If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.
Charles FergusonThe real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don't, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population.
Charles FergusonI'm actually all in favor of freeing the entrepreneurial spirit - but it turns out, interestingly, that you actually need very strict regulations to free the entrepreneurial spirit.
Charles FergusonAny attempt to disturb the deadly routine of instruction is looked upon as sabotage. And the notion that the aims and functions of education should be determined in the local community by a close and continuous discussion among students, faculty, administration, and citizens is so visionary that it is not even seriously considered.
Charles FergusonA very high fraction of America's economic problems come not from our difficulties with education or globalization or competition with the Chinese or whatever. But they come from the fact that a small number of wealthy and powerful people who run dangerous and/or inefficient companies are able, through the use of money in the political process, to prevent the government from regulating them properly.
Charles Ferguson