No, I don’t expect this missive to have the power, the destructive power in particular, of Karl Marx’s mid 1800’s manifesto on capital. A manifest has a militaristic vibe, as if my perspective will triumph by facts or force. If the 20th century shows one truism in spades is that the revolutionary spirit typically unleashes a lot of hell in the long-term, despite the short-terms promises and pronouncements of heaven.
Knowledge is power, yet power, like electricity, can enlighten or electrocute. How it is handled and used, is ultimately the final assessor. Time shows all the cards played. Until then, wisdom is imperfect and incomplete. But, here is my take on college planning.
Knowledge, like capital, tends to favor those who already possess it. The powers of exponential increase, as well as law and custom, gravitate to entities that have mass. Sometimes this mass is not earned, possession of knowledge–like property rights–is 9/10’s of the law. The ignorant and uneducated often have not much of a clue of how needy they are about the “system” of college planning.
Typically, such parents and students underestimate the complexity of the process and product, which often results in non-success. Who benefits from the non-success? The successful. Less competition on the ground in the college classroom and job market, more money in the coffers in the payment of creditors with interest. Who owns those coffers? The parents of the successful, and grandparents, and their estates. Don’t pay us back? We break your back.
So, how do we disrupt this convenient arrangement of the powerful? By teaching the less powerful both the mechanisms and machine of power. Mechanisms are specific tools and processes; the machine is the big picture. What this takes is someone like me who knows the realities of the situation, who is one of the inside elite and who is willing to betray his social class of convenience and comfort.
Stay tuned for more…there is much more to come. You have my authoritative word on it…