Rothbard on Parents and Education
May 12, 2015
In an excellent post that I commented on yesterday, the Bionic Mosquito assailed “libertarians” who allow the government a role in education. Education, he rightly maintained, is the responsibility of a child’s parents, not the state. He wondered whether Rothbard and Block would disagree. Walter Block responded, and the Mosquito has published their correspondence.
Much of the exchange concerns Walter’s well-known “evictionist” view of abortion, and the merits of this readers must judge for themselves. I’d like rather to comment on one point which has surprised me, the suggestion that Rothbard might deny that parents are responsible for the education of their children. Here one needs to distinguish two senses of “responsible.” In the first of these senses, what is meant is that it is up to the parents to decide the way in which their children are educated. It is not the province of anyone else to overturn their decisions. In this sense, which I think is the one at issue in the Mosquito’s criticism of the bleeding heart libertarians, Rothbard would entirely agree that education is the responsibility of the parents.
The second sense of “responsible” is different. Here, to say that parents are responsible for their child’s education means that the parents have an enforceable obligation to educate their children. If they fail to do so, others may act to compel them. This Rothbard would entirely reject.
Two Peas in a Pod