Last time, I promised you a lesson on “The Philosophy of Money” with a return of Bob. Fortunately, I’m the teacher, so I can break my promises willy nilly and there’s nothing you can do about it. Due to events in the news, I’ve changed my mind. You see (someone cue some Richard Wagner) we’re passing an important milestone on the Road to Serfdom as we speak. This lesson is decidedly not very much fun at all. Next time, you have my word as a writer–nay, I swear once more on my copy of The Elements of Style, we will have fun again.
There is a lengthy segment in this lesson on the subject of Healthcare, as the title may already have led you to believe. As some of you may or may not know, our President is planning to “reform” the Healthcare Industry. At the time of this writing, ABC is airing a lengthy special on National Health Insurance (in the guise of healthcare reform), which in itself doesn’t sound so bad, but it really is. Sure, right now they say there is going to be a “Public Option” to compete with private enterprise. The only problem is that government subsidies destroy the ability of private enterprise to compete on equal terms. The government has an unfair price-advantage because they force you to pay for their product, whether you like it or not. They force you to pay via taxation. Private companies do not have this advantage. You actually have to pay them of your own free will. They have to earn their money, they can’t just tax it from you. And when people are paying higher taxes for public insurance, why bother buying private insurance? Tens of thousands of people in the insurance field will lose their jobs, just so the invariably wasteful bureaucrats can have the run of the insurance industry.
F.A. Hayek’s masterpiece was perhaps one of the strongest forces preventing the rise of pure Socialism and Fascism in the West after World War II. He single-handedly weakened the Labour party in Great Britain (though did not defeat it) and caused the media to avoid words such as “collectivist” in reportage and editorials for a generation. He delayed the onset, but did not prevent it. As we know, Labour in England has turned one of the greatest countries in the world into a nanny state, which is fast becoming a police state, which is the natural progression of the State. I believe the last statistic I read was that a person is captured on CCTV cameras some 400 times per day in England. I know a number of people from England: the smart citizens hate it but feel powerless, the average act like cattle.
In our own country, we have chosen a decidedly Fascist road, and are throwing in plenty of Socialist elements for good measure. Fascism is a form of government wherein industry is privately owned, but is controlled by the government. When you hear the words “Public-Private Partnership,” think Fascism. Socialism is a form of government where the government owns the means of production in various key industries; it is only set apart from Communism in terms of rhetoric and degree. In the American model of Fascism, we have some industries privatized, while others are fully under government control: we have a mixed-system of Fascism and Socialism, due to the different imperatives of the Janus-like One-Party System under which we live. The Party has one head, two faces: Republicans and Democrats.
These forms of government lead to one destination. Just as all roads lead to Rome, and the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, the end of our road is Serfdom.
This is not sensationalism. Never in history has a nation survived its decline without ending up in tyranny, even if for a brief period. And contrary to what the American Gospel of Manifest Destiny might teach, America is not somehow immune. Manifest Destiny is part of what got us into this mess: we are not, nor have ever been a “Christian Nation,” in the sense that Christianity was ever the National Religion. For most of the country’s history, up until the 1970s, most people did live under what Francis Schaeffer called a “Christian Consensus” wherein most people lived the basic morality taught by Jesus, knew the highlights of the Bible, and went to church at least on Easter and Christmas. Contrary to their own self-aggrandizing beliefs, the Puritans were not God’s Chosen People brought into the Promised Land out of the Egypt-like Servitude of Europe. America is not historically special, in the sense that we are not immune to all the ills that plague other declining nation-states. We will end in authoritarian rule: love it or leave it (while you still can.)
Why are we destined to Serfdom? Rather than instruct you to read Hayek’s complete work, we will study the cartoon I linked to in our previous lesson. However, if you would like a copy of The Road to Serfdom, there will be a contest involved at the end of the semester where you may receive one.
In America, we like everything to be fast, so our Road to Serfdom is actually part of the Eisenhower Interstate System. We’ll now examine the exits we’ve visited on our wild road-trip into servitude.
