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The Essence of Libety



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Liberty knows no compromise


A Condensed Version of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray N. Rothbard

Compiled by

Dr. Jimmy T. (Gunny) LaBaume

Chapter 7: Education

Public and Compulsory Schooling

Few institutions have been held more sacred than the public school, held out to be “a crucial ingredient of democracy, the fount of brotherhood, and the enemy of elitism and separateness.”

Compulsory attendance laws have gone hand in hand with public education, coercing the entire population into spending its most impressionable years in public institutions. Millions of unwilling and un-adaptable children have been dragooned into this vast system of incarceration. Today, public schools are cesspools of crime, petty theft, and drug addiction—a vast prison system where little or no genuine education ever takes place.

Rothbard sums it up too eloquently to edit: “For if we are to dragoon the entire youth population into vast prisons in the guise of ‘education,' with teachers and administrators serving as surrogate wardens and guards, why should we not expect vast unhappiness, discontent, alienation, and rebellion on the part of the nation's youth?”

A fallacy of the school worshippers is confusion between formal schooling and education . Education is lifelong and takes place in all areas of life. Formal schooling is only a part of the process and is only suitable for formal instruction in the advanced and systematic subjects. Elementary subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic, can easily be learned outside the school.

Diversity is one of the great glories of mankind. Each individual is unique. To coerce the schooling of children who have neither ability nor interest is criminal. Most would be better off if allowed to work, learn a trade, and do what they are most suited for. The idea that one must have a high-school diploma before he can work is absurd. Abolish compulsory attendance laws and people will be “far more productive, interested, creative, and happy.”

America's youth are discontented and divorced from reality. This is due to the ever-longer time they must stay in school, sheltered by its cocoon of dependence and irresponsibility. Mass schooling creates discontent and provides shelter from the "real world."

A whole mass of children is being dragooned into an institution for which they have little interest or aptitude. The result of forcing the "ineducable" into schools out of a vain egalitarian belief in the equal educability of all children distorts the lives of those not suited for school. At the same time, it wrecks proper schooling for the truly educable. If you coerce children who cannot absorb classical education into school, then you have to shift education toward the lowest common denominator. This is the fatal flaw in universal schooling.

The history of public schooling and compulsory attendance reveals that the root is not so much misguided altruism as it is a conscious scheme to coerce the mass of the population into a mould desired by the Establishment. It is a place for citizens to be inculcated in the civic virtues, which always includes obedience to the State.

Martin Luther was a leader in the first modern drive for compulsory State education. To Luther, the State schools were to be an indispensable part of the "war with the devil."

John Calvin, the other great Protestant founder, was no less zealous in promoting mass public schooling for similar reasons. In fact, the Calvinist Puritans in Massachusetts Bay established the earliest compulsory schooling in America. In fact, it was the first in the English-speaking world. The purpose was “to plant an absolutist Calvinist theocracy in the New World.” Massachusetts Bay established public schools five years later.

Thus, from the beginning of American history, the impetus behind public schooling has been to “mould, instruct, and render obedient the mass of the population.” It is not a coincidence that the only truly free colony in New England, Rhode Island, was also the only colony that did not have public schooling.

There was little difference in the essentials of the motivation for public and compulsory schooling after Independence.

Historically, the oppression of national ethnic and linguistic minorities or colonized peoples has been one of the most common uses of compulsory public schooling around the world. The primary purpose has usually been to force them to abandon their own language and culture on behalf of the language and culture of the ruling groups. The wish to save their language and heritage from the weapon of public schools wielded by their oppressors has been one of the most potent stimuli for discontent and rebellion by these oppressed peoples. In other words, whoever controls the schools has the power to injure other nationalities and to benefit his own. Thus, historically, compulsory education has been incompatible with lasting peace.

The school is a political prize of the highest importance and will always maintain its political character as long as it remains public and compulsory. There is only one solution: The state must not in any way concern itself with education. The rearing of youth must be left entirely to parents.

A primary motive of the American "educational reformers" (who established the modern public school system) was to cripple the cultural and linguistic life of immigrants and mould them into "one people." In particular they wanted to smash the Catholic parochial school system.

