As it seems to be an area in which more conservatives disagree with me than any other, I have decided that public education would make a great case study to show precisely how a fully free system would work. As I have been saying over and over that anything we can do through inefficient, cumbersome government bureaucracy can be done better and more efficiently through private charity "Private Charity", "Private Charity Take Two", "Liberalism's False Dichotomy "), I suppose it is incumbent upon me to show exactly how that would work. And so I have decided to use public education as my example, to demonstrate exactly why I claim that it is absurd to think eliminating state run schools would not leave education entirely the province of the rich.

Before I begin let me point out a few details. First, I do not suggest such charity is a necessity. It is quite possible in many areas education will be handled entirely by private schools, perhaps with schools providing their own scholarships, or private groups providing them, and so any sort of charitable school will not be necessary. I am simply offering up these examples as possibilities for localities which think they need some sort of free public education. Second, these are hardly the only examples. If there is one thing deregulation, or the internet boom, should have shown us is that, freed of government regulation, the ingenuity of the public is unlimited, and individuals often come up with solutions no one else would have even imagined beforehand. That is why I am so enthusiastic about leaving these answers to private individuals and eliminating any sort of impediment to carrying out their novel ideas. So, though I do offer up several possibilities, these are hardly an exhaustive list, and I am certain the free market will come up with dozen of better options. For that matter, those reading this may come up with better alternatives.

But, for the sake of argument, let us say that at some future date my dream comes to pass, and government funded and managed public education ends. Clearly, most parents would end up sending their children to private schools, be they religious or secular, while others would end up providing home schooling. And some may decide their children need less education and provide only some of the education currently provided. As I said in "Reforming Education", "The Limits of "Scientific" Management", "Absolute Values" and "The Right Way", those are parental choices, and there is no "right way" to educate a child. If a given parent sees his child has little interest in academic education and so instead decides to get him training in some sort of profession at a younger age, is that such a bad thing? Do we really believe that every individual MUST complete 12th grade to be a complete human being? I know many individuals who would probably have been happier working as a plumber or electrician laborer at 15 than they were wasting time in remedial education classes, and they probably would have ended up farther ahead in life and their career by doing so.

But that is not my topic either, so let's move on.

Let us assume there is a town somewhere that finds they are simply not adequately served by private schools. They just can't seem to find enough private schools in the area, and the surrounding towns, having much higher incomes, have far too high tuition for the salaries of their residents. So, excluding a massive number of home schoolers, they fear their children will not be able to find adequate education.

At this point many might be tempted to say "See, this is why we need public education!" But I have to ask, "why?" Why must we solve this by recourse to government and coercion? What is to stop those parents who find themselves under-served from establishing what would amount to an educational cooperative? They could pool resources, hire the needed teachers, and effectively establish a self-funded public school. No, they would not be able to coerce people who did not use the service into contributing the way the government could, but on the other hand, unlike the government they could also solicit private contributions and sponsors.

A second possibility offers an even more expansive funding potential. When new communities are established, many have a community association which is responsible for funding community pools and playgrounds and such. Why not add covenants to the neighborhood deeds for funding a community school? Since the community would not have the massive property tax burden for government funded public schools, this would still probably be cheaper than existing school plans, and would provide both a means of funding "free" schools, as well as an incentive for parents to move into a community well known for good schools.

Of course that hardly even scratches the surface. For example, even now, while paying massive taxes, many individuals contribute to charities which provide scholarships to private schools, and I doubt people would be less generous if they kept more of their income due to lowered taxes. In fact, given the increase in disposable income, I would expect that religious schools, well known for giving discounted educations, would be even better provided. Not to mention that the increased income of private schools would allow them to sponsor more scholarships for needy students, as the increased pool of students would provide more income for charitable deeds.

The simple point is one I have made many times ("Liberalism's False Dichotomy"). Whatever the government does, it does with funds taken from private citizens. So if the government were not doing it, that money would be returned to the public, who could then use it. If they truly think the service provided by the state is important, nothing stops them from contributing the same amount of money to it. And, since private ventures are never as inefficient as a state run venture ("The Inevitability of Bureaucratic Management in Government Enterprises") That means that if the $100 which went to the state were spent instead on a private venture, we would get $95 in value instead of $70 or even $50. Private ventures could either provide the same services more cheaply or better services for the same price.

The only counter arguments are that people are their too greedy or stupid to fund what they think is important. In other words, unless we force them to give, expropriate the money and make them do it, they will not do the right thing. But does that not go against the philosophy of limited government? If people do not think something is important enough to fund themselves, then by what right do we take their money and force them to do it? Unless you are willing to postulate that the state should be run by some all knowing elite who force the rest of us dullards to do the right thing, you have to admit that forcing people to give charity they would not voluntarily give is contrary to our system of government.

And so, once again, I have to insist that we stop trying to make people "do the right thing". Instead, we need to leave their money in their hands and let them do what they think is right. If they think something is important, they will take care of it. If they don't, then there was no justification for forcing them to fund it in the first place.

POSTSCRIPT

I note that the government does not always fund ventures with money taken directly in taxation. Sometimes it funds it through borrowing or inflationary expansion of the money supply. But in those two cases, the goods and services they use are still purchased on the market, making them effectively taken from the citizens. So, whether honestly funded through taxes or dishonestly through inflation and borrowing, the state is still using goods and services that existed in the economy, and which could be otherwise employed had the state not used them. So, I stand by my original statement, even though the reality is a little more complex than my original statement suggested.

POSTSCRIPT II

My earlier writing on education can be found in the posts "Reforming Education", "Why Private Schools Win", "A Contradiction", "Skeptics? Really? I Beg to Differ", "The State Versus Universities", "When Help Hurts", "Professional Education", "The Failure of Peer Review", "Publish Or Perish", "You Don't Drown in a Glass of Water - Vouchers Revisited", "Why Vouchers are not the Answer", "Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education" and "Government Funding and the Free Market".