"Life, Liberty, and Property Are Inseparable"

[galtgulch]

This article appeared on the Campaign For Liberty website:

www.campaignforliberty.com 2 July 6AM 165,032; 3Jul 6AM 165,248

<<<"Tom Mullen is a writer, musician, and self-employed business consultant. In January 2009, he published his first book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Tom was the opening speaker at the Revolution March in Washington, D.C. on July 12, 2008 (keynote speaker Ron Paul). In 2007, he released his first solo CD, A Glimpse of the Ether, containing 13 original compositions. Tom's style has been described as "Powerpop with a hint of modern rock."

Tom is originally a native of Buffalo, NY and graduate of Canisius College. He earned a Master's Degree in English from State University of New York College at Buffalo. He now resides with his family in Tampa, FL. For more information, visit Tom's website at www.tommullen.net.

Life, Liberty, and Property Are Inseparable

By Tom Mullen

Published 07/02/09

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"The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence."

* John Locke [second Treatise of Government, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980) Pg. 111]

Life, liberty, and property were the central, inalienable rights that formed the foundation of the great experiment in self government called the United States of America. The founders of our country never broke apart this sacred triumvirate, because each one of these rights is inextricably bound to the other. No one of these three can exist without the other. Moreover, when all three are secured, it is almost impossible for injustice to exist. Wherever one does find injustice, one invariably finds a violation of one of these three basic rights at its root.

While it is certainly true that today the rights to life and liberty are grossly violated in innumerable ways, they are nevertheless at least spoken of by our politicians. However hypocritically, they at least say that they value life and liberty, even as they pervert those sacred rights as justification for their wars and plunder.

Yet, they never even hypocritically evoke the right to property. No journalist ever challenges them based upon it, and honestly, most average Americans don't talk about it either. As a principle, property has vanished from our consciousness. However, as all of the great philosophers throughout history have understood, there is no right to life or liberty without property. In fact, property is part and parcel of life itself.

What is property? It is that which an individual rightfully owns. Included among every human being's property are his mind, his body, his conscience, and his actions. Every act of mind and body undeniably belongs to the actor, including that act which he engages in more than any other: his labor. To deny someone's right to ownership of his mind, body, or labor is to make him a slave.

It is labor that allows each individual to sustain his existence and pursue his happiness. All consumption must be preceded by production. Production can only be achieved through human labor. In fact, there is no way for an individual to pursue any goal, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual, without exertion. Even the search for God requires an intellectual and spiritual effort -- it cannot commence without labor.

For most of us, the bulk of our labor is devoted to providing the basic necessities of life for ourselves and our children. Some portion of it also provides the extras -- the toys, the vacations, or the dining out that enriches our lives and adds to our happiness. A further portion is devoted to study, prayer, or just simple reflection -- the quest for meaning and purpose in our lives. None of these things are possible without labor; our labor provides them all. Every item in every store is the product of someone's labor. Every phone call you make is made possible by someone's labor. Healthcare is someone's labor, as is education.

However, the actual effort of mind and body is not the most precious aspect of labor. If human beings were immortal, we could afford to spend our labor and its fruits indiscriminately, consuming as much as we wished and providing anything to anyone who asked it of us. If a shoemaker were able to make shoes for the rest of eternity, then certainly there would not be a bare foot on the face of the earth. If the land developer were immortal, we would all live in a mansion.

However, we are not immortal, and it is this fact that places such a premium on our labor. Our labor is not just composed of the exertion of mind and body that is necessary to produce some good or service. That exertion happens over time, the hours or days of the laborer's life. Every hour of our labor is an hour of our life from a limited supply which cannot be replenished. Whatever we have produced with our labor now contains that portion of our life which we have sacrificed to produce it.

So, when human beings trade their goods or services with one another, they are really trading pieces of their lives. If they have exchanged their labor for money with an employer or customer, that money now contains some part of their lives -- a part that can never be reclaimed. That is why the same verb is used for both money and time -- both are "spent" in exchange for some benefit. Both also represent each individual's means of self determination.

