>>> Well, you might need bookstores or libraries or databases - all
>>> of which would require - ewwww - institutions. And to read
>>> them, you'd need schools - ewwwww again. But we'd all be so
>>> unalienated we'd forget to miss them!
>>
>> So now we need coercion even to read?
>
> To a point, yes. Would kids go to school on their own, if neither
> the law nor their parents required it?
This was a (and in a practical sense perhaps "the") central question for classical anarchists in their most flourishing times (the pre-WWI decades). The life work of the martyred Ferrer was devoted to this question. To a great degree also the life work of the glorious Louise Michel. The anarchists who founded "free" or "modern" schools in the US had a major effect on elementary education - at least in the "progressive" community. It's an interesting story. A good book is Paul Avrich's _The modern school movement: anarchism and education in the United States_ (Princeton University Press) 1980.
john mage