GLEN TENNEY At the Margin Advertisement

An important aspect of the discipline we know as economics is that, as a science, it is officially "value free." This suggests that an economist, as a scientist, should not allow his personal biases affect any pronouncements on public policy he might make. This value-free stance taken by formal economics has been elucidated by many leading economic thinkers over the years, but perhaps the great Murray Rothbard articulated it best when he said, "It is incumbent on economic theory to purge itself of all vestiges of the unsupported value judgment. As a science, economics can and should stand apart from such value judgments."

Rothbard goes on to explain that an economist is, however, justified in speaking or writing on public policy if he first sets forth his personal ethical system with appropriate supporting argumentation. This is essential because of the wide range of ethical theories on which political pronouncements are typically based. From a practical perspective, assuming that Rothbard is correct on this issue, the difficulty for an every-day economic practitioner lies in squeezing one's ethical theory and its supporting arguments into the limited space that is typically allotted in a particular essay. With this difficulty in mind, we are probably not always 100 percent successful in adhering to Rothbard's counsel, but most of us try.

In my own case, as an employee of the Nevada System of Higher Education in a time when State of Nevada budgetary matters are prominently in the news almost daily, it seems to be especially important that I refrain from publicly stating my own opinion about increased or decreased taxation or spending related to public funding of higher education in Nevada. This point is significant because doing so might unjustifiably tempt people to mistake my personal statements as scientific economic reasoning rather than personal opinion due to my obvious dual status as an economist and as an employee of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

With this inordinately long (but perhaps necessary) preface to a relatively short article, I will now proceed in explaining the standard economic justification for the provision of education at the expense of taxpayers. From the start, I must stress that what follows is the "mainstream" economic argument for the provision of education at the expense of taxpayers, and not necessarily my own view. In economics, there are several schools of thought commonly espoused by teachers and practitioners, and it is the "mainstream" thinkers who espouse the following justification for public education at the expense of taxpayers. I am specifically restricting myself to a discussion of the mainstream view in this article because so many people seem to be unaware of this view, and because it would be particularly inappropriate for me -- as both an economist and an employee of the Nevada System of Higher Education -- to provide my own view of this issue.

The mainstream economic justification for funding education with tax dollars is based on what has come to be called "public goods" theory. The idea here is that the production and provision of some goods will not be produced (or will be produced in a less-than-desirable quantity or quality) in the ordinary free market because such goods are "non-excludable." It is the non-excludability feature of so-called "public goods" that is paramount in distinguishing these goods from ordinary goods provided in the market without taxation.

According to "public goods" theory, once some goods are produced it is impossible or not feasible to exclude people who choose to not pay for the good, and some people choose to not pay for the good because they can enjoy the benefits of the good without paying for it. The problem is that, if people can enjoy the benefits of the good without paying for it, then they would presumably choose to not pay, and then there would, according to the theory, be little or no incentive for producers to produce the good in the first place. The theory therefore suggests that taxpayers must be forced--through taxation--to pay for the production and provision of the good because people tend to be free-riders due to the non-excludable nature of the good.

Now, in keeping with Rothbard's advice -- the idea that we must justify any and all public policy recommendations with an ethical system of some kind --what is the ethic that one must espouse if he has a mind to justify the provision of public goods (and education in particular) at the expense of taxpayers? Hans Hoppe (UNLV Professor Emeritus) suggests that this is the ethic:

"Whenever one can somehow prove that the production of a particular good or service has a positive effect on someone else, but would not be produced at all or would not be produced in a desired quantity or quality, then the use of aggressive violence against people is required in order to force people to share in the financial burden associated with production of the good."

A serious consideration of this ethic would seem to suggest two questions with respect to educational funding at the expense of taxpayers. First, is this ethic a reasonable and "good" ethic? And second, can education be considered a non-excludable good? Answering these two questions will determine our position on the question of public education at the expense of taxpayers.

Glen Tenney teaches economics and finance at Great Basin College in Pahrump. He can be reached at glent@gwmail.gbcnv.edu.