Exit 1: War Forces “National Planning.” Ever since World War II, our government has had a burgeoning military-industrial-complex. Eisenhower warned of this; he saw it as a necessary evil, but in his farewell address he warned the American People to be wary of the tendrils of the MIC. We didn’t listen. America spends 1 trillion dollars on military spending every year, including the budgets for current wars and intelligence programs. The rest of the world combined spends another trillion. America indeed has the most powerful, best funded military in the world, with some 10 times more funding than our next closest competitor, China. National Planning in the U.S. has always been under a Guns and (rather than versus) Butter doctrine, wherein a strong emphasis is placed on the production of military equipment and consumer goods. Since the end of the Cold War, the new boogeyman has been International Terrorism. It is a far more insidious enemy than Communism, because it knows no boundaries. Indeed, Terrorism as a scapegoat for the world’s instability allows for Permanent War, which drastically affects National Planning. In the name of national security, and destroying terrorism, the Bush Administration forced private banks to become “enforcers” to cut off funds to terrorists. The Fed cut interest rates to historic lows to prevent economic collapse after 9/11, and they’ve remained in a historically low range ever since. The banks are now controlled by the government, after eight years of Bush’s slow encroachment on the industry. Obama didn’t change anything here; he’s just finished what Bush started. Bush wanted to bring the banks into national control and used Terrorism as the means; Obama has now nationalized major banks because the economic crisis “necessitates” it. Congress is full of planners, as well; they are working on many pet projects. Most Congressmen are idiots who cannot see past the ends of their noses, and don’t think past the next election cycle, but some have long-term plans for the nation, and others are hardly representatives at all: instead they represent their own vision of America. Our nation’s method of planning is different from other nations in history, but its end is the same.
Exit 2: Planners want planning to stay. The War on Terror or whatever it is called now has been billed as an eternal struggle. There is no reason not to plan the nation’s course under an eternal war against terrorism.
Exit 3: The planners promise utopias. Because we’re doing such a grand job at regulating travel, banking, and the auto industry, we ought to regulate everything, right? This has been ongoing for generations, but the final nail in the coffin of liberty lies in Healthcare. When Healthcare is nationalized, America is over. It is the choke-point for the dominos; after it falls, many other industries will fall rapidly into nationalization after it.
In fairness, the President does not propose nationalization in the sense of Canada and Britain. But this is how it works: the nationalized insurance program will cause a lot of problems. These problems will be blamed on the still-private hospitals and doctors. The media and the planners will bring up the brilliant solution of nationalizing all the hospitals and medical practices under a Single-Payer system. Rather than putting the blame on the government insurance, the blame will be put on the private element. Why? Because the planners in Congress can then “boldly take action” and “fix the problem,” all while ruining your life.
Why is nationalized healthcare bad? First nationalization leads to rationing. Rather than having abundant medical care available for those who can pay, those who cannot pay are given a free-ride. This clogs up the system, wastes time and money, and will cause honest, paying customers to be put on waiting lists where they might die. It will increase the number of frivolous hospital visits, adding to the backlog. We already see this in our nation’s emergency rooms: free-riders such as illegal immigrants fill the emergency rooms for non-emergencies, because doctors are required to treat, regardless of ability to pay. Rationing leads to unnecessary death. It also stifles new medical innovations. People talk about how great Canada’s free healthcare is, but America is number one in medical technology, to the degree that most Americans live within 50 miles of a high-tech MRI machine; this is not so in Canada, where there are far fewer machines due to government inefficiency. They need the machines, but cannot and will not afford them.
What most people don’t understand is that healthcare is not a Basic Human Right. I know this because our society, while increasingly authoritarian, is based on English Common Law and the ideals of Natural Law espoused by John Locke and others. Neither ideology supports Healthcare as a “right.” Why? Throughout most of human history, Healthcare was a luxury only available to the wealthy rulers of a nation, if it was available at all. It was the Church (first Catholics and later Protestants) who brought healthcare to the masses through monasteries, nunneries, and their later great charities. The stereotypical “country doctor” came next, making house-calls and relying on the generosity of his patients for his sustenance. Next, secular philanthropists created non-religious charities. Next, Healthcare became a corporate enterprise after standardized treatments began appearing (the development of penicillin is a good milestone for this.)
There is no historical precedent for Healthcare as a basic right. It is not a right guaranteed to you under the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. It is a luxury, a luxury for which you should be thankful every day, because 100 years ago people would have sold everything for the relatively cheap cures to formerly fatal diseases we have today. Those cures were developed because of private individuals and companies pursuing “enlightened-self-interest,” that is, a cause that will benefit humanity, but also one’s own pocket-book at the same time. The question isn’t whether or not you can afford health insurance, as if it is a natural right. The real question should be: what is your life worth to you? Would you rather buy a house, or live another 5 years? The problem is, Americans believe we deserve everything. It is this sense of entitlement that stands to destroy our world-class healthcare system. Our system is expensive, but it’s worth every damn penny if you want to be cured, all media-sensationalized horror stories aside.
