Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
I read it as something deeper (the English leaves something to be desired), that without a working knowledge of how the world, ie. the market operates, one cannot function within the market. Leaving education to the markets alone would soon produce a class of helots without the ability to read or write, that sort of thing. Conversely, and this was not in the original argument, leaving information to the free markets alone would only produce the most desired information, not the most factual. Which may or may not be in anyone's best interests
That makes no sense. The provider of information about the quality of education is not the same as the provider of the education itself. The former has no incentive to "serve" the latter. And you're seriously going to claim that one needs extensive schooling to understand that a school or college ranked 100 or worse than one ranked 10? Or that higher tuition is more expensive than lower tuition? Give people some credit here.

Furthermore, I don't see the relevance of this argument to natural monopolies. There certainly isn't just one provider of education.