math for reproduction and domination

[Bill Barowy <xmcageek@comcast.net>]

On Thursday 11 November 2004 10:22 am, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:

> I was struck that in the entire discussion, there was no cultural
> historical analysis of the situation in which children do these
> mathematical things not because they are (considered) useful and its
> outcomes have any relevance to anything but to the reproduction of a
> society, where, as in the US, 15 to 20 percent of the population live
> in poverty, and where education is used to systematically exclude parts
> of the population to share in the wealth that is collectively produced.

I don't think such an analysis is necessay, Michael.  I think it's obvious and 
publications from such people as Bowles and Gintis hammer that point home.  
In first grade, this kind of thinking is a long ways off.  I'm not even sure 
it's something one could do consistently in high school.  But if a student 
takes a course in marxist economics at Umass Amherst, or any other univeristy 
for that matter, that point will be well addressed.


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bb