E. G. West, Jacob Hornberger, and Sheldon Richman on the History of State Education

West, Hornberger and Richman discuss state education and the some of the historical arguments against it.

Edwin G. West

E. G. West was an economist and historian who applied public choice theory to state education and researched the rise of the state education system in England. He was the author of Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy (1965).

Jacob Hornberger

Jacob Hornberger is the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation. He has written books on everything from free trade to health care, gun control, and foreign policy.

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is former vice president and editor at the Future of Freedom Foundation and former senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York. He is the author of Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. He runs the Free Association blog at his website, shel​don​rich​man​.com.

In this video from a 1995 conference of the Separation of School and State Alliance, E.G. West, Jacob Hornberger, and Sheldon Richman talk about the history of state education and discuss Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith’s opinions on it.

E. G. West was an economist and historian who applied public choice theory to state education and researched the rise of the state education system in England. He was the author of Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy (1965).

Jacob Hornberger is the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation. He has written books on everything from free trade to health care, gun control, and foreign policy. Pertinent to this lecture, he co-​authored (along with Sheldon Richman) the book Separating School and State (1994).

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman (a magazine published by the Foundation for Economic Education), a senior fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, and a research fellow at the Independent Institute.