Therefore, it is impossible to call a person free if he does not own his labor and all the product of his labor. It is only through his labor that he can provide better food, clothing and shelter for himself and his family, send his children to better schools, or realize the leisure time necessary to grow intellectually and spiritually. His labor is his means to determine the course of his life. Without self determination, there is no liberty.

Furthermore, to deny a human being ownership of his labor is also to deny his right to life itself. Since his labor is his means of sustaining his existence, once his right to ownership of his labor is denied he lives only at the arbitrary whim of whoever has claimed ownership of it. For such a person, life is now a privilege granted by someone else, rather than a right.

To the founders of the United States of America, all of this was self evident. When one reads the writings of Samuel and John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Locke, one finds one word that is used many times more often even than liberty: property. Recognizing property as nothing more than the individual's labor and/or the product of his labor, the founders placed the protection of property as the very highest priority of government. In fact, they often stated that it was the only priority of government. While no high school history book or Hollywood biopic even hints at this fact, merely reading the words of the founders for oneself puts any debate on this point to rest.

Let us apply this concept to a contemporary issue. The unambiguous statements in the Declaration of Independence that all human beings have unalienable rights and that government's sole purpose is to secure them should absolutely beg at least one timely question from most Americans today. Why did the founders not provide for the right to health care? Why did they not establish Medicare or Medicaid? Given a whole system of government whose purpose was to secure individual rights, why was this right so glaringly overlooked?

Of course, the answer to that question is that the founders recognized that health care was not a right. Health care, like every other good or service, is someone's labor. No one but the laborer can have a right to it. To say that people have a right to health care is really to deny the health care provider a right to his own life, for it is impossible for both he and his patient to have a right to ownership of his labor. It is no less a crime to forcefully rob the health care provider's fee from a third party (the taxpayer), for that simply denies the taxpayer's right to his own life. In either case -- whether the health care provider is forced to treat the patient for free or a third party is forced to pay the bill -- someone's labor, some part of someone's life, is being stolen from him. This is the specific crime that government exists to defend its citizens against. By instead committing this crime, government becomes the most grotesque absurdity imaginable.

This is not to imply that we are at some sort of crossroads because President Obama and his pet Congress are closing in on expanding government healthcare. We came to that crossroads decades ago and quite undeniably took the wrong road. Until our philosophy changes and we recognize that retirement benefits, health care, research grants, corporate subsidies, investment in alternative energy -- all money, goods, and services -- are really pieces of someone's life that cannot be seized from them without their consent (not even by majority vote), we will never restore the liberty that we have lost. Instead, we will continue to be the most pitiable form of slave, not bound to one master, but to everyone.

When a fellow human being offers to buy your product or hire you for your services, he has paid you the highest compliment imaginable. That person has offered a piece of his life to you in exchange for something that you have to offer, which is itself a piece of your own life. He is saying that you have value and that what you offer is worth hours or days of his life that he can never reclaim. This consensual interaction between free people is the most beautiful aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every improvement in the quality of human life that has ever occurred throughout history.

Conversely, when a fellow human being points a gun at you and demands that you provide him with some good or service, he commits the most egregious crime imaginable, short of pulling the trigger and ending your life at that moment. For in reality, he is really stealing a piece of your life that you can likewise never reclaim. He may be committing this crime because he wishes to increase his wealth without earning it, or he may desperately need whatever he takes from you, but it is the same crime nonetheless. This interaction is the most evil aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every war and human misery that has ever occurred throughout history.

Government can only be organized to fulfill one of two purposes: to protect your property or to take it from you - for whatever purpose government or its constituents deem fit. There is no third choice. To organize society around competing groups stealing from one another is to create a society whose citizens exist in a perpetual state of war with one another -- for the use of force to obtain another's property without his consent is the definition of the state of war.

Such a society cannot endure indefinitely. Ours has come to the beginning of its inevitable end. Countless empires throughout history -- some much more preeminent in their worlds than we are in ours -- have disintegrated for exactly the same reason. We can still choose justice over injustice but our philosophy must change. We must again institute a government that secures our rights, rather than annihilates them in the attempt to provide us with the property of others.

