Often people suggest that free-education is a moral, well-intentioned noble idea that somehow fails to work. Free education obviously is impractical but the issue of free education is really a noble moral idea? Can education be designated as a fundamental right and more than that, is education compulsorily needed?
Socialized education just as socialized health-care is not a case of dignified speculation but failure in practice; rather it is a case of inhuman hypothesis that is impractical. Yet, politicians always keep pushing the issue of education upfront for their political motive, painting it as a moral obligation for all and for doing so; they often try to declare education as an Individual’s right. Moreover, by doing so, politicians ensure a very productive education sector under totalitarian governmental control.

What is a Right!

The term “Rights” is a moral political term, Right is defined as a definite course of behavior of Individuals in a society that is sanctioned, proper, allowed, a privilege to be respected by all others and if anybody violates any individual “Right”, he is wrong, immoral, unsanctioned, evil, a criminal.
Now, if education is a right, then anybody arguing that Education cannot be free, education cannot be a privilege, education cannot be a right is obviously a criminal, an evil-doer, and that creates a certain anomaly, a serious contradiction with the term Right. As per the viewpoint of Individual sovereignty and free citizenship in a society, our only rights are the rights to life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. That is, we are not born with a right to a trip to visit Taj Mahal, or a dinner at Hotel Taj or a cosmetic surgery or a degree in aeronautical engineering. Why cannot we have such rights? We cannot have such rights because the Individual Rights in a free society does not impose any obligation on other people except that of a negative obligation to leave the individual alone, to not to interfere with his life, to not to exploit his Rights. The Individual Rights guarantees you the freedom and chance to work and put efforts for what you want, rights are not to be given to you without any effort by somebody else. That is, you do not have a right to be fed, to be clothed, or to have a house, a car, an AC etc. Although, you have proper right to work and earn your living but you also have complete freedom to use your earning according to your wishes, you have a right to pursue your happiness. More clearly saying, one has the right to act and to keep the fruits of his actions, to produce and to keep his products or to trade them to others if he prefers. However, he has no right over the actions and products of others, except on the terms of which they voluntarily agree. That is, we all have a right to have a mutually beneficial deal voluntarily. Similarly, the right to the pursuit of happiness guarantees you the freedom and right to act to pursue your happiness and to be happy, to keep the results of your actions. It does not guarantee that other people will make you happy or will try to make you happy. If one’s desire for something imposes a duty on others to satisfy his desire, then the others have no choice in their life. They are merely slaves. One’s right to happiness at the expense of others means that the others become rightless slaves. Your right for anything at other’s expense means that the others become your rightless slaves.

The Immorality of Current Politicians

Just in order to gain a vote bank, politicians distorts the meaning of right. They say that you are entitled for something because it exists and you want it. You do not need to work for it or earn it; government should provide it to you. The question arises, from where will the government get it? What will the government do to the free individuals and their individual rights to make it possible to shower free gifts, free lunch, free education, free health-care etc on you?

Let us assume that tomorrow, government and politicians assert that you are born with a moral right to hair-care and that government will benevolently provide free hair-care services for all those who want it. Haircuts and shaving would be free. Some people will show up everyday for a new hair-style, eye-brow setting, beard and mustache setting, government will keep showering the governmental hair-saloons with more and more governmental funds collected by taxing middle class citizens. Every bald man would love to come to the governmental hair-saloon to have a hair seeding and implantation. Nobody would be bald and there will be as many hair styles as there are citizens in India. Government will govern the profession of barbers and they will make huge incomes, every second person would like to be a barber, there would be competitive examinations for Indian Barbers Services (IBS). The government will pay for all expenses. Obviously, there will be government schools and colleges providing specific training, certificates and degrees for professional barbers. Government will install a huge administration for the maintenance of the hair-cut sector. The dishonest barbers will make huge profits and so, will the honest one. They will work and spend like mad, trying to satisfy every second person’s desire regarding his hairs, which certainly can be a millions worth specific hair care and services. The budget will start going out of control, government will suffer the pressure to provide enough budgets to maintain the proper services for hair-care. Corruption will rise , soon government will start providing directives regarding hair cuts to control the budget, government will limit the number of barbers, the time spent for one hair-cut, government will start licensing an permitting only certain type of hair cuts, taking away the individual’s liberty regarding his own hairs. Government will start limiting the number of hairs a barber can split, the number of razors a barber can buy. There will be inspectors to check the corruption in governmental barber shops, there will be a new department just to keep records of barbers in a definite constituency and the profession of barbers will be thoroughly red-taped.
It is the case of education. Government controls the education sector and tries to establish education as a right. Obviously, government fails to provide any sort of education to the masses and whatever education it provides always remains way below the required standards. Also, government doesn’t produce the required resources for the provision of free lunch and free education, so who will pay for all that?
The rich people are very few in India and even if government snatches away all the property of the top 100 richest families of India, it cannot sustain the expenditures required for free education. So, who will pay for that? It is us, we poor and middle class people who pay as slave for the government’s immoral desire to provide free education through the taxation system. By stressing free education as a right, government makes all Indians as the slaves who are obligated to pay for the governmental education program without questioning anything about it. By befooling us by the term free education as an individual’s right, government robs us of our very basic right to earn and to hold the fruits and results of our work and efforts. Government taxes us and takes away our hard earned money an in return; we get nothing but a highly imperfect education system. There are no free lunches, but there are lunches being paid for by somebody else.
Conclusion: Rights does not confirm anything freely available for anybody at the expense of others. By terming education, or health-care, or free lunch as individual’s right, politicians try to enslave the public and rob them of their very basic individual right of life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. In a free society there can be only the right to live freely, to work and earn freely, to enjoy the produced an earned property freely and to pursue one’s happiness by furthering his efforts and results of his efforts freely. Other than the man’s free will, he has to earn everything honestly in a free society, no other one, not even government is obligated to feed, or cloth or educate him freely.