Should education be compulsory?

The role of the state, the minarchist holds, is merely to protect individuals' freedoms from being impinged on by others. Any role it carries out beyond this (welfare, health care; all that evil stuff) is varyingly inappropriate or violent coercion/theft in the form of taxation. Essentially, the primary concern is to 'let people do what they want' up until the point where this endangers other people's ability to do the same. It's all about the individual's freedom from interference. Fine.

However, I contend that 'letting people do what they want' is not the same as 'letting people act autonomously', and that we should be more concerned with the latter than the former. Autonomy is not merely freedom from coercion and outside interference; it is also the ability for the decisions you make to be rational and informed. This requirement is rather crucial, and is why we don't (usually) call five-year olds autonomous even if they act as they please, in accordance with their desires.

It seems to me that any person acting merely in accordance with their desires, if they lack the capability to reflectively consider these actions, is far from being free in the sense we should be interested in. Perhaps the phrase 'being a slave to one's desires' is a little strong, but it certainly captures the problem with considering freedom only in the raw, libertarian sense (as absence of constraint).

If we are, in fact, looking to maximise autonomy, allowing parents (or even the young children themselves) to decide not to educate their children in fact inhibits the children from ever being fully autonomous, and being able to act freely in the important sense characterised above. From this it appears that, if we are looking to maximise freedom of the autonomous variety, we should in fact enforce that all children must be educated—which seems counterintuitive at first, as it inflicts on people's raw freedom to 'do what they want'.

Presumably, compulsory education requires some form of state education system, which in turn requires growth of the federal government. Perhaps you can call yourself a minarchist and allow this particular inflated role of government. However, if this sort of reasoning compels you to allow compulsory education, I find it difficult to see how the same reasoning can not apply to justifications of (at least small) welfare and health care systems.


Really, this is thinly veiled lostpainting-questioning... I would be very interested in an answer from anyone, though.

Formal education is the only path to autonomy? Since when?

Coercion is bad. Period.

100% private schooling would be vastly more effective than the joke of government schools.

You think that education is important, it is. Why wouldn't parents see to it their children receive one? In some cases they cannot yet afford it, or the child is not suited to the one-size-fits-all structure of American education. Also, the state actively subsidizes the poor for having children as well as prohibits the offering of monetary rewards in purchasing parenting rights.

Children also are exposed to botched history and Statist propaganda in government schools.

Ask them

I left 'education' intentionally vague. Nowhere am I endorsing the current American 'government schools' or anything of the sort. Presumably both of you would agree that not being able to read would inhibit your ability to make informed decisions. Without being able to make informed decisions, you cannot be autonomous. Not being able to read is an extreme example of being uneducated. Education is required for autonomy.


Under the assumption that everyone always does the right, considerate thing, you wouldn't need a State at all. (Perhaps you don't think there should be a State, but I don't think this is a very realistic way of approaching the argument.)

I think people need to read the article on Unschooling I linked to better understand where you're coming from. I think this privileging of personal liberty above all else, at all costs, favored by extreme libertarians is too impractically idealist to ever work given the conditions we live in.

Your autonomy stems from your being human and in control of your physical body, at least in Rothbardian Libertarianism. Do people in poor nations without formal schooling not have rights? You take autonomy as the ability to make life choices, I assume?

I am not using this definition. I have suggested that 'in control of your physical body'/'ability to follow your desires' is not enough: you need capacity for reflection and the ability to make rational, informed decisions, not just follow your desires. I'm not being tricksy; this is pretty standard.


See above for definition. The discussion of rights is another topic; wading into it might cause distraction. However, I didn't mean to imply that autonomy was something you either have fully or don't have at all. As with most things, it's a scale, of course.

i got bored summarize that shet

The prince married the other prince and they lived happily ever after.

Adults should have as little impact from the state as possible, but in my opinion, children have to be protected.

Children aren't adults, so they can't be expected to be responsible for their wellbeing. Education should be cumpulsory for children as food, water, shelter, etc. should be cumpulsory for children.

For education, I think a system with all private schools, but the government provides money to go to school would be best. That way, there would be competition to improve and the bad schools would fade away.

I agree for the most part, but there are actually good government schools, although they are few and far between.

But children should not be allowed to go without an education. They can't be responsible at that age and they shouldn't have the ability to completely jeopordize their future. Just like how a mentally unstable adult shouldn't be allowed to kill themselves.