This will not happen by any act of government itself. Whether we elect a liberal or a conservative, we will never achieve different results by continually electing different people or parties but asking them to do the same thing -- provide us with the property of others. It must be the people who change their philosophy and then demand that government assume its appropriate role according to that philosophy. Our government ultimately gives us what we ask for. For the past century, we have increasingly asked it to make us slaves, seduced by the siren's song of comfort and security without responsibility. This can only be provided to each of us at another's expense and can only be provided to others at ours. Once we reject the idea that we can claim a right to another human being's life, the chains that bind us will be broken. Then, it will matter not who makes our laws.">>>

Edited July 3, 2009 by galtgulch

[Darrell Hougen]

Thank you, William, for posting the above defense of property rights. It is amazing that we have remembered the rights to life and liberty while forgetting about the fundamental role of property rights.

I have recently been engaged in a conversation (about health care, among other things) with some of my relatives who are Obama supporters and I wanted to share some of that conversation with the list as I spent quite a bit of time on my reply (though I know I didn't cover every relevant topic). Names are omitted.

My relatives said:

In my opinion it starts with a basic question – is health care a right or a privilege? My personal opinion is that health care is a right just as are food, clothing, shelter and security. I believe that this should be true for people where ever they live, but especially in a country like ours, that has one of the highest standards of living in the world. I see no reason that people should go hungry, lack adequate clothes, become homeless or feel unsafe from harm – in our communities and from outside forces. I believe that health care falls into this category; we should all have access to health care that we can afford. I also believe that people should work to the best of their ability, earning what they can with the skills that they have, and should pay for these rights to the extent that they can afford to, both directly and through taxes.

The above is, in my view, our fundamental source of disagreement. I do not believe that health care is a right. I do not believe that food, clothing, or shelter are rights either. In fact, I do not believe that anything that has to be produced by someone else is a right.

What would it mean to say that food is a right? Does that mean that if you don't have enough food, you have the right to take it from someone else? Do you have the right to force someone else to produce it for you?

Not all so called rights are compatible with each other. If a person has a right to food, does he also have a right to freedom? If a person has a right to be free, then no one has a right force that person to work for him. That would be slavery. If a person has a right to be free, then no one has a right to take that person's property. Property is the product of work. So, taking a person's property is akin to enslaving him.

I guess it comes down to a question of whether a person has a right to his own life or not. Is a person an end in himself or a means to the ends of others? Do other people have the right to dispose of his life? Or does he have the right to live his life as he chooses?

If a person has a right to his life, then he has the right to be free – he has the right to dispose of his own time, his own effort, and his own property in the manner of his own choosing. But, if he has the right to his own life, his own time, his own effort, and his own property, then no one else can have a right to take those things away from him.

The Declaration of Independence declares that all men have the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. So, the Declaration of Independence asserts the right to life – by which the framers meant the right of each person to pursue his own life – the right to freedom and the right of each man to pursue his own happiness. It does not guarantee that a man will be successful in living or that he will be happy, only that he has a right to the freedom required to pursue those things.

What you have summarized above is basically the Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto states, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And, we know what a disaster the economies of the communist states have been. The former Soviet Union collapsed like a hollow tree, rotting from the inside.

There are deep and profound reasons for the success of the American system and the failures of other systems. Those reasons go to the heart of what it means to be human, namely the ability to think.

A man (or woman) is a thinking animal. He observes the world, considers possible courses of action, evaluates those courses of action according to his values, chooses the course of action that seems best to him, and carries out his chosen course of action. He then observes the results and the cycle starts anew. It is in this way that he not only acts but learns about the world. But, if his choices are limited, if he cannot choose the course of action he wishes to carry out, then not only are his actions limited, so are his thoughts. This is so because limiting a person's actions, limits his observations of his own actions which are the fodder for his continued thought and action cycle.

It is only by living in a free society that a person is able to realize his full human potential. Freedom is the most fundamental requirement for man to live as man, that is, as a rational animal, and, therefore, freedom is his most fundamental right.

Medical care, shelter, clothing, and food are all produced by human effort. They do not occur naturally to any significant degree. Even air can be supplied by human effort. Witness the fact that humans can live for months under the ocean or even in outer space.

