It is essential to understand student loan debt and why forgiveness is essential. We must not give corporate parasites a pass.
Student loan debt relief is the right thing.
There are many arguments that the Right Wing and some on the Left use to dismiss the rationale for student loan debt forgiveness. On the surface, many of the arguments against relief seem plausible.
Progressives are supposed to believe in progress that moves society forward. We relegate obstructionist or status quo debates to Conservatives because, by design, their tenet is the maintenance of the present or past.
The arguments are many.
- Why forgive those who took out debt to go to school why someone else denied themselves college because they did not want the responsibility for having debt?
- Isn’t it true that some students take out debt to buy cars, cell phones, and other trinkets, knowing they may not finish school or that their ultimate job could not repay the loan?
- Shouldn’t we be attacking the cost of college, which has grown faster than inflation and thus balloon the amount students must borrow?
One could go on and on with reasons why forgiving student loan debt is not fair or favors some over others. The reality is that is true throughout a fundamentally capitalist country. Ponder this, if one believes in a system that distributes everything based on supply and demand, whether real or manufactured, then forgiving student loans is one of the least morally deficient acts that would put some fairness in our system for many. Note that when we view everything through the supply and demand lens, it says only those favored with capital are privy to all the spoil of the economy.
As my daughter puts it, would one choose to keep slavery because the system cannot free those who died in slavery retroactively? Progressives must believe in progress at all costs, providing reparation where possible.
Let’s understand the sinister system we have now. It is a system of coercion where the individual with the least capital or resources pays to the extent that their wealth potential is untenable.
It is true that there are millions of necessary and good-paying jobs that require no college but training in the trade. But for a very long time, the private sector and government have been pushing most to attend college.
Early on, the government subsidized higher education liberally at good public universities. College costs were affordable. In effect, the private sector, through taxes, invested in the workforce that ultimately made a profit for their shareholders and a good wage for the employee. As corporations looked for every option to maximize profits and project growth, they bribed politicians to cut taxes; read cut public spending.
Students now had to pay more for their education and training to service these corporations. As these costs increased, students were afforded loans, some public, some private, at higher interest rates.
The bottom line is corporations broke the implied pact. They became larger parasites. Students went into debt to make themselves into a commodity the corporations needed and got with little investment. But it gets worse because corporations profit on all sides of the transaction. They profited because they got a skilled worker trained with workers’ dollars. And then they profit from the loans the workers had to get to train them for the job. In a completely capitalized system, corporations and banking are in an incestuous relationship. And the kicker is that while corporations can unload their debt if they made the wrong bet, student loans are debts that one can rarely discharge, the heights of indentured servitude.
It is essential that everyone understand the nature of our economic system. It is designed for a few to prosper from the many. And to make it into the few, one must be invited. Don’t be fooled by the semblance of prosperity.
I wrote a series of books titled “Our Politics Made Easy & Ready For Action” that put all of this into context. We will only change our system if we go beyond our indoctrination and work for real change.