Shoes
An excerpt from a good article by Briggs Armstrong at mises.org:
"If we are to believe that monopolies are bad because they do not have the best interest of the consumer in mind and have little incentive to improve their product, then why are we to believe that a government monopoly over schooling is good?
It can be reasonably argued that this particular government monopoly is worse than private-sector monopolies, because citizens are forced to pay even if they do not consume the service. To illustrate the point, consider a hypothetical shoe monopoly. If the government declared that shoes are a practical necessity of life in this country, and that there are people unable to afford the best-quality shoes available in the free market, would we then support a "shoe tax" to allow the government to manufacture and distribute shoes free of charge to everyone?
In this scenario, citizens could still purchase shoes from other providers but would be forced to pay their share of the "shoe tax" as well. Since the citizens are already paying for these government shoes (through taxation), the demand for private-sector-produced shoes would be fairly low. Since the demand for privately made shoes would be low, those who desire better shoes would be forced to pay prices that are far higher than those that existed prior to government shoes. The citizens, seeing the high price tag on privately made shoes, would then conclude that they really do need government shoes because only an elite few could afford private shoes.
"If we are to believe that monopolies are bad because they do not have the best interest of the consumer in mind and have little incentive to improve their product, then why are we to believe that a government monopoly over schooling is good?
It can be reasonably argued that this particular government monopoly is worse than private-sector monopolies, because citizens are forced to pay even if they do not consume the service. To illustrate the point, consider a hypothetical shoe monopoly. If the government declared that shoes are a practical necessity of life in this country, and that there are people unable to afford the best-quality shoes available in the free market, would we then support a "shoe tax" to allow the government to manufacture and distribute shoes free of charge to everyone?
In this scenario, citizens could still purchase shoes from other providers but would be forced to pay their share of the "shoe tax" as well. Since the citizens are already paying for these government shoes (through taxation), the demand for private-sector-produced shoes would be fairly low. Since the demand for privately made shoes would be low, those who desire better shoes would be forced to pay prices that are far higher than those that existed prior to government shoes. The citizens, seeing the high price tag on privately made shoes, would then conclude that they really do need government shoes because only an elite few could afford private shoes.
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