It should be obvious that it is in the interest of hard working, productive people to be free. If they are free, they can keep the fruits of their labor as the reward for their productivity. If they aren't free, they will lose those fruits and their productivity will be punished. If they are partially free, then they will be partially rewarded and partially penalized for their productivity.

But, what about people that are unable or unwilling to work and be productive? Their survival depends upon the people that are able and willing to work. If there were no people that were able and willing to work, then those that were unable to care for themselves would die in any case. So, the best that such people can hope for is that there are people that are able and willing to work and willing to take care of them.

There are several major effects that freedom or a lack thereof has on society that range from motivational to intellectual.

In a free society, people are rewarded for their productivity to the full measure of their productiveness. In a completely unfree society, people receive no reward for their effort. In a mixed economy, people receive an intermediate amount of reward. Therefore, productive people are most highly motivated to work in a free society and less motivated to work in a less free society. Indeed, some of them may join the ranks of those unwilling to work if the rewards of work are diminished and the rewards of staying home are enhanced. That is the “moral hazard” of policies that reward laziness.

What are you going to do with people that are unwilling to work? Force them to work? Point a gun at their heads? If people have a right to their own lives, then there is no right to force them to work. If it is not right to force people to work, then there can be no right to the fruits of work – food, clothing, shelter, health care or anything else that is the product of human effort.

Another major effect of freedom is on people's ability to think. People often proceed through life doing things on a trial and error basis. For example, a person might think he has a great new business concept. But, if he is not free to try it, he'll never find out if it works or not. In a completely free society, a person can try whatever he can afford to try. In a partially free society, where some of his income has been taxed away, his options are more limited because the amount of money he has is less. In a totally unfree society, he cannot try anything. The consequence is that people come up with more good ideas in a free society than in an unfree or partially free society.

The effects of a lack of innovation are both direct and indirect. People that have experience developing new products get better at it. They actually become more intelligent about it. So, restricting freedom not only stifles first order innovation, it actually makes people dumber and that has further negative consequences on innovation in the future.

Government decision makers usually cannot compensate for a lack of innovation in the private sector because they haven't had the opportunity to try and fail. Moreover, no amount of money invested in science can compensate for a lack of freedom. Even if scientists develop useful things, which they often don't, those things won't be productized in an environment in which business people aren't free to operate.

There are many other consequences of reducing or eliminating freedom. The point is that people that are unable or unwilling to take care of themselves are unlikely to be better off in an partially or totally unfree society than in a totally free society. Over the long run, a society that is freer is likely to produce more wealth and more innovation than a society that is less free. On the other hand, if the able and willing are punished for their productivity, the unable and unwilling will suffer too.

Freedom is a right because it is in the interest of everyone to be free. It is in the interest of everyone to be able to live his life in the manner that he sees fit. No one will suffer as a result of freedom. Those that are unable or unwilling to take care of themselves will be no better off in a poor, unfree society than in a wealthy, free, innovative one. The amount of charity handed out in a wealthy society dwarfs the amount of money confiscated and given to the poor in an already poor society.

The big question is, of course, how should these things, in this case health care, be provided? I believe it needs to be a combination of private, business and government sharing the responsibility. We need a system that costs less and provides better care. (Even the vice-president and regional general manager for Wal-Mart stores in Iowa made that point in an op-ed piece in the Des Moines Register on 6/23/09. (And you know how much of a fan I am of Wal-Mart!)

The question is, how did we get to this point in the first place? Was it a lack of government involvement or too much government involvement? Rather than simply looking at costs, we should look at the freedoms that we have lost.

Does a person have the freedom to buy the kind of insurance that best suits his needs? No. Not in many states. Many states mandate that every health insurance policy cover certain types of problems. So, consumers are forced to either pay for an insurance policy that covers problems they don't have or go without insurance entirely.

For example, many states require that insurance policies cover mental health treatment. That may sound nice, but if I'm not worried about my mental health but am worried about my physical health, why should I be required to buy mental health coverage? The result is that health insurance is much more expensive in some states than other states. For example, it costs an 25 year old man $465/month to buy insurance in New Jersey but only $80/month to buy insurance in Kentucky. A quick fix to the current problem would be to allow people to buy insurance across state lines, thereby allowing them to bypass state mandates – restrictions on freedom -- and obtain low cost insurance.