Horace Mann and Henry Barnard urged the use of the schools for indoctrination against the "mobocracy" of the Jacksonian movement and Calvin Stowe wrote of the schools in unmistakably Lutheran and military terms.

Forty years later, Newton Bateman, a leading educator, spoke of the State's "right of eminent domain" over the "minds and souls and bodies" of the nation's children and asserted that education "cannot be left to the caprices and contingencies of individuals.”

The most ambitious attempt to maximize control over the nation's children came in Oregon during the early 1920s with a law outlawing private schools and compelling all children to attend public school. Happily, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. However, it is instructive to realize who the most ardent supporters of public schools were that spearheaded this law—the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was eager to crush the Catholic parochial school system.

Uniformity or Diversity?

The very nature of the public school requires uniformity and the stamping out of diversity and individuality. It is the bureaucrat's nature to live by rules imposed with a heavy-hand. If he did not uniformly enforce these rules (and decided each individual case on its own merits) he would be accused of discrimination, fostering special privilege and not treating each taxpayer equally.

Since profit is not involved, the bureaucrat is neither interested in efficiency nor in serving his customers. Instead, his primary interest is "not making waves." However, he does face a multitude of controversial decisions regarding the pattern of schooling in his area—should it be traditional or progressive; free enterprise or socialistic; competitive or egalitarian; liberal arts or vocational; etc. Whatever he decides, there will always be a substantial number who will be deprived of the kind of education they desire. In other words, the greater the sphere of public education, the greater the social conflict. The more government decisions replace private decisions, the more the various groups will be at each others' throats.

If education were private, then each group of parents could patronize its own kind of school. A host of diverse schools would spring up that would range through the full traditional-progressive scale.

To get some idea of the diversity that would spontaneously arise, consider the magazine and book publishing industries, themselves an important form of education. The magazine and book market, being roughly free, contains almost every type of publication on every topic imaginable. Abolish public schools and the "school market" would look much the same way.

In contrast, if there were only one magazine for each city or state, think of the battles and conflicts that would rage. No resolution would be possible because any decision would deprive countless people of what they want.

What would we think of a government that used the taxpayers' money to set up a nationwide chain of public magazines or newspapers and then compelled all people to read them or one that outlawed all newspapers or magazines that do not meet certain "standards?" This is precisely the sort of regime that government has established in the schools. The suppression of free schooling should be regarded with even greater horror than the suppression of a free press.

E. G. West offered an analogy between schooling and food. He wrote: “Protection of a child against …malnutrition is …just as important as protection against ignorance. It is difficult to envisage…any government…that …would pass laws for compulsory and universal eating, or increase…taxes …to provide children's food, ‘free' …Yet strange as such hypothetical measures …appear …they are …typical of …state education…” (Editor's Note: Writing in 1965, little did West know that, in only a few short years, government would be doing that very thing within the public schools.)

Several libertarian thinkers have critiqued the totalitarian nature of compulsory schooling. For example:

British critic Herbert Read: “Mankind is …differentiated into many types, and to press …these …into the same mold must …lead to distortions and repressions.”

Then Herbert Spencer asked: “…the people? Why should they be educated? …to make them good citizens? And who is to say what are good citizens? …And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. …This system of discipline it is bound to enforce to the uttermost. For if it does otherwise, it allows men to become different from what in its judgment they should become, and therefore fails in that duty it is charged to fulfill.”

Isabel Paterson declared: “Educational texts are necessarily selective…(In) private schools, there will be …considerable variation …(and) nowhere will there be any inducement to teach the ‘supremacy' of the state as a compulsory philosophy. But every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later…Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property, and mind in its clutches from infancy…A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state."

For bureaucratic convenience, states prescribe geographical public school districts and force each child to attend school in the district closest to his residence. The result is enforced geographic homogeneity with the character of the school dependent on its residential neighborhood. Instead of being totally uniform, schools will be uniform within each district and the quality of education will depend upon the values, the wealth, and the tax base of each geographical area. Wealthy school districts will have the better teachers while the poorer ones will remain in the lower-income areas. The result is the negation of the very egalitarian goal, which is supposed to be a major purpose of the public school system in the first place. (Editor's Note: And this has subsequently led to such idiotic political boondoggles as “Robin Hood” in Texas.)