Rather than being a service bought and sold in the efficient Market, the Government wants control of Healthcare. When the Government takes control, and delays your cancer-treatment for six months, and you take your case before the Supreme Court to try to force the government to give you your treatment, guess what will happen? The Court will find that “Healthcare is not a Constitutional Right,” and you will be royally fucked. Your author does not use “fucked” in class very often, but it is what you will be. The precedent for this, of course, is the little-known case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, where the Supreme Court ruled that Police have no obligation to protect you. If the police, who are sworn to serve and protect, are not obligated to protect you, then what about doctors? They swore to do no harm (and in the process, often work long hours for free because freeloading entitlement-minded Americans don’t pay their hospital bills, and then sue when something goes wrong.) The Hippocratic Oath will become meaningless under Nationalized Healthcare, and your treatment will be subject to the whim of a Bureaucrat, not the expertise of a Medical Doctor. Sounds like Heaven to me. But at least it’s free, right?
Our system isn’t perfect by any stretch, but it is damn good, and we need to stop bitching. Politicians and the media like to stir up populism, which is dangerous for reasons we’ll get to in future.
46 million people don’t have health insurance in America. A third of them are only temporarily without insurance at any given time: it is a rolling figure. Those 15 million people are just between jobs, or for some other reason are waiting for a new plan to kick in. They are not the same 15 million people every year, so we can subtract them from the government’s padded statistics. A percentage does not need health insurance because they can afford either cash or credit; we’ll not count them because they’re such a small minority. 11 million of the remaining 31 million are in the country illegally, and do not deserve health insurance, because they are Felons just by virtue of being in America without having gone through the legitimate process that millions of other people do every year. Being an American is not a basic human right, it is a privilege (although it is rapidly becoming a curse. I envy the illegal aliens and their tax-free lifestyle.) About 10 million people without coverage are under the poverty line, and are thus already eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, but have not bothered themselves to fill out the paperwork. That leaves only 10 million people who cannot afford health insurance, who would be legally entitled to the new plan, but are not coverable under Medicare or Medicaid. That works out to 1/30th of the population of the U.S. Only 1/30th of the people will actually benefit (in real terms) from the new nationalized health-insurance plan. Since 1/30th of the population could stand to benefit from the 1-3 trillion dollar boondoggle the President wants to create, you need to ask yourself, should the “many” (the half of the population who pays taxes) be forced to pay for it? Healthcare isn’t a human right, it is a luxury. The promise of Utopian Healthcare can not be kept, and will not be kept. It will end in disappointment, and assuredly tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths annually due to rationing, bureaucratic hang-ups, and sheer waste.
Exit 4: Planners can’t agree on one Utopia: Democrats propose unequal rights in favor of the poor (a worker’s paradise) at the expense of the wealthy (who can “afford” to pay higher taxes); Republicans support unequal rights in favor of the wealthy: give the wealthy more breaks than the poor, allow them more say in the political system, as it will ultimately benefit the poor. Neither party supports equal rights for all under the Rule of Law. Owning your own property, and the fruits of your labor, unlike Healthcare, is a Basic Human Right under Common Law, Natural Law, and the Constitution. If you came by it lawfully and ethically, you deserve your property and your money, regardless of how meager or vast your property or bank-account may be. No one deserves special treatment for having what society deems is “too little,” and no one deserves special penalties for having what society deems is “too much.” Both parties deserve nothing but contempt for these clear violations of Human Equality; neither are morally or ethically sound, and only fuel the dangerous fires of class-warfare.
Exit 5: Citizens can’t agree on the plans either. People voted for “change” but their definition of change was not the same as Obama’s, as his rapidly sliding poll numbers indicate. 58% job approval (as Rasmussen revealed this week) this early in a presidency is not a good sign, regardless of personal approval ratings. Only 40% of Independents approve of his job so far. Down from 65% in April.
Exit 6: Planners hate to force agreement among the populace. Congress is doing its best to restore its ruined image in the eyes of the people. They haven’t decided to send out the Gestapo to force your compliance with their plans.
Exit 7: In an effort to coax agreement, the Planners create a massive propaganda machine. The first article I wrote was on one of the greatest minds behind modern psychological warfare: these warfare tactics are now being turned on our populace. The Nationalized Healthcare Infomercial on ABC is a grand example. In an unprecedented example of biased media, ABC is kowtowing to the Administration and is airing, without any significant opposing viewpoints, the administration’s argument for Nationalized Health Insurance (and thus Nationalized Medicine.) The government already has a Propaganda Arm in the Ad Council, and there are plenty of groups on both the Left and the Right who will become willing participants in the indoctrination of the masses. Our entire electoral process is based on propaganda rather than the thoughtful, rational discussion of ideas.