Part of the difference in cost is due to the fact that some states allow people to buy catastrophic insurance while other states require people to buy comprehensive insurance.

I ran into a rather wealthy individual the other night who decided to buy only catastrophic insurance rather than comprehensive insurance. It was about $500/month for the comprehensive insurance or about $6000/year. At the same time, the deductible on the catastrophic insurance was $6000/year and it cost only a third as much or about $2000/year. He reasoned that he was willing to risk a loss of $6000 in medical bills before his insurance kicked in versus a guaranteed expense of $6000/year or $4000 more per year for the comprehensive insurance than the catastrophic insurance.

The above example illustrates the savings that could be achieved by giving people more freedom. It also illustrates the fact that catastrophic insurance isn't just for poor people that can't afford comprehensive insurance. It may also make sense for the rich.

Are people free to choose their doctors? Not really. If I'm not really that sick, why don't I have the freedom see a nurse, rather than a doctor?

Are people free to buy the medications they want? No. Why don't I have the freedom to buy medicines without seeing a doctor and getting a prescription?

All of these restrictions on basic freedoms drive up costs. In a free market, prices tend to fall over time. The price of a car is actually a lower percentage of take home pay than it used to be and cars are of better quality than in the past. Houses cost less per square foot relative to income. Big screen TV's cost less than they did a decade ago. If we look at an area of the medical field that has been relatively unregulated, namely lasik surgery, we can see that the price of that has come down substantially over time too.

I believe that government may need to, no must, play a larger role in dealing with health care. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are in the business to make a profit. I don’t fault them for that, it is their right. But their profit motive has been a large factor in increasing health care costs. One of the big factors is the exorbitant salaries and “benefits” they pay their top honchos.

I think it is interesting that you say that insurance companies have a right to make a profit while you are trying to take that right away by getting the government more involved.

It is hard to judge whether insurance company profits are reasonable or not because it is hard to know the conditions under which they are operating. Are they truly operating in a free market with potentially stiff competition, or are they hiding behind government regulations that make it difficult for competitors to enter the market?

I don't know the insurance market that well, but I know that in the cable television market, for example, cable companies often have agreements with local governments that forbid competition. The companies essentially have a government mandated monopoly on the delivery of service. In such an environment, there is little reason to restrain costs, increase efficiency, or innovate.

Example #1. In Iowa, the CEO of Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance company, the dominant one in Iowa, has had his salary doubled in the past five years, to $2.5 million in 2008. And his salary is low compared to many other health care CEO’s around the country, some making as much as $10M annually.

Again, it is hard to know whether that is reasonable since I don't know how many customers are served by Wellmark, but $2.5 million in compensation is less than $1 for each person in the state of Iowa.

Example #2. A non-profit health organization in Iowa, the Iowa Health System, CEO just retired and was awarded $8M in retirement pay last year plus $946,000 in salary and benefits. (He was also allowed to buy the office furniture in his office for $975. Original purchase price-$24,000.)

If the CEO of a “non-profit” is making that much money, then it sounds like the government is abdicating its responsibility. Perhaps the organization should be relabeled as a for-profit company.

I have cited two examples from the local paper in just the past couple of days. Multiply this by what is going on in the rest of the country. My point – profits and salaries are excessive and we are paying the bill through our insurance premiums and the cost of drugs. On the other hand the person who heads up the government run Medicare and Medicade system has a salary of around $150,000.

It's easy to be jealous of people that make more money than we do. But that is not a reason to take people's freedom away. In a truly competitive, free-market environment, companies that pay their executives excessive rewards will not long survive. Every business must watch its bottom line. Unprofitable companies will eventually go broke. But that, by itself, does not indicate that CEO pay is excessive. Perhaps some CEO's really are worth millions of dollars, because even with their high salaries, their companies are still making more money than their competitors.