Moreover, if the residential areas are racially segregated, the result is compulsory racial segregation of the schools. And so what is the government solution? Compulsory busing. The voluntary way cuts across the grain of any State bureaucracy.

When White parental groups oppose compulsory busing, the educational Establishment condemns them as "bigoted" or "right-wing." On the other hand, when Negro parents demanded local parental control, they are condemned as "extreme left-wing." The curious part is that parents in both cases have failed to recognize their common desire and have themselves condemned the "bigots" or "militants" in the other group. Their common cause is against the educational Establishment's dictatorial control of education by a bureaucracy which rams a form of schooling down their throats which, it believes, must be imposed upon the recalcitrant masses.

The geographical nature of the public school system has also led to a coerced pattern of residential segregation. In the years since forced integration laws were passed, there has been a significant expansion of the population in the suburbs surrounding the cities. As younger families have moved to the suburbs, the largest portion of the budgets to pay for public schools has been financed from property taxes, which largely fall on the suburban residences. As a result, suburbanites encourage an inflow of wealthy residents and expensive homes and discourage any inflow of poorer citizens. To accomplish this, the suburbs have adopted rigorous zoning laws, which prohibit the erection of housing below a minimum cost and thereby freeze the poorer out. Furthermore, there has been a commensurate shift of jobs and industry from the central city to the suburbs. The result is increasing pressure of unemployment on inter-city blacks. Abolition of public schools would go a long way toward removing zoning laws.

Burdens and Subsidies

The public school system involves a complex network of coerced levies and subsidies. Parents who wish to send their children to private schools are being forced to shoulder a double burden: they are coerced into subsidizing public school children while they also have to pay for the schooling of their own. In higher education, private colleges are being put out of business by competition from tax-subsidized State institutions. Religious parents are forced to subsidize the secular public schools. Unmarried and childless couples are coerced into subsidizing families with children—not only with children, but also in proportion to the number of children they have. This also means that poor single people and poor childless couples are forced to subsidize wealthy families with children.

The public school advocates' promulgation of the doctrine that "Every child has a right to an education" misconstrues the concept of "right." Philosophically, a "right" is something that is fundamental to the nature of man and reality. It is something that is universally applicable to all men, at all times in all places. For example, the "rights" of self-ownership and to defend one's life and property apply to Neanderthal men, in Calcutta, or in the united States. However, a "right to a job" or to "three meals a day" or to "twelve years of schooling" simply does not meet the universality requirement. For example, suppose that such things cannot exist, as was true in the Stone Age. A "right" that can only be obtained under modern industrial conditions is not a natural human right at all.

Furthermore, the "right" of self-ownership does not require that one group of people be coerced into providing said "right" for some other group. Everyman has the right of self-ownership without coercing anyone. By contrast, the "right" to schooling can only be provided if other people are coerced into providing it. Therefore, the "right" to schooling, a job, three meals, etc., is not fundamental to the nature of man. Instead, it requires that a group of people be exploited and coerced into providing it.

If every child has a "right" to education, then why not a "right" to newspapers and magazines? Shouldn't the government tax everyone to provide free public magazines for those who want them?

Milton Friedman points out that it is feasible for taxpayers to subsidize education without having public schools. Under his "voucher plan," the government would give every parent a voucher entitling him to pay a certain amount of tuition for each child, in any school of the parent's choice. The plan would continue tax-financed education, yet it would enable the abolition of the “vast monopolistic, inefficient, dictatorial public school bureaucracy.”

This would certainly be a great improvement over the present system. However, it has many problems. First, the immorality of coerced subsidy would still continue. Second, the power to subsidize brings with it the power to regulate and control. Government would only pay for private schools certified by the State, which means detailed control over their curriculum, methods, etc. As a result, the power of the State over private schools would be even greater than it is now.

Private schools are regulated in numerous ways. Each state dictates that every child must be educated in schools it certifies, thereby coercing them into adopting the curriculum desired by the government. "Qualifying" involves all sorts of pointless and costly regulations. The same can be said for teachers who are required to take a host of meaningless "education" courses. In most states parents are prohibited from teaching their children themselves even though they are more qualified than any outside party could possibly be to judge the abilities and required pacing of the child.

