I have a photograph of my brother and myself hand-in-hand off to our first day of kindergarten. We look so innocent. I have a bow in my hair and little sandals that match my feminine dress on my feet. My brother looks buttoned up and spit-shined. My mother groomed and pressed us and memorialized the grand moment when we would venture out into the world — our first foray into public life. Little did we know at the time, in our excitement over reading hours, recess, and playgrounds, that we were being sent off to be socialized in the American way. We did not know that we were being groomed into little capitalists. I wonder if my parents knew it. They probably didn’t think about it. Does anyone?
It’s not like you can do much to avoid it anyway. What with the truancy laws, your only option is to teach them at home, and who has the time and resources to home school, really? In most families, both parents work — and have to do so — and home schooling is a luxury in which they cannot indulge. Also, it’s likely that a number of them aren’t much interested in spending their days at home teaching their children anyway. So, they cart them off to schools — public and private — where they are molded into fans of the free market. That isn’t, of course, why you send them off to school — anymore than to teach them to be little pro-American automatons or knee-jerk patriots. But, it comes with the package.
Of course, the indoctrination is subtle. Children don’t stand at attention, saluting the flag with pledges like “All hail Capitalism” or “The Future is the Free Market.” Far from it. In fact, most students can’t tell you the difference between capitalism, socialism, or communism. Rather, “capitalism” is normative and familiar to them through unconscious exposure, and the message vaguely reinforces that, suggesting that other systems are anti-Christian or anti-American. Children don’t know what socialism or communism really is, but they sense that it’s dark and ominous — something to be feared and avoided. They know it’s bad from the way their books and teachers speak about it and infer from their economics classes — where they learn about playing the stock market from local businessmen volunteers, courtesy of the Rotary Club or other civic organizations — that the free market is what makes us great. It is the uncritical and unquestioned presentation of our economic system that serves to indoctrinate. To question that is to be an outsider or a deviant. Again, by refusing to suggest there are workable alternatives, educators direct you to embrace capitalism (as the only available/desirable option).
So, students go to their elementary schools as innocents and emerge as believers — if the schools do their jobs correctly. And, these institutions of learning are then political tools for the powers that be. The brick and mortar buildings that should serve as temples of learning become free market sanctuaries. And, the sweet encouraging woman who taught you to write your letters and work fractions was really a political propagandizer, in whose hands you were impressionable putty that didn’t stand a chance. In time, when you had become a good capitalist — who may or may not be able to read, identify the number of justices on the Supreme Court, or understand the principles of basic algebra — they gave you a diploma and set you free. Your time at the free market seminary was done.
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