Misesian Economics in Truly Private Schools

State interference in education usurps the child’s rights and displaces the custodial role of the parents in exercising those rights. That the state would seize the custodial rights from the parents demonstrates that it has its own interests in mind. The state must resort to force because neither the child nor the parents want the natural arrangement to be overturned. Because the state rests on compulsion its activity extinguishes the very basis for the development of the personalities of children, which is freedom. Moreover, state officials lack the knowledge of and concern for the child possessed by his parents. The state has no interest in developing the personalities of children or in catering to their interests and aptitudes. The state does not desire them to participate in the social order by their free associations. The state funds and regulates formal education to further its own interests and attain its own ends. FULL ARTICLE