This Entry will be exploring the Council State’s policies on education and the introduction of a “Social Ranking System” to complement the political and social lives of the Socialist Nation. The revolutionization of education under the Work-Standard is predicated on the need to address the problems of educational curricula in most Liberal Capitalist regimes affiliated with the OECD (Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the Western Bloc equivalent to the Eastern Bloc’s CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). What passes as an ‘education’ in these “OECD-Type Student Economies” is at best a Commodity and at worst a clandestine form of Totalitarianism, what Mary Perkins Ryan described as a “Custodial-Care Function” in her 1972 manifesto, We’re All in This Together. A disproportionate majority of what passes as ‘educational curricula’ is theoretical knowledge, offering very little opportunities for young people to gain practical experience. It is discernible in the secondary level education–‘high school’–since all curricula are intended for later entry into the tertiary or university level, where Kapital reigns as “student loans” and “job opportunities” to pay off the Schuld. And it becomes even more obvious when people enter the workforce with an astounding lack of practical experience to apply for even the most menial and boring of entry-level jobs.
Anyone who has attended a school or university in an OECD member-state during their teenage and young adult years knows how uninteresting it truly was. Anyone can deny it with rose-tinted glasses and let nostalgia serve as their opiates, but no form of escapism lasts forever. School life for most young people is like a poorly-written “Bildungsroman,” a corny coming-of-age novel where they undergo enough character development to demonstrate their personal inability to deal with the real world. Those Western young adult novels and film adaptations and Japanese anime, manga and light novels are all one and the same insofar as they describe the educational curricula of OECD member-states. Recalling one’s own young adult years and familiarizing oneself with the average school life of most young people is just the first step.
An average teenager’s school life will have various classes that are only there to inform them of theories about the world without any reference or relevance about why the world exists as it does. Their peers may be pressured into taking courses which will not help them later in life, but they must take it in order to ensure it looks great on their student transcript as “college credit.” The teachers may not be involved in the students’ school life as a Vocation but because somebody needs to look after them while their parents are away. Without those teachers, a teenager’s school life resembles their country’s Parliament, except the students are not brawling over cutting or increasing taxes or deregulating regulations for this and that corporate lobbyist.
Students at the secondary school level under Liberal Capitalism lack the Will-to-Power, complete with the Intents, Obligations, Duties and Rights of a Socialist Nation. Rather, they only have the illusion of power that causes them to rebel against their parents and their teachers. There is no opportunity for the teachers to instill within their students the Intents of Command and Obedience and the concept of Command Responsibility like the kind for prosecuting war crimes, which finds its greatest relevance in “the talk” of any sex education curriculum. Just as how a girl says “no” to the unwanted sexual advances of her boyfriend, the superior is responsible for issuing direct orders which conflict with the morality of their subordinates when they say “no.”
Sometimes, one may encounter increasing difficulty finding any free time to spend on Socialization in the Socialist sense. What could have been spent on Socialization is spent on afterschool clubs and activities that resemble the lobbyists and special interest groups of Parliamentary Democracy, never to expand beyond anything resembling an actual Vocation. Afterschool sports resemble more like an illegal prize fighting ring where animals (or in this case, people) compete for the Kapital of higher educational scholarships and trophies. And a student council offers its members the illusion of political power but not the Will-to-Power, regardless of the student council being governed as a Parliamentary Democracy or a Council Democracy.
When the school life ends, people will begin to struggle with what they want to do in Life; one does not need to look very far in order to understand the post-graduation implications. It manifests itself within the “Economic Darwinism” among the so-called ‘Baby Boomers’ and ‘Millennials’ on the one hand and the ‘Generation X’ and ‘Generation Z’ on the other. Actually, the intergenerational struggle is about as real as Neil Howe and William Strauss, the authors of The Fourth Turning, convincing others like Steve Bannon to believe that it ought to become real. Howe and Strauss were the ones who coined the term ‘Millennial’ to refer to people who came of age during the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s and the skewed belief that these people will become the next ‘Greatest Generation.’ This “Generational Theory” of fifty years of ‘Communitarianism’ and fifty years of ‘Individualism’ is more of the same problem with theories defining actuality. Theory can only explain what is happening, not what shall or what ought to happen. Thus, when the Millennials fell short of expectations, that “Generational Theory” was later ‘revised’ to include Generation Z on the premise that Generation X is somehow less like the Baby Boomers.