"Free" schools are not really free. Taxpayers must pay. But severing service from payment results in an oversupply of children and a lack of interest in the service for which the family does not have to pay.

The result is a large number of children who are unsuitable for or uninterested in school being dragooned for far longer than they should. Many of this mass of discontented and imprisoned children would be better off at home or working. Another contributing factor is the general (and erroneous) view that everyone has to finish high school to be employed. This is, at least in part, the fault of business employers who are happy to have their labor force trained at the expense of the taxpayer. In this way, employers foist the cost of training employees off on to taxpayers. This training is expensive, inefficient, far too lengthy, and the vast amount of it is not needed for productive employment.

There is nothing that a high school can teach that employers would be willing to pay for. Neither physical abilities nor reliability (the two main interests of employers) are much influenced by schooling. High school diplomas may (or at least they used to be) evidence of good discipline. Other than that, employers can train employees better and cheaper on the job where most job skills are learned anyway.

The uselessness of the public school system for training manual labor is demonstrated by an organization called MIND. This private educational service takes high-school dropouts and, in a few short weeks, teaches them more than they learn in ten years of public schooling. The job-oriented training allows youngsters to drop out of enforced dependency and become independent and self-supporting.

Studies have found evidence linking compulsory attendance laws with juvenile delinquency and rebellious behavior. Such behavior is "largely a reaction to the school itself."

Finally, labor unions must bear some of the blame. Unions support public schooling and compulsory attendance laws in order to force the youth out of the labor market for as long as possible and, thereby reduce the competition.

Higher Education

With the exception of compulsory attendance laws, the same can be said about public higher education with one addition—the coerced subsidy (through taxes) forces poorer citizens to subsidize the education of the wealthier. There are three ways in which this occurs: 1) School taxes are not "progressive;" 2) kids going to college usually come from wealthier parents and; 3) they will usually earn a higher lifetime income as a result of their college experience.

Furthermore, states put private colleges into financial jeopardy through unfair, tax-subsidized competition and strict regulatory controls over private higher education. For example, in some states, no one can establish an institution and call it a "college" or "university" without posting a large bond with the state. In addition, regional associations of colleges can use their power of "accreditation," to effectively put any college out of business that does not conform to Establishment rules governing curriculum or financing. These associations refuse to accredit any college that is “for profit” and not trustee-governed. Ironically, these are the very institutions that have the greatest incentive to operate efficiently while serving the consumer.

Although the regional associations are private, they work hand in hand with the federal government which refuses to provide scholarships or GI benefits to unaccredited colleges.

Furthermore, the income tax structure severely discriminates against private colleges. Trustee-run organizations are exempt from income taxes. By contrast, profit-making institutions are taxed heavily. In this way, government cripples the most efficient form of higher education. The solution is not to place equal burdens on the two types of colleges, but to remove the tax burdens on the proprietary schools.

Trustee governance is a poor way to run any institution. First the institution is not fully owned by anyone. Since trustees cannot make profits, they have no incentive to operate efficiently or better their service to customers. Furthermore, they are often hobbled by their charters. For example, they are forbidden from converting part of the campus into a commercial enterprise like a profit-making parking lot, for example.

Furthermore, the situation is aggravated where students pay only a small fraction of the cost of their education with the major part being financed by subsidy or endowment. Disjunction between service and payment always leads to unsatisfactory results. In this case, since it is really the government, foundations, or alumni who pay most of the bill, education gets skewed in the direction of their demands rather than toward the real needs of students. Further, universities have to compete with other tax-financed activities for resources. One result is that student-consumer demand is neglected.

The government indoctrinates the nation's youth through public schools and moulds future leaders through control of higher education. The solution is simple: Get the government out of education.

Abolishing compulsory attendance laws would:

•  End the public schools' role as prisons and

•  Free all those that would be better off outside the schools for independence and productive work.

Abolishing the public schools themselves would:

  • End the crippling property tax;
  • Provide a broad range of education to satisfy the demands of a diverse population
  • End the unjust coerced subsidy granted to large families and the upper classes at the expense of the poor.

The molding of youth in the direction desired by the State would be replaced by voluntary actions—e.g. a genuine and truly free education.

Continue to the next chapter...


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