Private companies make a profit, yes. But, they also spend money on things that Medicare and Medicaid do not. For example, they spend far more money on anti-fraud measures. Medicare and Medicaid, on the other hand, are plagued by an enormous amount of fraud. I believe a recent study in Florida showed that a third of equipment paid for by Medicare was either unnecessary or fraudulently purchased. That's huge. Government run programs waste enormous amounts of money.

Of course there are problems with the Medicare and Medicade system that need to be fixed. But at least folks who are enrolled in these programs are getting assistance with their health care. About one-third of the population in the U.S. is getting some form of government assistance already. (Medicare, Medicade, Veterans health care, etc.) So, government assistance is not exactly a new idea. And I plead guilty, I receive Medicare assistance for my doctor bills. (And I think there are very few people who are eligible for Medicare who turn it down, even those who speak against the system.) I did pay into Medicare while I was employed and I continue to pay a premium from my Social Security check. And, In retirement, I pay a premium of $257 a month for “medigap” insurance from a private company. (Pat pays the same) So, it is not a government health care program, but government subsidized. And, yes, the system is going broke while we refuse to increase our taxes to pay for what we want and expect from it!

One of the big issues right now is the proposal of a government-run insurance system to compete with private insurance companies. The idea is that it would level the playing field. If private companies had to compete, they would not pay such large salaries and benefits to their top executives or feel that they had to make such large profits. I am not sure it is right for the government to compete with private businesses but what are other alternatives to making health care more affordable? As President Obama said “If private insurers say that the market place provides the best quality health care…then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?”

The government has huge advantages over private companies. First, they can subsidize their income with tax dollars. Obama has said that it would be unfair if the government program received huge tax subsidies, but it is really unfair if the government program receives any tax subsidies. I wonder if he would be willing to stipulate that the government program receive absolutely no tax subsidies. If he isn't willing to do that then he is being dishonest.

Second, the government can make the rules. For example, they could set the compensation for various procedures by law. Now, if doctors are free to refuse the government insurance program, that might not be a problem. If the compensation rates were too low, doctors could simply turn government patients away. In such a case, private insurance would still be appealing. But how would you like it if patients in the government program couldn't find a doctor?

The alternative is to force doctors to accept government patients at government mandated compensation levels. If that happens, all heck will break loose. Some doctors might not be able make a profit and might go out of business. Others could make a profit by offering their patients substandard care. But Obama doesn't want to limit lawsuits, so that seems unlikely to work either.

In the short run, it seems likely that doctors would shift costs to patients with private insurance. But that would drive up the cost of insurance forcing more people onto the public plan. Since most people get their insurance through their employers, they wouldn't have any choice in the matter. There simply isn't a good solution to the problem.

Businesses must remain profitable to stay in business. But, if some businesses had lower overhead costs because they used tax subsidized, government insurance, other businesses would have to follow suit. That is even more likely to happen if insurance premiums are taxed – another proposal of the Obama Administration. The only factor that might retard that trend is that businesses might be able to attract better employees by promising them private insurance as a perk.

I want to say something about what I consider mild attacks on freedom and gross violations of freedom. Taxation is a mild attack on freedom because it falls equally on everyone and simply reduces the amount of money people have to spend whether it be on things for themselves or new business ventures. So, if we have to have government involvement in obtaining care for uninsured people, I would recommend using tax dollars to subsidize purchases of insurance on the private market, at least as a stop-gap measure.

On the other hand, a single payer system or any solution that moves us in that direction is gross violation of freedom. It essentially attempts to make doctors serfs of the state. Doctors in Canada and the UK aren't free to practice medicine the way that they see fit and both doctors and patients suffer horribly under such systems. The long term result is that the best and brightest – people that would have been doctors – choose to go into other professions that are relatively more free, leading to additional suffering and death of patients.

Any policy that violates man's fundamental nature will inevitably lead to unnecessary suffering and death.

As I said, I don’t pretend to have the answers. Those that do pretend to have the answers, and who will make the final decisions obviously don’t agree either. I go back to my basic premise that I believe that being able to live a healthy life and receive the necessary health care is a right we should all have, and not a privilege for only those who can afford it. I would hope that this perspective would be basic to whatever becomes the final outcome of this debate.