Such a ‘Theory’ can only become real in the post-graduation life of the youth because it is never validated in any actual school life. Most spend their adult years adrift in apathy and nihilism. There are those who landed in what they thought was their ‘dream job’, only to find out that it was not and became miserable in the process due to the Meaningless Work. Some languish in a state of “Extended Adolescence,” a condition best encountered in Psychology by focusing on how it plagues the ability to act as an upstanding adult. And then there are those who kept on “building their career” and end up experiencing an existential mid-life crisis by their thirties and forties; if they get involved in Parliamentarian governance, they demonstrate their willingness to be sellouts for lobbyists and political parties. It becomes even more problematic if they happen to be married with children and have yet to pay the Schuld from their former school life.
For the Work-Standard and the Socialist Nation, these problems which plague Liberal Capitalism are another set of obstacles to overcome. The State’s workaround must begin with realizing that the Vocations integral to the VCS Economy require a different educational system where a Vocation may begin as early as secondary school. After all, how many teenagers under Liberal Capitalism find menial jobs to earn Kapital if their parents do not give them allowances?
It is possible for the Socialist Nation to implement an educational system where the “Student Body” of the secondary and tertiary educational levels, aged between 14 and 34, will be learning, studying, training and practicing for their Vocations. Here, the Student Body builds important social skills and forge lifelong comradeships as members of their “Socialist Student Economy (SSE),” allowing everyone to hone their skills and have lasting experiences with their peers, their Comrades, before “Graduation.” The SSE shall instill into each Student the genuine assurance that everyone has latent potential that has yet to be unlocked as Individuals. Everyone has something meaningful to fulfill for the Socialist Nation, the Socialist Nation itself expecting the Student Body to live their lives with purpose and meaning. There will be the usual free time after school and countless opportunities to integrate the curricula into youth gatherings, field trips to summer camps, and extracurricular activities that can translate into future Vocations.
There will be outstanding school uniforms (Prussian-style, not English-style as has been the case with the Japanese and their educational system) and youths earning medals, commendations, promotions, and prizes from the State. These important facets of every Student’s school life can be accommodated as early as their secondary school years, thereby reserving the childhood years for the basics that are unfortunately still being taught in Liberal Capitalist secondary schools. And it can even be done while ensuring that the religious schools will be integrated into the SSE through special arrangements made between the State and the Church. Truly, the SSE represents the realization of Mary Perkins Ryan’s “Total Educational Effort,” brought to life by the State of Total Mobilization.
The Total Educational Effort is defined by the Socialist Nation’s ability to ensure that the Student Body, the next generation, receives the necessary training and education to build their futures. Each Student needs to be able to support themselves and become upstanding, law-abiding members of the Totality. Graduation in the Total Educational Effort differs from the Liberal Capitalists’ Custodial-Care Function because, prior to completing their secondary education, every Student is to be presented with four choices:
- For Students interested in graduating immediately, they are welcome to join the Vocational Civil Service (VCS) to begin their Vocations in the VCS Economy or Council State, the latter of which will include the armed forces, emergency and social service professions as one of their viable options.
- For Students not interested in graduating, they are allowed to continue their education into the tertiary level by enrolling in the University, its educational curriculum building upon everything that was learned previously at the secondary level.
- For Students still undecided on what their Vocation shall be and have yet to join the VCS, the State or continue their education at the tertiary level, they are entitled to receive a Draft Card from the State and be conscripted into either the workforces or the armed forces.
