All Posts Tagged With: "public education"
Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy against the American Taxpayer
Politics has one feature that sets it apart from all sorts of voluntary action: It employs coercion. Politicians can raid the wallets of taxpayers, forcing them to part with money they would rather spend, donate, or invest according to their own desires. Much of the money thus confiscated is then spent to succor special-interest groups [...]
22Jun2011 | George C. Leef | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Worm in the Apple
Just as a government monopoly in postal service would be a bad idea even in the absence of postal-worker unions, so would “public education” be a bad idea even in the absence of teacher unions. There can be no doubt, however, that the major teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of [...]
5Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 5 comments | ContinuedPlunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation
Karl Marx was right—sort of. He was right in saying that society is riven by class warfare, but he got the classes wrong. It’s not the case that capitalists exploit workers, but rather that tax consumers exploit taxpayers. That truth has long been kept hidden from the average American by deceptive propaganda about the workings [...]
29Jun2010 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedMarket-Based Higher Education
As experience continues to prove that private industry can do things more cost effectively and with better customer satisfaction than governmental entities, debate has shifted to what functions are appropriately in the government’s realm. Over the past several decades various institutions have arisen to challenge the notion that higher education is among the activities that [...]
29Jun2010 | Keith Wade | 1 comment | ContinuedE.G. West: Champion of the Market for Education
(Editor’s Note: Professor E. G. West, the distinguished economist and historian of education, died last October 6 at the age of 79. His most recent articles in this magazine, “The Spread of Education Before Compulsion: Britain and America in the Nineteenth Century” and “Classical Libertarian Compromises on State Education,” appeared in the July and October [...]
29Jun2010 | Charles K. Rowley | 0 comments | ContinuedDo We Really Want a Right to Health Care?
Do you have a right to health care? People want a right to health care because they think it will guarantee them the services they need. But might obtaining health care as a political right rather than a market commodity have a downside? The government cannot produce or purchase an infinite amount of health care. [...]
20Apr2010 | Theodore Levy | 4 comments | ContinuedMontessori, Dewey and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market In Education
For years, school-choice proponents have assessed and reassessed the possibilities of expanding government support for vouchers. Jerry Kirkpatrick’s Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market in Education is a refreshing alternative to those tired discussions of political coalitions, legislative machinations, and disparate school-choice programs. Indeed, Kirkpatrick’s book is one of the first [...]
15Oct2009 | Terry Stoops | 1 comment | ContinuedLooking in the Mirror
Quite frequently, I hear, “How do you justify working at a state university and holding libertarian views? That’s hypocritical!” The question is not as easy to answer as I would like–a fact that makes the accusation understandable (but, I hope, in the final analysis untrue). My employer, George Mason University, is indeed a government-created and [...]
23Sep2009 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 35 comments | ContinuedEnding the Welfare State Through the Power of Private Action
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. Despair about the current direction of American public policy is easily understood. In whichever direction we look, government seems to be growing larger and more intrusive. For example, in February the Associated Press (AP) reported that in spite of the 1996 welfare reform, which has reduced the number [...]
1Apr2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedSmart Economics: Commonsense Answers to 50 Questions about Government, Taxes, Business, and Households
By Michael L. Walden Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Jan2007 | George C. Leef | 2 comments | ContinuedNew Labour
As Britains New Labour governs for an unprecedented
third term in the United Kingdom, it is time to look back a little, at least as a way of modestly predicting the future. The obvious domestic question is: will capitalism and the market economy be
any safer in the next five years than they have been in the last eight? Or will the subtle and blatant departures from economic freedom that have occurred in the first two Labour terms accelerate and will the country be under old socialistic Labour in everything but name? Tony Blair has said he will stand down as prime minister at the end of the next Parliament, but has the damage already been done? Will the likely succession of Gordon Brown be that much different?
I’d Push the Button—To Establish Freedom Right Now
In April 1946, a month after the late Leonard E. Read established the Foundation for Economic Education, he gave a talk in Detroit called “I’d Push the Button.” He said that if there were a button on the podium that would immediately abolish all controls and regulations on the U.S. economy, he would push it. [...]
1Jun2005 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedWeighing In
Last spring the Arkansas legislature passed a law requiring schools to compute each student’s body mass (using the Body Mass Index, BMI) and record it on report cards. The BMI generates a number based on a person’s height and weight, and is supposed to indicate something about one’s health. However, it’s been criticized for not [...]
1Nov2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedTitle IX and the Law of Unintended Consequences
Larry Schweikart teaches history at the University of Dayton. A recent debate over obesity featured James Glassman, an American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, defending the fast-food industry and Shannon Brownlee, a New America Foundation senior fellow, complaining “not only is your local, state and federal government not doing anything about this disease—anything credible about it—but [...]
1Oct2003 | Larry Schweikart | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Importance of FEE, Then and Now
When Leonard Read established the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, the United States had just passed through 12 years of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal interventionist policies, including four years of wartime controls. Read was deeply concerned that the American people were losing their understanding of and appreciation for individual liberty, free markets, the rule [...]
1Sep2003 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedLessons from the Washington Teachers Union
The Washington Teachers Union (WTU) is the exclusive bargaining agent for District of Columbia government school teachers. Teachers represented by WTU must, as a condition of continued employment, pay union dues whether they want WTU representation or not. Its website, www.wtulocal6.org, boldly proclaims its motto, “Building Better Schools: It’s Union Work.”
1Sep2003 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedDoes Prosperity Depend on Education?
Christopher Lingle is professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala and global strategist for eConoLytics.com. New Delhi, India—It has become an article of faith that economic progress depends on having an educated citizenry. A corollary is often attached, requiring governments to provide resources to meet this end. However, like so many self-evident truths, [...]
1May2003 | Christopher Lingle | 1 comment | Continued-
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