One of the pillars of Fantasy Free Economics is the practice of studying and explaining people and institutions according to how they function rather than how they are defined.

A mainstream economist uses the term school teacher and assumes that a person is doing the job he is assigned to do. A more descriptive term for “school teacher” is youth warehousing specialist. A better term for a school administrator is youth warehousing facilitator.

This is not a slam against school teachers. School teachers would love to teach. There is an instinctive incentive to teach children. It is a natural act.  But, teachers don’t actually work in schools. Schools function as youth warehousing facilities. To keep a job, a teacher must demonstrate completely that he is not doing it for the money and then make it look on paper as if teaching is taking place. A teacher can’t teach because teaching and learning are not what schools do. The obstacles a teacher faces are too overwhelming. A teacher’s job is to go along to get along. The best teachers are those who are most adept at the activity of going along to get along. Teacher is a title but the task that is performed for society is that of a youth warehousing specialist.  Perhaps there is a better term than youth warehousing specialist but it does better describe the function actually being performed.

All of society’s institutions do tasks but not the task they are designed to do. Many incentives are claimed but self interest is the only one in play. Society gets great comfort believing that government employees are working tirelessly and unselfishly for the good of the world. Otherwise the term government worker would replace civil servant as a job descriptive term. This process creates huge reality gaps.

Out of self interest government institutions come to perform in ways which benefit those institution and employees. This is why in Fantasy Free Economics people and institutions are studied strictly according to how they function. Do it any other way and there is no way to be right about anything.