Part 2 of Friedman’s book, “Libertarian Grab Bag, or How to Sell the Stat in Small Pieces,” gives his explanation for how to reform the current system to closer resemble a free society. As he puts it in the preface:

Part II of the book is intended to suggest specific reforms within the structure of our present institutions that would produce desirable results while moving us closer to a libertarian society.

I found this to be done convincingly with respect to the schooling system in the first few chapters, which I will deal with in this post. There is enough there to justify it, and I think I will feel overall to have done better justice by its author in focusing on the one topic here. Though I have not read it yet, Chapter 14 appears to be focused on the topic of immigration policy, which again, will certainly justify its own post.

Each chapter is presented in summary below, followed by a short reflection.

Voucher System in SchoolsVoucher System in Schools

One of Friedman’s primary claims in this section is that implementing a school voucher system would help to eliminate the control the government has over students in public schools while not necessarily giving them powers to dictate curriculum in private/parochial schools. I am not all that familiar with how the private school systems functions in the U.S., or anywhere really, but I gathered from his analysis that private schools fall into two main categories: the smaller are those funded solely by a pupil’s family, whereas others receive funding from religious communities. Both seem to maintain an arms length from government with regard to how the school is run (e.g. how teachers are hired), and the instructional methods/curricula. His argument outlines how and why vouchers, redeemable by students, would greatly improve the current model for how the state provides education.

Under such a system, governments would provide vouchers redeemable by the pupils’ guardian at whatever school they wished, thereby giving schools the incentive to keep themselves accountable to their students and therefore competitive. These vouchers would provide schools with their funding revenue, instead of the state ^[1], which could be supplemented by church-monies and scholarship funds in private institutions that wanted to maintain their edge. This, he argues, would kick-start a marketplace of educational institutions where schools would have to compete for students, since parents would not be beholden to send their children to a school based on their ZIP code. He mentions that government could still play a role in determining what could reasonably be considered a school by enforcing a minimum performance requirement on standardized test scores, but this is only done as a safeguard against bad actors who try to abuse the system by embezzling their vouchers.

A Radical Critique of American UniversitiesA Radical Critique of American Universities

This and the following chapter levy a pretty strong critique against the American University system. It is a reproduction of excerpts from Adam Smith ^[2]. It argues that the University coerces its patrons and gives its professors very little reason to improve. The latter’s interest is “set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set it.” In other words, so it is argued, it is in everyone’s interest to seek out ease and comfort wherever possible, and there is not a strong enough incentive to prevent professors and instructors from doing so, even when it comes at the expense of the quality of their instruction. They are also armed with a coercive and strict disciplinary arsenal, which is contrived to maintain the authority of its masters even if he neglects or ignores his duty.

The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to
maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to assume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given.

The Impossibility of a UniversityThe Impossibility of a University

I find the central argument being made in this chapter to be a powerful one. Here Friedman argues, that the modern day University is premised on a fatal contradiction, namely that a University both cannot take positions while it must take positions, which animates almost all of the activity in a University, so that it forms “groups of true believers,” who have forfeited the principal tool in the pursuit of truth, which is intellectual conflict. The reason they must take political positions is that they are corporations, with capital expenditures and funded by endowments – and their donors are the types who like to see a return on their investment.

He argues that the strongest weapon for maintaining this structure is the ignorance/perceived impotence of the community, such that they are led to believe they are powerless in controlling how the University bribes politicians and invests in dictatorial regimes abroad. (p. 62). He makes the fairly bold claim,

Once the university community realizes that the university does, or can, take actions substantially affecting the outside world and that students and faculty can influence those actions, the game is up^[3].

He proposes this to be a problem solvable by opening up universities to a free(er) market.

Adam Smith U.Adam Smith U.

His solution is to abolish government subsidies for the University and convert them into scholarships offered to students, so that the university then had to make its bid to them, and not the government directly. This puts the University in the position of a merchant selling goods at a market price and constrained to sell what the customer wants to buy.

He envisions this would play out as separate organizations forming to fill the various needs of a school, but operating separately as their own enterprises. Teachers, importantly, would charge students for classes at a fair rate, and would have to pay for spaces provided by the real-estate holders. Separate organizations would administer examinations, grant degrees and perform clerical functions. This free market structure, like any other, would produce only what the consumer wants, and guarantees that the students’ interest determines what teachers are employed.

An interesting stop-gap measure, short of a complete overhaul, he gives the name: “a tuition diversification plan.” It would involve a portion of tuition payments being funneled toward a special guest professor, hired as a free-lancer. Students would vote on who would be invited in this capacity, and could obviously have their choice of any politician, filmmaker, author, programmer, entrepreneur or any one that would be willing to offer their expertise and teach a course. This would generate a market of freelance teachers and perhaps even make it possible for young academics to make a career out of amassing their own following and going it as an independent. This is, however, not an ideal system, according to Friedman, who maintains that the freer the better. Every course and teacher, should be determined by what students want to learn and not through the coercion of the University, the only exception to this being that he sees small colleges evolving to serve the needs of fledgling undergraduates unready to pursue such a self-directed style of education, by offering services in program advising.

ReflectionReflection

I have worked in a public education system, and this made this chapter all the more poignant to me. His criticisms rang true, for the most part, especially when he discusses how employees (especially teachers) expect to glean every ounce of ease and convenience out of their job, while expecting exactly the opposite of their students. I don't blame them, though, since the job can be hard at times, and leaves one wanting for breaks.

Friedman's chapter deconstructs and then rebuilds the educational system in a more libertarian manner, though I felt some things were lacking. For one, I feel he took for granted some of the injustices in education, especially in his discussion of the public school system. It is assumed, like the other state monopolies he discussed earlier, that the system is inefficient and perhaps even harmful, though he doesn't go into great detail as to how it is. At least, I would have liked to hear his justification for not including this, since it would seem education is its own kind of animal, unlike the other state monopolies.

I had my own criticisms of higher education as an undergraduate, which were admittedly unrefined and perhaps typical of an undergraduate. I was decidedly against the man and only ever started to succeed once I rolled over, as it were, and took it laying down (if you can even call what I was doing succeeding). I certainly would have felt vindicated if I had encountered this text at that time. My natural inclination of wishing destruction on the establishment, Friedman might say, was accurately aimed even though I lacked the ability to articulate it at this level of argumentation. It makes me feel that, in our natural state, most people would feel this way, that dealing with persistent coercion by faceless institutions feels uncomfortable because it is, pretty much, the farthest thing from natural.

It is interesting though, that even Friedman admits to how higher education cannot be solely student-guided, nor the courses offered by an Adam Smith Styled University solely determined by its students' wishes, as many are sure to be unready to make decisions about their program, and will gladly pay to outsource this to other "experts." Of course, this aspect would definitely open the door to bad-actors wishing to exploit the unknowing.

It is arguably the goal of education, to enable others to be ready to be self-directed learners, not to assume that they are by nature. It seems this is an important element that is, also, taken for granted in his analysis.

1. Friedman must have assumed to have had a libertarian-leaning readership familiar with the education system in the U.S., since he does not get into the ills of the state-run system. That, or he assumed his chapter on state-monopolies was convincing enough. ↩

2. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776. ↩

3. Perhaps we saw this unfold last year when we watched law enforcement called to break up on-campus protests. ↩