? Without that knowledge, we use the rest of our knowledge to our own demise.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter96/jefferson.html
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