People assume education is about learning.  They assume schools exist to cultivate knowledge, curiosity, and independent thought.  Assumptions are often wrong.  The education system, as it stands, is not designed to produce free thinkers.  It’s designed to mold minds, shape beliefs, and reinforce obedience.

The state doesn’t merely fund education—it controls it. It dictates the curriculum, sets the standards, and decides who is qualified to teach.  It determines what historical narratives are acceptable, how economics should be framed, and which philosophies are worth discussing.  The result is not an educated populace but a conditioned one.  Through this system, a single worldview is reinforced, while competing ideas are dismissed, ridiculed, or ignored altogether.  If education were truly about developing independent thought, it would be decentralized.  A marketplace of ideas would allow for competing perspectives.  Instead, state schooling operates as a monopoly, ensuring that nearly every child is funneled through the same system, exposed to the same messaging.  This isn’t a service—it’s an indoctrination process.

The process begins early.  The younger a child enters the system, the more malleable their thinking.  From the first years of schooling, the individual is taught not just facts but how to think about them.  The message is clear: knowledge comes from authority, and challenging authority is disruptive.  Standardized testing reinforces compliance—rewarding those who can best repeat approved information while discouraging independent analysis.  This control extends well beyond primary education.  Universities, once viewed as places for deep inquiry and debate, now function as extensions of the same system.  The push for universal college attendance isn’t just about credentials but about keeping individuals in structured environments for as long as possible.  Even beyond university, state-sanctioned experts dominate discussions in media, research institutions, and policymaking, ensuring that the same narratives persist into adulthood.

Defenders of public education insist that state-run schooling is necessary for an informed society.  They argue that it promotes equality, strengthens democracy, and benefits the public.  Forced education doesn’t produce wisdom.  It produces conformity.  True education requires choice, competition, and the freedom to explore alternative perspectives.  Imagine if food were provided the same way education is.  If the state controlled all food distribution, people would assume only the state could ensure people were fed.  The existence of grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers’ markets would seem radical, even dangerous.  Yet, food is produced, distributed, and improved by the free market every day.  Education is no different.  The idea that only the state can provide knowledge is just as absurd as believing only the state can provide food.  Even within the constraints of state control, private alternatives still exist.  Homeschooling, private academies, and independent online learning continue to thrive despite being overshadowed by government institutions.  If people were allowed to retain control over their own resources, these alternatives would not just exist—they would flourish.  The demand for real education would outcompete the demand for bureaucratic schooling.

The propaganda of state education is relentless.  It is reinforced through media, academia, and public discourse.  Those who challenge it are often dismissed as dangerous, unqualified, or uninformed.  Yet, history shows that the greatest thinkers—those who challenged the status quo—were rarely products of rigid schooling.  They were the ones who questioned, who sought knowledge beyond what was handed to them, and who refused to accept education as mere obedience training.  As Mises observed, “Without knowing it, many people are philosophical Marxists, although they use different names.” Mencken put it plainly, “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level.” The true purpose of state schooling isn’t to create thinkers—it’s to create subjects.

A truly independent education is one that people choose for themselves—one driven by curiosity rather than coercion.  The question isn’t whether education is independent, but whether people are willing to free themselves from its grip.

References

Hans-Hermann Hoppe; The Great Fiction

Auberon Herbert; The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State