[Muzza]

I'll try, but I don't see how I can make it any simpler.

These "free market" schools receive payments from the government for each student they have.

The government mandates that everyone attend school between the ages of 7 and 16 (or 6 and 15).

This is not a free market. You cannot have the government create customers like this in a free market.

[Retric]

That's a BS semantic argument. First off you can be 'home schooled'. Far more importantly the question is does privatizing the school system improve average student performance OR lower costs and the answer is no.

[treerock]

It's not bullshit. The government are effectively outsourcing education to private companies. That's always going to result in rent-seeking on the part of the private companies. And it's not the same as free market/full privatisation, where the parents would pay the schools.

(Not that I think private schooling would be better or cheaper than publicly funded schooling.)

[Muzza]

What on earth do you mean? Someone (the article) claimed the system was free market. I showed otherwise. It's about as far from semantic BS arguments as you can come.

I was not debating the efficiency of the private schools visavi public schools. Introducing strawmen is stupid.

Also: home schooling has been illegal in Sweden since 2010.

[Retric]

People still home-school in Sweden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_sta...

More to the point, while it's mandated that people buy car insurance few people argue that that's not a 'free market' because regulation is not the same thing as a state monopoly. After-all people also need food.

[Muzza]

"Status: Virtually illegal"

Yeah, you got me (insert rolleyes).

Car insurance also doesn't operate on a free market, for the reason you cite. I don't care that "few people" would argue it (appeal to authority; you like fallacies don't you?). You seem to think that something is either a state monopoly or a free market, but it is not so.

[Retric]

Words gain meaning based on what the largest group of people think. If 90% of the population think grapes refers to grapes including the stem and you try and restrict the definition further the only way to back that up is an appeal to authority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abhar-iran.JPG

PS: Most economists accept that many completely unregulated market tends to monopoly's which try to extract rents. However, once a monopoly shows up they no longer accept that it's a 'free market' so the term 'free market' does not mean what happens when government does not interfere with a market. After that it get's complected as to where the line is drawn between free market and something else, however the bar is surprisingly high as for example moderate sin taxes don't prevent free markets.