In the 1960s and 1970s distance education was seen as a way of increasing access to education, and hence as something the state should fund. Libertarian thinking has weakened support for the nation-state as a provider of social welfare. This article argues that libertarian policies are "vicious" in their effects. By subscribing to such ideas we are culpable because we could have done something to make "bad lives" better, and we did not. Government funding of distance education should be supported on the grounds that this is the most efficient way of meeting the educational needs of those living "bad lives".