I'm against governments mandating anything, but they're doing it because the people who take the useless subjects are complaining about not getting jobs.
Also, China, like every country on earth, is a dictatorship, so...

Typical libertarian the-government-will-inevitably-take-it-to-the-extreme argument.

If the government did go to those extremes, then 1) the privatized education system will likely become more prominent, and hippies will still be able to study sociology taught to them by other hippies, 2) if the government chooses to prohibit the privatized education system to not allow that to happen, then it could be for good reason, 3) if it's not for good reason, then we're all F'ed anyway. Libertarians who are against government because of it's ability to effect such laws/rules should be reminded that a "government" does not necessarily have to be in place to enforce such rules; any powerful group can. Powerful groups exist with government and without.

1. I'm not a libertarian.
2. You have no idea what a libertarian is, nor do you seem to have a grasp of political philosophy. Libertarians are not anarchists, therefore they do not support abolishing government as you seem to imply.
3. Upon what ethical grounds do you believe you should have any say in what someone else studies? It should not concern you what another individual chooses to study, regardless of how silly it may be. Just as Christians should not be concerned with whom another person chooses to consensually have sex with.

Your utilitarian argument presented in previous posts is unacceptable. If you are basing your support for this kind of policy on utilitarianism, why not go a step further and support the genocide of homeless people, as they contribute significantly less to society than arts/humanities/social science majors, and it would without question, increase overall efficiency & utility. In fact, this would definitely lead to higher economic growth.

You are not to be taken seriously.

1) I never was implying that libertarianism advocates an abolishment of government, nor did I ever say that you were libertarian (nor do I care that you are or are not). I just said that what you said is a typical libertarian thing to say. Libertarians, in general, are against the current government and fear it has the wrong intentions. What you said is more or less what a typical libertarian would say; that's all I was saying. Of course you have to twist my words to then and only then make what I was saying untrue.

2) Again, your arguments always seem to take things to the extreme. I agree, for instance, that homeless people contribute very little to the world, but why kill them? Even from a utilitarian perspective, their potential benefit to society likely exceeds the cost (monetary and emotional, particularly on the behalf of super-humanitarians who are going to make a big fuss) of having to kill them.

3) I never said that the government should have a say in what people choose to study; it should educate people on the employability of their major and the importance of that employability on those people's lives and the state of the economy. Individual people are dumber and more ignorant than the collective minds of the government. As it is the government's goal to better the lives of the people both individually and collectively, the government should strive to reduce people's ignorance.

If you get rid of your twisting my words and taking my statements to the extreme, you'll see that I am libertarian-leaning. Where you and I usually differ is not in direction but magnitude. You and I both believe that people should, at least for the most part, be left to their own accord. Where we differ is that you seem to have more faith in each person's ability and willingness to do what is best for himself and everyone else. You seem to believe that this person should be provided with little to no guidance, as he is perfectly capable of managing the world on his own. I agree that most people are that way, but the few people who aren't are the sole reason that a strong guidance system should remain in place. If I am wrong about where you stand, then it is only because you spend too much time criticizing what you believe to be my argument and too little time actually making your own argument or, when I do actually misunderstand you, correcting my misunderstanding.

I said, "I like it," but I was being facetious. Admittedly, being facetious can be misleading, but I immediately afterwards started talking about how I thought their policy was far too extreme. That should have cleared up any ambiguity.

Yes, that is what my argument boils down to. It's not so much that people don't care; I'm sure most sociology majors, for example, know that their degree likely won't get them a job. I just don't think they fully appreciate what that means, and I think a lot of them falsely believe that they'll be the rare exception. Not everyone can be the rare exception.

It's not that I care that much; in fact, in a twisted way, I kind of like that people like that end up failing and struggling to pay their bills due to hefty student loan payments. That's what they get for lacking foresight and continuously ignoring the facts. It's just that it is a minimal investment for me to provide these people with a reality check; I might as well. If they don't take my advice seriously, and, as is statistically likely, they end up in a crappy position, then, well, I LIKE saying I hate to say I told you so.

Again, why does it have to be the government who educates these people, when any number of independent entities can, and have, gathered data regarding this issue. Why does the government have to conduct studies using taxpayer dollars so we can discover something we already know? What more can the government do, absent mandating which majors people can take, to educate the populace?

I guess I just don't like taxpayer dollars going to things that are superfluous. As someone who claims they are libertarian-leaning (despite consistently supporting policies which diverge from libertarian philosophy) surely you understand.

This is ridiculous. I agree, there are degrees which won't be your ticket to a job, but I think they're missing the bigger picture. It's not just about being employed afterwards. The Arts and other "useless" degrees, are what makes civilization and lift us from barbarism. I can't explain it but we just can't let those programs disappear.

This right here is a prime example of why it is far more important to educate people (including you evidently) about the adverse effects of public policy created as a result of the government's "genuine concern for the state of the economy" than it is to "guide" people towards certain undergraduate majors.

Here are a few examples, from the US, of how government's genuine concern for the state of the economy manifested itself into public policy:

1. Massive deficit spending to correct the state of the economy during the Great Depression ("The New Deal") that actually resulted in the economy growing below trend (ie - the recovery was delayed by the unprecedented intervention of the public sector.)

2. The quality of education in the US has declined steadily since the inception of the Department of Education.

3. Community Reinvestment Act, which mandated that financial institutions could not discriminate, based on certain chaacteristics, when deciding to whom they can or cannot lend to (in fact, determining which people are creditworthy and which are at probability of default is a process of discrimination, and putting any restriction on this leads to silly things such as subprime lending.)

4. George Bush's enormous bailout/stimulus bill + Obama's equally enormous stimulus bill, which has put the US trillions of $$$ in debt, and has resulted in the decline of their credit rating.

The list goes on and on. I'm sure I could come up with Canadian examples as well, but I'm less interested in Canadian politics.

The point is, markets aren't well enough understood to have such wide reaching decisions made by a central entity like the federal government. It's not like physics, where you can develop some model, calibrate it to the data, and obtain a relatively accurate result. Markets are complicated, and the models that attempt to describe them require frequent calibration. There are also enormous nonlinearities, which means that the inputs to any model are very sensitive to initial assumptions, where small errors in the inputs would lead to astronomical errors in the final result(s). This is why their "good intentions" seem to fail in practice.

I'd rather the government stick to law enforcement, national defense, and protecting civil liberties.

This is how the Chinese will bury us. Good thing I know Mandarin. 你好!

In the end, you can't eat your degree. That's the reality in Asia. They need Doctor, Engineers, and Skilled Tradesmen. Not a legion of Sociology Undergrads. There can only be so many Mcdonalds.

我是一只大西瓜!

Wo men yao xa si ni, Gwai Lo!

Damn, my parents were forward thinking. And to think I hated having to learn the language.