Abstract
One of the largest expenditures of state and local governments in the USA,1 and of various governments at all levels In other countries, is for the provision of education. In the USA, states provide a free government (public school) education to students for the first twelve years, and subsidize tuition at state universities thereafter. As a result, government education has become a near monopoly,2 especially at the primary and secondary level because privately provided education finds it difficult to compete on price. Where private education exists, it can compete only because of nonprice advantages.
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NOTES
More than one-third of state and local government expenditures are for education. Roger LeRoy Miller, (1994). Economics Today: The Micro View, eighth edition. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994, p. 116.
Randall Fitzgerald, When Government Goes Private: Successful Alternatives to Public Services. New York: Universe Books, 1988; James T. Bennett and Manuel H. Johnson, Better Government at Half the Price: Private Production of Public Services. Ottawa, IL & Ossining, NY: Caroline House Publishers, Inc., 1981; Robert W. Poole, Jr., Cutting Back City Hall. New York: Universe Books, 1980; E.S. Savas, Privatizing the Public Sector: How To Shrink Government. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1982.
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962; David W. Kirkpatrick, Choice in Schooling: A Case for Tuition Vouchers. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990.
David F. Salisbury, What Does a Voucher Buy? A Closer Look at the Cost of Private Schools. Policy Analysis No. 486, Washington, DC; Cato Institute, August 28, 2003.
Plato, The Republic; Sheldon Richman, Separating School & State. Fairfax, VA: Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994; Joel Spring, The Public School Movement vs. the Libertarian Tradition, Journal of Libertarian Studies 7(1): 61–79 (1983); E.G. West, Education and the State, second edition. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1970.
For treatises on the negative effects that occupational Hcensure laws have on various trades and professions, see Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962; Robert Albon and Greg Lindsay, editors, Occupational Regulation and the Public Interest. St. Leonard’s, New South Wales: The Centre for Independent Studies, 1984; Simon Rottenberg, editor, Occupational Licensure and Regulation. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1980; S. David Young, The Rule of Experts: Occupational Licensing in America. Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, 1987.
John E. Coons and Stephen D. Sugarman, Education by Choice: The Case for Family Control. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Dwight Lee, The Political Economy of Educational Vouchers, The Freeman, July, 1986, 244–248; Myron Lieberman, Privatization and Educational Choice. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989; Sheldon Richman, Separating School & State. Fairfax, VA: Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994.
Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America. New York: Random House, 1994.
James T. Bennett and Manuel H. Johnson, Better Government at Half the Price: Private Production of Public Services., Ottawa, IL & Ossining, NY: Caroline House Publishers, Inc., 1981; John Tayior Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1992; Sheldon Richman, Separating School & State. Fairfax, VA: Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994.
Gatto; Richman.
The argument has been made that taxes are not really coercive because “the people” gave their consent to be taxed. Space does not permit a discussion of this argument, but it has been discussed — and refuted — elsewhere. See Robert W. McGee, Is Tax Evasion Unethical? University of Kansas Law Review, 42: 411–435 (1994); Robert W. McGee, Principles of Taxation for Emerging Economies: Lessons from the U.S. Experience, Dickinson Journal of International Law, 14:29-93 (1993).
Publicly traded corporations could be in breach of their fiduciary duty to their shareholders if they donated money for things that do not benefit the corporation but we will not go into that issue here. One of the classic articles on this point was written by Milton Friedman. See Milton Friedman, The Social Responsibility of Business, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, pp. 33, 122-126, reprinted in many places, including Kurt R. Leube, editor, The Essence of Friedman, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987, pp. 36-42. Also see Henry G. Manne and Henry C. Wallich, The Modem Corporation and Social Responsibility, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1972.
Campanile, Carl. 2003. Billionaire Gives $51M to City Schools. New York Post, September 18, p. 2.
Randall Fitzgerald, When Government Goes Private: Successful Alternatives to Public Services. New York: Universe Books, 1988.
Richman.
Fitzgerald.
Samuel L. Blumenfeld, The New Illiterates. Boise, ID: The Paradigm Company, 1988.
Some people think that utilitarian solutions are moral solutions. This issue is discussed elsewhere in this book, so we will not discuss it again here.
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McGee, R.W. (2004). Financing Education. In: The Philosophy of Taxation and Public Finance. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9140-9_16
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