- The rest of the Student Body will be deepening their overall participation in the SSE by engaging in the political-economic, socio-cultural, military-industrial, diplomatic and educational functions of their “Student Government.” Even working and studying abroad is also covered under this particular category.
In the Socialist Nation, not every Student’s Vocation is going to be found in the VCS Economy, the Council State and its Financial Regime. There will always be other opportunities to find Meaningful Work in the Work-World at the Student Government. One could envisage the fourth choice complementing the previous three choices since the Students opting for Student Government have Vocations related to important administrative and leadership positions in the Council State’s Central Government.
The Student Government will be patterned after the same Councilor Governance as the rest of the Socialist Nation, its leadership split between the “State Functionaries” and the “Youth Leaders.” The State Functionaries are older adults whose Vocations are related to the teaching and intellectual Professions under the auspices of the State’s Ministry of Education. Youth Leaders are the younger adults who are part of the same generation as the Student Body, the Student Body itself having elected them to serve in Student Government positions like the “Student President,” “Student Chancellor,” or “Student Ambassador,” with those three having their own chairs at the “International Student Assembly” in the World State Organization (WSO). Unlike the State Functionaries, all positions filled by Youth Leaders in the Student Government have an attached “Generational Term Limit.” A Generational Term Limit reminds all Youth Leaders that their involvement in the Student Government was meant to train them in the arts and techniques of political statecraft and economic governance, both of which are sorely lacking in most Liberal Capitalist OECD-Type Student Economies. Therefore, once a Youth Leader turns 35, they will no longer be eligible for reelection once their term ends as part of their Graduation, allowing them to become eligible for important administrative and leadership positions in the central government.
But the Total Educational Effort was never fully realized among the historical and existing Socialist countries, as so much was being devoted to theory just like in most OECD-Type Student Economies. That will change once the Work-Standard becomes capable of paving the way for a worldwide revolutionization of national education systems and their nation-states. It is precisely in the SSE that a Social Ranking System can be implemented, beginning at the secondary educational level and continuing to remain relevant long after Graduation. These “Social Ranks” are formal titles which are to be conferred to each student’s “Service Record” once begin secondary education. This Rank may apply on a general level but will eventually be reapplied to the Ranks of their Vocations as they get older. Higher Ranks translate into eligibility to apply for certain special activities which normally would not be available like borrowing Work-Tenures.
Examples of this can include eligibility to become a delegate for their local council, regional and eventually State Council, and even become the next Heads of Government and State (the terms which determine how long they are in power can only be changed with the State Council’s approval). It is the eligibility to enter the rigorous university curriculum of economic planners, a Vocation in the Central Bank, Kontore and State Commissariat, and applications in student entrance exams for governmental positions within the central government. It can be the ability to make loans from the banks, receive a large amount of Geld as part of a Stipend if their Vocation requires one, and also determine their place within the Paygrade Scale when Paygrades are wired to their personal accounts each week. It can also involve the opportunity to be in a teaching, training or instructing profession and the ability to have greater clout in the political affairs of the State through selfless civil service. The State shall update the Ranking System as young people enter the workforce as their formal rite of passage into adulthood so that the elderly can retire peacefully. In general, those who contribute the most Arbeit from within the profession of their chosen Vocation have the potential to be entitled for receiving higher Ranks.
This Ranking System cannot be organized in a manner comparable to Prussia’s “Three-Estate Representation System,” the PRC’s “Social Credit System,” or a “Credit Score System” found in most Liberal Capitalist regimes. All three are Ranking Systems influenced by Kapital and thus can provide the grounds for the mass surveillance of personal lives. Such measures are always justified by the presence of Schuld created from the proliferation of Kapital in economic life. Everyone still has a Legal Right to Privacy under Socialism, just as they also have a Legal Right to make a name for themselves and to be proud of their newfound reputation.
Categories: Compendium
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