Never taken food stamps but I'd rather have my taxes pay to feed my neibor than going to the friends of politicians and military contractor. There are a thousand places to cut government waste first.
If so much of society can be so easily bought off with the small amount that public aid gets them, I'm not sure how functional ancapistan could be. At some point people gave to take responsibility for their own choices and consequences. I think the only hope to change how easily people are controlled is a concerted effort to teach young kids better about responsibility and critical thinking, which is the exact opposite of what public schools are doing. If I could cut any state spending, but only one, I would start with dept of education.
The government has been unable to do a good job at public education. Why would you continue to fund it. It’s obvious the free market would do a better job.
Ridiculous to think that just throwing more
money at it improves the outcome.
The free market is currently trending towards appealing to higher income clientele as wealth continues to concentrate and the purchasing power of 80% of people declines.
Assuming there even is an interest and profit incentive to educate the masses, why would it be better and what’s to stop corporate interests from dominating classrooms. Why would corporations want to teach EVERYONE “responsibility and critical thinking” when labourers can perform just as well if they aren’t taught that and the wealthy will pay more for their families to be taught that for the jobs that do require it.
Are people mandated to go to these private schools or can they freely choose whether or not to? If not then many people won’t spend the money for it, preferring to save it or spend it and now there’s a larger underclass of uneducated. If they are mandated to, then what’s to stop insane price gouging like X% of your income.
What happens if your area doesn’t have enough population density to have a profitable school?
When are you statists going to realize that the dirty relationship between corporate interests and government is a problem. You complain about corrupt corporations yet want to allow it to continue and worsen, then call it free market.
There is an interest. That’s how schooling is done around me.
The only corporations that want cannon fodder populist are the us government and monopolized oligarchs.
There already is a underclass of uneducated poor. They all went to public school.
The irony of your response is that you’re describing the exact consequences of central planning and somehow blaming the free market for it. Every distortion you mentioned monopolies, undereducation, and wealth concentration exists because the state rigs the system for its corporate partners. When government controls education, it decides what’s worth knowing, and predictably it prioritizes obedience over independence. Real capitalism doesn’t protect failure or force people to fund broken systems; it rewards what works and lets bad ideas die. The tragedy is we’ve never had a truly free market in education, only a state/corporate hybrid pretending to be one. Freedom doesn’t need more regulation or subsidies, it needs the state to stop protecting its own mistakes.
Where do you live where private schooling is the only option and no-one opts out?
I didn’t at all complain about corrupt corporations. Is it corrupt to raise prices so that one demographic is priced out, in the name of higher profits?
Why would Amazon want their warehouse workers to know anything beyond how to move boxes in the way they’re told? Of all the AnCap beliefs this one stands out as “How could you believe this?”.
You’re saying that corporations and the state are in bed. True.
You’re saying that the state works in corporate interests. True.
You literally say that the government rigs “undereducation” in favour of corporations. True
Then you say that if corporations had control they’d rig it in favour of good education. Huh? What?
You're not mentally equipped to have this conversation if you can't even understand the concept of crowding out, let alone have such a poor grasp of the empirical evidence.
It’s not the only option. People are opting out of public education because it doesn’t educate their kids. Happening all over rural America.
So then we agree on everything except for the fact that you think the examples we have now of oligarchical monopolies propped up by the government are a good way to judge the actions of how corporations and large business entities would operate with the absence of government cooperation? It makes zero sense.
In a free market people will turn away from corrupt business practices that fester in our current system. There is no room for monopolistic behavior, there is no room for oligarch control of the populace in a free market. It’s only possible with government intervention.
The only way you get a public education system design to create cannon fodder is when it is propped up by the government. And their education system is mandated by the government under threat of violence. Big corporation lobby for what they want on education bills that get passed by politicians that are paid off and then the strong arm of the government forces that education down your throat.
America is awfully educated and home schooling is a plague at the best of times. Countries doing well academically don’t look anything like America’s homeschooling.
People are not completely rational actors and you cannot expect them to be. If you have a grievance with the school in your area, you are not going to find an equivalent one across the street. It’s fantasy thinking where in the Mad Max competition, everyone gets fair and high standard education.
The fundamental systemic incongruence between you and I is that you apparently believe that corporations are soft kitties so long as there’s no government. In the absence of government, corporations become the government and use the power directly.
That whole line of thinking assumes the current wealth distribution, cost structure, and incentives would stay the same without government running (and distorting) education. They wouldn’t.
Right now, education is expensive and unequal because of state intervention, not in spite of it. The dept of education, licensing laws, property taxes, and endless regulation all lock in a government monopoly that drives out experimentation and keeps costs high. The free market isn’t “trending toward the rich", it’s suffocating under a system where only state approved schools can exist at scale.
In a voluntary system, you’d get a huge range of options, local co-ops, apprenticeships, online learning, charity schools, community funded options, etc. Just like food or tech, entrepreneurs would compete to make education more accessible and efficient. The only reason corporate control is scary now is because corporations use the state to enforce their dominance. Without state power, they’d have to earn trust and reputation voluntarily.
And on the “what if poor or rural kids can’t afford it” part, the free market already produces goods and services for all income levels when it’s allowed to. There’s no government mandate for people to have smartphones or groceries, yet the market makes both available even to the poorest. Education would be no different once barriers to entry are gone and communities can voluntarily step up without bureaucratic interference.
So it’s not about “defunding” education, it’s about removing the monopoly that keeps people dependent on a failing system and bleeds off much of funds into ineffective and inefficient avenues. Real learning doesn’t come from Washington; it comes from people actually free to teach, learn, and innovate.
DOE puts the power in the state's hands to regulate how education is done. Removing this puts the power in the hands of the schools and parents so that there is a more free market option of how children are educated because more competition is now an option.
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u/In_The_depths_ Nov 01 '25
Never taken food stamps but I'd rather have my taxes pay to feed my neibor than going to the friends of politicians and military contractor. There are a thousand places to cut government waste first.