Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
44 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
Hayek justifies the fact that the state raises funds through
taxation in order to offer a whole range of services that, for
various reasons, cannot be supplied by the market. Regarding,
for example, the management of public leisure services,
theaters, public parks, or goods of cultural value, he favors
decentralized management, not control at the national level.
Alternatively, management could be entrusted to private
institutions that would act as intermediaries, albeit he has
no objections in principle to the public management of these
goods. 82
A particularly sensitive point on which Hayek manages to
provoke Rothbard’s criticism is education. Hayek is obviously
not in favor of a state monopoly on education, since he
is well aware of the dangers inherent in uniformity. He is for
the widest possible pluralism and for competition in the
field of education. He writes, “Indeed, the very possibility
that, with a system of government education, all elementary
education may come to be dominated by the theories of a
particular group . . . should be sufficient to warn us of the
risks involved in subjecting the whole educational system to
central direction.” 83 Nevertheless, not only is he in favor of
compulsory school attendance, but he also approves of the
school-voucher system proposed by Milton Friedman. So,
while he rules out a state educational system, he accepts the
idea of public funding for schools. He says that
this does not mean, however, that compulsory
education or even government-financed general
education today requires the educational institutions
to be run by the government. . . . As has
been shown by Professor Milton Friedman, it
would now be entirely practicable to defray the
costs of general education out of the public purse
82For the management of natural parks and the cultural heritage,
Hayek gives the example of the famous and very efficient English
National Trust.
83Hayek, Constitution of Liberty, p. 380.