Disney's 1943 Anti-Nazi Cartoon: The Issue of Tax-Funded Education
Yesterday, I published a short article on Tea Party Economist. It centered on a long-forgotten 1943 cartoon produced by Walt Disney. The cartoon was a critique of the Nazi party's control over public education in Germany.
Warner Brothers Produced its share of anti-Nazi propaganda cartoons for the kids. The Nazis were fair game during World War II. But this Disney cartoon goes beyond wartime propaganda. It raises the question of the legitimacy of tax funded education in general.
The cartoon is worth watching. The superficial message of the cartoon is that Nazis are bad. Therefore, when they took over the public schools in Germany, they made the schools bad. (5:20 into the cartoon.)
Someone watching this cartoon in the Soviet Union in 1943 no doubt would have agreed with its message. The Nazis are bad, and therefore the tax-funded schools in Germany are bad. But would he have drawn the conclusion that the problem with German education was the fact that it was controlled and financed by the state? Probably not.
Now think of the typical American in a movie theater in 1943, who had just watched this cartoon. At the end of the cartoon, would he have concluded that the problem with German public education was not the fact that Nazis were in control of German public education, but the fact that Germany had public education at all? Probably not.
It is easy to tar and feather an opponent during a war. All governments do this. But the governments always risk the possibility that some people will draw philosophical conclusions from temporary wartime propaganda. Not many will do this, but a few will. What happens if those few ever get into control of state budgets?
If there had not been tax-funded education in Germany in the 1930s, would all the private schools have adopted a curriculum comparable to the one ridiculed by this cartoon?
If the philosophy of education in a nation is that the state has the responsibility for controlling both the content and the procedures of the nation's classrooms, what is to prevent the creation of a system of education that is comparable to the one described in this cartoon?
How would a defender of German public education in 1943 have argued that this cartoon was inaccurate? How would he have defended the German system of education on the basis of a philosophy of public education?
How would a defender of public education in the Soviet Union have defended the Communist system of education, given the message of this cartoon?
How would a defender of public education in the United States have defended the American system of education, given the message of this cartoon?
How would a defender of public education in the United States today defend the American system of education, given the message of this cartoon?
Would these arguments be similar?
For parents who want an alternative, I hope the Ron Paul Curriculum will meet their expectations.