Exit 8: The gullible will find agreement. If you believe the 2008 elections were anything other than a case of mass-hysteria fueled by intellectual shallowness (i.e., “may the coolest non-Republican candidate win,”) you may have already found this article above your pay-grade. Your author contends that things would not be running much differently if McCain had won; the only difference would be the media spin and farcical Congressional opposition.
Exit 9: People feel that Planners can’t get things done. See the low approval ratings of Congress; the Planners have been in trouble since 2006. Expect a Republican Congress in 2010, because the People will exchange one set of planners for another.
Exit 10: The “strong man” is given power. While Obama is almost assuredly not the “strong man” (as he himself is something of a planner,) he is an example of the kind of individual the national-planners would like to see in power. They need someone who is charismatic, nuanced, someone who can lie through his smile and keep the populace enthralled. The planners believe they can dispense with him after he’s forged unity. They are wrong. Again, President Obama is not the one. President Obama cannot be the strong man: he wavers too much. That, and no strong man ever needed a teleprompter.
Exit 11: One party takes over the country. The Democrats own every branch of government except the Judicial, and the Supreme Court is two or three retirements away from that. (Alternately, Congress could add seats to the Supreme Court, as occurred during the Roosevelt administration and its court-packing scheme.) Before you cry, “Republican Shill,” remember that your author opposes either party being in control of everything…or being in control of anything at all, for that matter.
Exit 12: A “negative aim” welds party unity. We have not yet reached this point in the U.S. In Nazi Germany, the negative aim was anti-Semitism. In Soviet Russia, the “kulaks” were singled out. Eventually, in the U.S., one or more disfavored minorities will be singled out and persecuted. It is most likely that the wealthy will become targets. Ayn Rand’s novels will be less like dense speculative fiction and more like Old Testament prophecies. Illegal immigrants may end up on the chopping block as well, as the reinvigorated trade unions will put an end to cheap labor. Gas chambers are unlikely, but mass-displacement is inevitable.
Exit 13: No one opposes the leader’s plan. There will be thought-police, and all freedom will come to an end. Thought-crimes such as “hate-crime” are already on the books; expect an expansion of these ideals and an unsympathetic court.
Exit 14: Your profession is planned. The State will tell you what job you will take and where. This already happened once in America, shortly after Roosevelt took office he created many “make-work” programs which were involuntary. During World War II, such programs were replaced with military-industrial jobs. It can happen here, and when the Depression 2.0 worsens, it will happen again.
Exit 15: Your wages are planned. We have reached this point in the U.S. The Government is capping executive wages in financial institutions, is seeking to curtail executive bonuses. This is a “trial run” for mass wage-control. Easier “secret ballot” rules for union formation are also in the works, which will expand the ability of the government to control wages. Unions are easily controlled by the government, as both are collectivist entities. Your wages will be planned, and it will be unfair and inefficient. At this point, you are in the strictest definition, a serf.
Exit 16: Your thinking is planned. The transformation of ABC into a soap-box for Nationalized Health Care is a dangerous precedent. Self-proclaimed journalists should be politically neutral.
Mile Marker 17: Your recreation is planned.
Mile Marker 18: Your disciplining is planned. Minimum sentencing laws have been on the books for years. Expect more increases in the number and severity of sentences, even for minor crimes.
At this point (or perhaps earlier), you are asking: “what does all this have to do with economics? I thought you wanted to divorce economics from politics.” Well, my astute student, you are correct in the latter statement: unfortunately, I don’t have a magic lamp. As for your question, the answer is: everything. Economic freedom can exist without political or social freedoms (see China), but political and social freedoms seldom last long without economic freedom (see Soviet Russia.) Why? Because economic freedom, despite its inherent “unfairness” (i.e., “you can’t get rich in a 40 hour work-week”), is the best way for prosperity for the most people most of the time. Depressions and Recessions happen whether or not the economy is free; but free market economies recover more quickly and more robustly than their authoritarian-counterparts, because they are more efficient. Truly free economies have no bureaucratic middle-men to slow everything down and take their cut of the profit.
Serfdom is in itself an economic system. Serfdom is a system wherein the masses are forced to work for property owners in exchange for protection and the “privilege” to work a portion of the Feudal Lord’s land for their own sustenance. In other words, it is a meager, mediocre existence, devoid of luxury. It is the future of America if we do not change course and respect freedom. Serfdom was the evil father of Corporatism/Fascism, Socialism, and Communism, and in all of these systems, individuality must be crushed. You will have the privilege of working for basic necessities, in exchange for all sorts of services from the State (which you may or may not want.) When you try to make enough to escape from the grips of the Fief Lord, you will be severely penalized, possibly killed. It is the end of luxury and comfort. What lies before us is a cold, inhuman society cleverly wrapped in warm, fuzzy, humanist language. In Serfdom, you may have love, food, shelter; perhaps you may be allowed to be religious in private. These things will not be rights, however, they will be privileges which may be revoked at the whim of the ruling authorities. The entire system exists to benefit the few at the top, all while they talk about such a great world they’ve painstakingly created for you, you ingrate. You, America are being duped into a bait-and-switch. Many who are doing the baiting truly believe in the new proposed systems and do not see the end of the road, most of them will be shut out in the cold along with you. Loyalty is meaningless, Power is everything.
