Comments on: Human Capital Project http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/ Australian Libertarian Society Blog Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:45:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: HCP: call for sponsors « Thoughts on Freedom http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-71788 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:46:24 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-71788 [...] call for sponsors Two years ago I wrote about my plans to set up a non-profit organisation in Cambodia that provided alternative financing for poor [...]

]]> By: graemebird http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10812 Wed, 09 May 2007 10:39:12 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10812 Kate.

Do you think the teritiary-education side of it is a socially benevolent thing?

I can see how you could do a lot for education in a poor society that didn’t have public education for free…. Or didn’t have it in isolated areas…

But I’m a little bit disturbed by the focus on tertiary education…

To me its about overcoming the lack of clear property-rights…. and being there to provide capital AT THAT MOMENT when the provision of capital will result in greater cash-flow.

Or alternatively being able to provide education to the kids in a small village WHILE THEY ARE STILL ABLE TO WORK FOR THEIR PARENTS….. by perhaps taking a well-worked-out home-schooling curriculum and adapting it for the village.

I like the PRINCIPLES involved. But I’m a bit disconcerted at the specifics of the tertiary education element of it.

We do not always do people a favour when we lend them money.

]]> By: John Humphreys http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10515 Tue, 08 May 2007 04:21:25 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10515 Under HCP financing, if the graduate doesn’t get a job (or gets a bad job) then they don’t repay. Once their income exceeds a set minimum then they repay a percentage of their income. Consequently, only those who benefit from their education have to contribute back to HCP.

]]> By: parkos http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10513 Tue, 08 May 2007 04:13:43 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10513 “Blacklist of the school/village” as a punishment for non-payment sounds quite harsh. Ouch!! Particularly in Cambodia, where you can blow up a cow or a chicken with a bazooka at a rifle range for tourist cash (dont get ideas hjelmet), buy a kilo of smack in about 10 minutes in any town, and then visit the killing fields.

Anyway, carry on..
Keep it minimal as you propose as HECS style is not a system that has worked well in Australia or UK en masse. IE people graduating with debts into oversaturated graduate yob markets and ending up in the classrooms/brothels of IndoChina.
To be the clever country we need to educate those with brains rather than those with fat wallets but this is another issue.

]]> By: John Humphreys http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10381 Mon, 07 May 2007 11:04:31 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10381 Graeme: “What if they don’t pay you back? What sanctions do you have in that case?”

The legal system is pretty much a joke, so we’ve had to explore other options. I explain the approach in more detail here:

http://humancapitalproject.wordpress.com/details/

]]> By: Club Troppo » Missing Link - 7 May http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10351 Mon, 07 May 2007 08:17:38 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10351 [...] apart some misleading BBC reporting on Perth water issues. John Humphreys discusses a very worthy human capital project he is proposing to set up in Cambodia as a new approach to meeting the higher education needs of [...]

]]> By: graemebird http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10279 Sun, 06 May 2007 12:35:28 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10279 What if they don’t pay you back?

What sanctions do you have in that case?

]]> By: John Humphreys http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10244 Sun, 06 May 2007 06:08:46 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10244 As you rightly point out… there is no Cambodian infrastucture that we can use to help coordinate re-payment. We will be dealing directly with the graduates and with their employers.

It is a purely private system with no statist welfare.

]]> By: parkos http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10239 Sun, 06 May 2007 04:46:14 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10239 Ultimately, this is not a very libertarian solution in that massive state infrastructure would be required to keep track of graduates and make deductions from their earnings. In Cambodia, this simply does not exist, would take a long time to establish and if established would be riddled with all the other corruption and cash business that goes on there.
If grads were encouraged to work in donor country’s labour markets this could be a form of bonded labour.
It could only really work in terms of repayment through an honesty system which relied on the graduates themselves. It would effectively be a way to donate aid (statist welfare?) and returns should not be expected, and nor should they be.

]]> By: parkos http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10157 Sat, 05 May 2007 01:49:25 +0000 http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/human-capital-project/#comment-10157 Actually Humphrys,
you have a fine idea there, basically transferring a version of the Australian HECS system as a way of financing education in a system that is strapped for cash.
I was going to do some work out at the main state university in Pnom Penh a few years ago but I was told that there was little money involved as far as facilities or wages and that there was nationalistic resistance to foreign staff and students.
The private sector in the centre of town such as the “Banana Institute attached to Norton University” (seriously) seemed to have more of an open door policy for shunting fat blokes from the North of England around muddy streets on motorbike taxis and calling it education.

JC,
thanks for your concern. Great to see I can still get a rise out of ye aroond here. First man in space argument usually shuts em up.

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