I explained above why health care is not and cannot be a right. There can be no such thing as the right to violate the rights of others. But let me say a few words about the enormous benefits that accrue to the poor in a free country.

I have mentioned charity as a benefit. There is also the benefit of the advance of technology that results from direct investment in research. But, there is also the advance in technology that results from the invisible hand of the market.

Generally speaking, when a new technology is introduced, it is very expensive. That is because the new invention has only been engineered once, so to speak. With the release of successive generations of the invention, as it is re-engineered over and over, the cost comes down as the invention is better understood and the manufacturing is streamlined. It has happened to cars, radios, computers, and even furniture. It happens to everything that is produced in the free market. The question is, where does the money come from to drive that process? The answer might surprise you.

Lets look at an example. Large, flat panel TV's came out a decade ago and were priced at around $5000. At that price, only people with a significant amount of disposable income could afford them. I don't know how many actually sold at that price, but lets assume a million were sold. That would have pumped five billion dollars into continued development of the technology allowing the industry to reduce the price to $3000 per set a few years later. If five million were sold at that price, another fifteen billion dollars would have been pumped into the industry allowing the technology to be further developed and the price to be reduced still further. If fifty million sets were sold at $1000 a piece, that would yield another fifty billion dollars being spent. I am confident that, eventually, large (42” or bigger) TV's will cost $100 or less (in constant dollars), making them accessible to even the poorest families in this country.

The above example represents the general progress of technology. Initially expensive inventions are sold to the wealthy who pay top dollar for the new inventions. Their investment contributes to the continued development of the technology until it eventually becomes available to even the poorest people. The wealthy, through their activity in the marketplace, are showering literally billions of dollars of gifts upon middle income earners and the poor. Without their activity, the poor would never have the opportunity to buy or own advanced technology or to reap the enormous benefits of such technologies.

Of course, there is a benefit to being rich. The benefit is that the rich obtain the advanced technologies first. They may obtain the technologies years or even decades before the poorest people. That is the reward that the rich and middle income earners receive for working hard and being productive and it is right that they should receive such rewards. But their hard work and productivity results in enormous benefits to those who are incapable or unwilling to work hard. The activities of the wealthy produce enormous benefits for the poor and middle income earners and the activities of middle income earners produce enormous benefits for the poor as well.

The process of technological development described above works in medicine as well as every other area of the economy. The wealthy are able and willing to pay enormous sums of money to enhance and maintain their health. The money that they spend drives technological development and the benefits of that development eventually enhance the lives of even the poorest people. So, the wealthy and, indeed, the middle income earners, are already contributing enormous sums of money to the health of everyone in society, without being asked or forced to do so. In fact, it is the government, in its attempts to substitute force for voluntary transactions, that is threatening to undermine the entire process of technological development within the medical industry, potentially leading to unnecessary suffering and death both now and in the future.

Again, there is a benefit to being rich. The wealthy have access to the best new medical inventions, whether they be drugs or devices, years or decades before other people and it is the poorest people that will obtain them last. But, that is how is should be. That is the right and just outcome of the process of living. Those that work hard and are productive are rewarded first. Those that are unwilling to work still benefit, but must wait for their reward. If that were not true, what would be the benefit of working hard?

The rich live in bigger houses, drive nicer cars, and have fancier clothes than people in the middle and people in the middle are better off than people that are poor. Would you suggest that people all be kept equal, no matter how hard they worked, how honest or dishonest they were, or whether they were sober or drunk? Would you suggest that people be rewarded for their vices and punished for their virtues? That is the system in place in North Korea.

Of course, some people were born with limitations that make them incapable of working or earning a decent living. But, free people have always been more than generous in helping the truly helpless – as opposed to the lazy. In fact, it is government that makes generosity impossible by taking people's wealth by force and redistributing it. People living in European socialist states are much less generous than Americans.

In summary, people have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not food, shelter, clothing, or medical care. The best way to fix our medical system is to institute a truly free market in medicine by allowing people to choose their insurance, medical care providers, and medications and instituting other free-market reforms. The best thing that we can do at this point is to try to scrap the current “reform” package and start over from scratch.

Darrell