Re: Re: The Education Function

Darin Sunley (umsunley@cc.umanitoba.ca)
Fri, 11 Dec 1998 05:56:28 -0600 (CST)

I've always felt that the proper role of government is to provide services that:

  1. can be provided by the government at a lower cost then anybody else can, owing to economies of scale

or

B) services that it would be inapproiate or impossible for private citizens to provide.

Viewed this way, the citizen's relationship to the government is no more coercive then then a citizens relationship to another citizen who is providing a service, and taxes are simply a bill for services rendered. The "violence" associated with non-payment of taxes is no more reprehensible then "violence" associated with non-payment of any other bill.

The only hole in this, of course, is the lack of ability in most countries for a citizen to "opt out" of government services. My brother feels that allowing opting out would be a bad idea. I think I agree, at least for certain category B services that are both very important and whose utility decreases as the amount of buy-in decreases.

P.S. I seem to have missed the introduction of this "PPA" concept. Could someone enlighten me?

Comments?