Can you clarify this remark? Ireland didn't provide free secondary school education until the late 60's (my Dad was sent to secondary school for three years as he was the smart one), so I'm having trouble understanding what you mean here.
That implication assumes that prosperity is correlated to democracy. There's also a vast difference between a democracy and a functioning democracy (which has arguably never existed). The value of democracy is drilled into citizens of democracies, however, when you look at it objectively it's a bitter failure; just like all its alternatives.
The implication is: if you want to control where the votes go, you want an uneducated populace that is more likely to believe emotional/populist arguments. Nothing more, nothing less.
> Yes, but it will never happen.
This implies a model of the world in which education causes prosperity. The fate of large parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Mongolia after the end of the subsidies from Russia suggests this doesn’t work that well. Broad based high levels of education weren’t great for Ireland either last century. There were at most three decades 1900-2000 when Ireland didn’t export its people. By contrast China got rich explosively fast once with a population that mostly hadn’t finished primary school starting in the 1980s.
The evidence that education causes prosperity is at best weak. People like to buy education once they have money for similar reasons to west they like to buy nicer houses or travel, intrinsic enjoyment and conspicuous consumption.