Few institutions, Rothbard observed, are held more sacred — especially by left-liberals — than the public school.
Devotion to the public school seized even those early Americans who were libertarian in most other respects. The public school is supposed to be a crucial ingredient of democracy, the fount of brotherhood, and the enemy of elitism and separateness in American life … the embodiment of the alleged right of every child to an education.
Hand in hand with the spread of public education have been compulsory attendance laws, which have forced all children up to a high and continually increasing minimum age to attend either a public school or a private school certified as suitable by the state apparatus.
Part of the reason for this tyranny over the nation’s youth is misplaced altruism on the part of the educated middle class. The workers, or the ‘lower classes,’ they felt, should have the opportunity to enjoy the schooling the middle classes value so highly. And if the parents or the children of the masses should be so benighted as to balk at this glorious opportunity set before them, well, then, a little coercion must be applied — ‘for their own good,’ of course.
Chapter 7 of the For a New Liberty audiobook is now available for podcast or download.
Next week:
Chapter 8, “Welfare and the Welfare State ” …
(And if you don’t want to wait for the free audio, you can always purchase the new, hardbound edition of Rothbard’s manifesto here.)
For more on the history and politics of compulsory schooling, see Murray Rothbard’s Education: Free and Compulsory, available at Shop Mises or in the Study Guide.
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you know we have a great natural experiment in the US that could go a long way to answering the questions you raise about public vs private schools.
After the Brown vs Board of Education several states essentially shut down their public school systems for whites and replaced them with private schools.
Do you, are anyone you know, researched how this masssive shift to private rather then public shools worked? Did it help or hurts the kids — and I mean just the white kids — education?
Don’t you agree that this should make a great research project to resolve some of the questions your theory raises?
Or, do you already know the answer and are trying to hide it?
Spencer – It’s not a “theory” — its more along the lines of 2+2=4; it’s a sure thing.
People will choose what’s more important to them when given alternatives. If violence is necessary, it can only be to force people to choose things LESS important to them – and do so by first taking their money. So if state education requires force, it’s a worse state of affairs as sure as 2+2=4.
I’m perplexed by my California style liberal friends (Cali being a more multicultural and enviro-friendly form of leftism) who claim to support state schools AND pluralism. I explain its origins in Protestant conformity, and how state schools have to make tradeoffs that can’t make everyone happy. For example, is an obscure Hmong holiday to recieve a celebration if it happens to fall on Cinco de Mayo? And of course English as a common language becomes tempting as simply a pragmatic measure. In the process, cultural differences get diluted and suppressed.
Anyway, can’t wait to listen to the podcast…
Spencer,
Since government has declared schooling to be mandatory, they (the govt.) of course must decide what constitutes “schooling”. This means that a whole host of guidelines have been established concerning content and proceedures. These guidelines must be met whether the schooling is public or private. As a result, the education one gets, whether public or private, still bears a heavy imprint of the state.
For example, I never heard of “fiat” money until long after my formal education ended. This is just how the government wants it!
I hope you listen to (or read) this chapter on education. It is one of the best in the book.
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