Anarcho-Capitalist Good News: Potential backdoor privatization

It has come to this: Parents are now being asked to send their children to school with their own toilet paper. And not just toilet paper, but all sorts of basic items that schools themselves used to provide for kids. It's all part of a disturbing trend, highlighted by the New York Times last week, of cash-strapped public schools -- their budgets eviscerated by state cutbacks -- shifting more and more financial responsibility onto parents.

Privatization meant transferring responsibility for entire programs or functions to the private sector. But with the drastic budget cuts that states have been forced to make, responsibility for public services and programs is literally being forced into private hands one roll of toilet paper at a time. We've entered the era of backdoor privatization.

On the surface, these stop-gap measures don't seem unreasonable. After all, it's hardly new for parents in well-off school districts to chip in for supplies, music classes and even teacher’s salaries in an effort to minimize the effect of school budget cuts on their children. What is new, though, is the extent to which families are being asked to contribute basic items. This may be too much to ask of parents who are struggling to pay their own bills -- especially since they’ve already paid taxes that are supposed to support the public school system.

Nor is backdoor privatization a phenomenon limited to local schools.

Public university systems are increasingly emulating private universities by turning to wealthy alumni for donations -- even as tuition rises because some legislators see hiking it as a way to raise money for their fungible state budget items.

ANCAPS: ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS

Anarcho-Capitalist Good News: Potential backdoor privatization

Anarcho-Capitalist Good News: Potential backdoor privatization

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