Serfdom and his evil, Faulknerian children cannot abide the Individual, which runs completely contrary to human nature. This is why none of these economic systems help humanity in the long run: they subsume the Individual to Society, rather than view Society as a structure in which Individuals can be Individuals.
Humans are not collectivist creatures, we are cooperative creatures. The difference between the two may seem like mere semantics or word-play, but the reality is that most humans have no difficulty cooperating voluntarily with one another (voluntary cooperation has done tremendous good throughout history; see almost every charity ever to exist for an example)—but coercive collectivism crushes the human spirit. Everything the government does ends in coercion: after all, the government writes the laws, has the guns to enforce the laws, and has the judges to rule on the law.
Human beings are not ants, wasps, or bees, we are humans. Let us stop trying to be something we are not, and remember that humans invented light-bulbs, cars, and computers, not ants. Bees do many great things, but they cannot write Chaucer, Shakespeare, Murasaki, Dostoevsky, 1001 Arabian Nights, or the Bhagavad-Gita. Wasps cannot compose Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, write Ruddigore, or form pop-bands. Human beings do these things. Human individuals, either alone or in voluntary cooperation, do these things.
Name one great invention by a collectivist group that changed your life. Name one great work of literature or art created by a collective under government coercion. Name one great achievement by a collectivist society that has saved more misery and human bloodshed than it cost.
Now, for sake of accuracy I must point out that many individuals have done great things in collectivist societies. They operated under a system of Patronage. These individuals, like all other Serfs, had to answer to their rulers. Far fewer individuals were able to succeed and share their inventiveness and creativity with the world because of the inherent limitations of collectivism—imagine how many other great authors, artists, and musicians the world lost, imagine the amount of human progress wasted because Serfs had to be Serfs rather than persons. In our society, everyone has the right to write the novel they’ve always wished to write, paint their own paintings, draw, compose, or do any number of other things they wish (assuming they are motivated enough.) In Serfdom, these luxuries are reserved only for the chosen few, chosen by the people at the top. This is cruel, truly unfair, and one of the most pernicious evils ever devised by humanity.
Creativity is a quality that resides not in a collective, but in the individual. It resides in you and me. Creativity thrives where there is freedom; America has been innovative for many years because of our free market and society. Collectivism dilutes Creativity, it does not promote it, it does not strengthen it, it does not and can not allow for creativity. It crushes our most-human of qualities in the name of “The Greater Good.” Individuals do great things, create great works of art, invent, become scientists and engineers. Individuals dominate the Humanities. Most of the greatest inventions of all time were wrought by the hands of Individuals—Individuals in search of profit, in search of convenience, in search of greater knowledge, and yes, even Individuals who just wanted to leave the world better than they found it. Almost every invention that allows you to read this article on ANF today is the product of an individual or cooperative achievement, not collectivist fiat.
Collectivism destroys the right of the Individual to be Individual. It crushes the human spirit. Yet, we as a Nation are so willing to trade such a rich heritage of scientific and creative achievement—made possible by economic and social freedom—just so we can have armed guardians, guaranteed wages, and “free” health insurance.
Is living to be 100 worth giving up what makes us human? It this really “living” at all? Is free health-care worth all that? Is a $20/hour job worth it? Is making Oligarchs wealthy at the expense of our sweat, blood and tears worth it?
One might argue that we’re America, and we can make some “Third Way” between Individualism and Collectivism work in a way that is fair for everyone. When you can show me a mermaid riding a unicorn in a sky filled with winged pigs, I will believe you. People who receive power tend to abuse it. People who actively seek power tend to be corrupt narcissists already. Power corrupts, and the corrupt seek Power.
In a collectivist society, it is impossible for creativity (and thus humanity) to thrive. Why? Because collectivist societies just cannot allow you to be innovative (unless it serves the purposes of the ruling class.) You are, after all, just a cog in the machine, just another brick in the wall, just another Serf working the fields. To them, you are worthless.
Dismissed.
Tags: economics, Economics w/ Ian
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