Education and Health Expenditures

Abstract

The expense of educating youth should be met either from the general revenue of society or from the beneficiaries (more correctly, their parents and guardians). Smith found himself in a bind here as he believed that services offered in return for a salary, paid by taxation, private endowments, charities or legacies, would deteriorate to the point of indifference in their quality:

In every profession, the exertion of the great part of those who exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion. … Where competition is free, the rivalship of competitors, who are all endeavouring the jostle one another out of employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness.¹