Can you imagine a modern, market economy without public education for all? I can’t. We can quibble about whether we should have charters, traditional city-run, federal support or not, or even vouchers or not, but no one I know is arguing to withdraw the right to have an education at public expense, and to withdraw the requirement that children to be educated. As with my reason number one (Roads: i.e. transportation), schooling has become a basic mission of government, as American as apple pie. We argue about how we do it, not whether.

Twas not always thus. Like most things we take for granted, we now have general public education for all only because of a hard, long political fight. As I tell about in chapter 17 in The Surprising Design of Market Economies, education for all was a slogan during the revolution. But it would be more than a half century before Pennsylvania passed in 1834 the Free School Act, the first in the country. And it was very controversial. As with health care now, many argued that they should not have to pay for someone else’s child’s education. And most churches were against it, who viewed education as their turf. But what was called “common schools” were eventually created. Massachusetts, as one might expect, was a leader. But it would be into the 20^th century before every state had common schools and required all children to attend.

So what does this have to do with the free market as false concept? Because the market does not educate everyone. The public does. And a modern economy would not function adequately without general education. As one Harvard business professor said, public schooling is a giant supply side subsidy to business, because they don’t have to worry about teaching their employees to read and write (usually.)

Now onto Reason Number Three . . .