Extreme libertarian stance - the only function of a government in a free society is to protect the rights of its individual citizens and certainly not to impose social norms.

OP's question - assuming above, should schooling be mandatory?

Implicit argument in OP's question - in order to be free in a free society, you need education to make informed decisions.

OP - You may be able to get extreme libertarians to agree that in order to be free in a free society, you must have education in some form or fashion to be above the uninformed influences. However, they will likely be reluctant to agree that, to this end, the government should have compulsory schooling because, even if in the ideal state it worked without bleeding over to control in other sectors of government agencies, it would still be immoral on the principle of imposing ideal norms through state mandated means.

I'm a Liberaltarin, let me get this clear.

1) I do not believe religion has a place in Gov't (US does, I would put us as semi-theocracy and semi-liberaltarin)
2) I do believe that one should have the rights to decide what to do
3) I think school should teach you how to think especially social studies
4) I do not believe that school should teach you right or wrong (aside from the law, and basic moral)

#4 Basically means I hate how school teach that
this is bad...
that is good etc etc

Example: Guns are evil, Socialism is the way to go, In order to ensure security and continuing stability some rights must be surrendered etc.

If education was voluntary and privatized, I imagine lots of kids would be sent by their parents to religious or wacky schools that give them a tainted education, or maybe parents would refuse to let their kids go to school at all. I guess all one could hope for in that situation is that the success of the well-educated people would force parents to realize which schools are most likely to give their children a good future.

I actually don't think it would be such a bad thing. If fewer people were educated, the value of a degree would go up, which would open up menial jobs to uneducated people again. And, of course, once a child reaches the coming of age age, there would be nothing to stop him from pursuing his own education on his own terms.



This is terrible. People shouldn't be allowed freedom because they'd be free to screw themselves over? When exactly did it become the government's job to live our lives for us, or to decide which desires of ours are wrong? Any self-respecting, intelligent person should fear the day when it is the government's flaws and caprices, rather than his own, that he is subjected to.

That's just roundabout capitalist pseudo-socialism. Seriously, complain about the government putting money into the poor's pockets all you want, but don't then go and propose schemes to put money into the rich's pockets.

Somewhat of the libertarian knee-jerk reaction I was expecting. Of course, it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, but it's nice to know you don't like the government.

1. To the best approximation, we say children are not autonomous.
2. To the best approximation, we say adults are autonomous.
3. This is because autonomy requires the ability to make rational, informed, reflective decisions about your actions.
4. For our decisions to be informed, it helps to be as literate and educated as possible.
5. If education was not compulsory (as enforced by the state), parents could decide not to educate their children.
6. Being uneducated impinges on one's ability ever to be fully autonomous.
7. Therefore, not having compulsory education, while in once sense appearing to allow more freedom, leads to a society of less autonomous individuals.
8. We should care more about the autonomous form of freedom than the non-interference, do-what-you-want form.
9. Therefore, education should be compulsory.

With which number do you have a problem? Presumably, libertarians in general disagree with #8. In this case, I think they've/you've got something fundamentally wrong.

This. Libertarians fall apart because they take the general idea of freedom to a ridiculous extreme.

I'm from the U.S., just so you can try to get my perspective.

I believe society does not hold the proper moral values (for lack of a better term, I'm not talking about religion) for autonomy to be possible without us crashing and burning into a worse state than we're already in. We live in a time where one has to be "his brother's keeper." (Yes, that's a Randism.)

An important virtue in libertarianism is the motive of Self-interest. Getting yourself an education should be something that you WANT to do, because it generally leads to a better quality of life. There is somewhat of a contradiction in saying you can make an informed decision to help other people make informed decisions of their own. Informed in who's eyes? The state? So no, I don't think education should be compulsory. If someone wants to stay ignorant, that is their right. With that said, all businesses should also have the right to hire whoever they find most qualified.

Another issue is putting even more government involvment in school, and anyone who has attended public school in the U.S. knows that this would be a bad idea. Our education system has become so diluted already.

Children do not have the ability to exercise this right. They lack the experience and maturity to decide their own lives. This is why they have fewer rights than adults.



Education in the US is bad, but not because the government is all up in its grill. That argument doesn't even make sense. The act of government doing something does not necessitate that it will be done poorly. Now, there is a problem with special interest groups (say, textbook lobbyists?) who get school districts to buy new textbooks every year, so the money that would otherwise go to schools ends up going to make quarterlies for these companies who in turn fund elections. As an example.