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IPFS News Link • Education: Government Schools

Why Education Is Not a Public Good

• https://www.libertarianinstitute.org

Today, government provides many goods and services that used to be addressed by private means. Public education is one of the most salient examples.

Government stepped into education with the best of intentions. Yet it goes without saying that many people remain dissatisfied with the current outcome. Polls have shown a steady decline of confidence in public schools over time, and it is frequently one of the key issues in US politics. Because the government has been involved for so long, people naturally look to government for the solution.

If you suggest that the private sector could offer a better remedy, you will quickly encounter all sorts of conventional reasons why the market is ill-suited to the task. You might hear that the market is only good at producing a commodity and cannot provide the customization needed in education. Or perhaps you will hear that the market is incapable of providing the level of quality required. Moreover, since there's no profit to be made in serving the poor, the market won't work for them. And so on.

These types of objections have two important characteristics in common. First, they all sound like plausible economic arguments for government to intervene. And second, they have nothing to do with economics.

In economics, the question of government intervention is much more narrow. It does not matter whether the product involved is a good or a service, whether it is standardized or customized, or whether it is essential or frivolous. The main thing that matters is whether the good or service involved is a "public good". If it is a public good, government intervention of some form may be necessary. If it's not a public good, we would expect the private market to work just fine.

So the question then becomes, what is a public good?

Public goods are defined by two characteristics: they are nonrival and nonexcludable.

Nonrival means that my enjoyment of something does not interfere with your enjoyment of that thing. For example, clean air would be nonrival in consumption. You and I could both live in a city with clean air and enjoy the benefits of breathing clean air at the same time. By contrast, almond milk would be rival in consumption. If you drink a glass of almond milk, I cannot drink that same glass of almond milk.


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