Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...
The vast majority of people who pay(ed) for actually pretty much everything are all dead. Because the reason for our exorbitant productivity in all sectors producing the essentials for live (compared with a base level thousands of years ago) is accumulated knowledge, culture and tools created by people long dead.
So relax, the expenses have long been paid. We are enjoying the inheritance mostly - and network effects of a huge human network in space and in time (that's the larger part). Let us use those network effects - they are not attributable to individuals. Nobody is taking anything away from you since you are not responsible in any way for those network effects. Nobody individually is, we are just darn lucky. People who sit in central network positions even more so, they can control and create A LOT of wealth - by controlling the human network. Which they did not create - just filling positions is not "creating the network". The idea and the culture where all developed by all of us (and the dead), and the state and the laws provide the structure that support it all.
Your productivity is the way it is because yo benefit from your location in this network! If you want to see what you alone can achieve go alone into the forest. Don't take any tools with you, even a hammer is high tech (steel!).
About "network effects": Compare what a million unconnected humans could achieve (a million mud huts? a million basic stone tools?) with the network output.
I gave an interpretation of what people really mean by “education is free”. If you wish to argue that people who say this phrase don’t mean what I say it means then do so. I might be wrong. But don’t get all pedantic on the dictionary definitions of words. We are talking about what people mean when they say something not what it logically ought to mean.
It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication.
I am aware what people mean when they call a public service free. I meant to remind people that the cost does not disappear, which is not obvious to everyone.
If someone says to you "I am giving this to you for free" do you then then argue "it is not free, someone had to pay for it" :-\
And when you give something away, we presume that it is not something you have stolen. But the money spent at the point of consumption (i.e., when studying) is forcibly taken from people. <Insert standard libertarian arguments here>
So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free.
What is society in this sense but a collection of many individuals that pay, through taxes, to a common pool? Perhaps society gains, perhaps it does not. We can never know. The services are still paid for.
> So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free.
If I learned on my own, I would just receive less public services for the amount of money I pay in taxes. It doesn't make it more free that my taxes do not increase. It would just make the amount of services that I do receive more expensive.
But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you.
I'm Danish :-)
> People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner).
I can point you to countless articles, anecdotes and videos showing the exact opposite.
> Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive.
I don't disagree on your statement about basic needs, and as your own example illustrates, these can be served by the private sector. But the reason most companies in the US offer healthcare to their employees goes back to the time of FDR, when it was illegal for a while to compete on wages but not on benefits (if I remember correctly).
> But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you.
I care about the taxes everyone pays. It seems paradoxical to me to claim, for example, to care about the poor and at the same time make everything expensive through taxation.
And yet...
> I care about the taxes everyone pays. It seems paradoxical to me to claim, for example, to care about the poor and at the same time make everything expensive through taxation.
Yes, because everybody pays the same absolute amount of income tax, and there's no provision for how much somebody earns, how well off they are, deductions for kids. Oh no, wait...
> these can be served by the private sector.
If you're dependent on your employer for health care, that's kind of servitude. Generally, that's frowned upon if you value human rights. Sure, you can always switch companies (until you get older, and then maybe you can't). And see how long your coverage lasts once you get ill. Not to mention all the co-pays.
> But the reason most companies in the US offer healthcare to their employees goes back to the time of FDR, when it was illegal for a while to compete on wages but not on benefits (if I remember correctly).
So then that's not true any more, see the "gig economy".
If you really want to save money, you could just move to the US and take the same gamble as 12% of Americans (used to be ~18% before "Obamacare"), and hope that you, your partner, and your children don't get seriously ill.
It's easy to talk shit and reason about these things if you're well off, and have never experienced these things yourself - being Danish and all.