Who to Trust?
One of the principle disagreements that I find myself in when discussion political philosophy with liberals is related to trust. Specifically – I trust the entities they deem the enemy and they trust the entities I deem the enemy. I’m not talking about individuals like Ronald Reagan (one I’d trust and they’d call an enemy) or Barack Obama (one they’d trust and I’d call an enemy) – I’m talking about institutions.
Liberals/Progressives trust government over private industry. Conservatives/Libertarians trust private industry over government. Obviously, they can’t both be right, and coming from one mindset or the other makes it almost impossible to find any compromise with the opposing view. If I don’t trust government with my health care and a liberal doesn’t trust private industry with their health care … we literally have no middle ground.
Truth is – both sides are wrong. It is entirely possible to fully trust, 100%, both private industry and government. They are both entirely trustworthy institutions, though not in the sense that they are honest or full of integrity. They are trustworthy in that you can always trust both government and private industry to pursue their own self-interest. It’s a simple exercise in economics, reverting to a basic maximization-of-utility concept.
Realizing this basic assumption leads us then to ask: what is the self interest of government – and what is the self interest of private industry? Liberals – yell it out loud and clear with me: private industry is greedy! All they want is money! Yep – that’s right. Private industry will always pursue a maximization of income and a minimum of necessary expenditure. In other words – they will always seek to maximize their profits. How about government? Government is interested in money, certainly (tax revenue is their income), but they are more interested in the capacity to govern. What is required for the capacity to govern? Power. Government is primarily interested in power.
Now that we know that we can always trust both government and private industry to pursue their own self interests – and that those self interests are power and money respectively, we are lead to understand that we can always trust government to seek after increased power and private industry to seek after increased profit. The new question then is: given the opportunity to choose between giving a government more power and a private corporation more money, which should you prefer?
Let’s first walk through an example of giving government more power. The power of government best fits the following dictionary definition of power: “the possession of control or command over others; authority; ascendancy”. In order to govern a citizen, the government must have control over that citizen. If a citizen is to give the government that power, they must by definition give up a part of their own freedom and/or independence. In some cases, it is universally understood that this relinquishing of freedom is a good thing (one should not, for instance, be free to kill others as they please). In other cases, the relinquishing of freedom is more controversial (do you have a right to pray in school?). If I were on the side of trusting government over private industry – I would prefer to give the government my freedoms than to give a private corporation my money. However – I can only give up a freedom once. If the government takes my freedom of speech, I cannot once again relinquish my freedom of speech to the government next year. Once a freedom is taken – it is taken forever. I therefore need to be very careful about what freedoms I sacrifice and what I receive in return for them. Additionally, I need to be certain that I will maintain the benefit for which I traded my freedom in perpetuity. If I was 18-20, that means I’d need to have a 60+ year projection on what government will do with the power I give it.
What if I give a business my money? I do certainly lose my money to the business – and receive a perceived value in return, much the same as I would in giving up my freedom to a government. Just as with a government, the business may deceive me into trading for a bad product or may provide me with something I truly value. I won’t really know for sure until I make the trade. But money, unlike freedom, can be earned again after being given away. I can go out tomorrow and make more money – I cannot go out tomorrow and make more freedom. Additionally, private industry needs to keep coming back to me for my money because they also spend the money they earn and must constantly replenish their supply. If I subscribe to a cell phone service, I pay my cell phone carrier every month. However, at any time I can choose to stop paying and cancel my service and then the business loses their hold on my money. As such, I can choose to make certain demands on the company and, if I don’t like what I receive, I can go elsewhere. How different that is from giving my freedom up to a government!
In the end – it is up to us to decide whether or not we wish to receive our benefits from the money-hungry or the power-hungry. Myself – I’m rather against giving up my freedoms in return for promises made by men and women who won’t even be alive (much less in office) to see them through for the rest of my time here on earth. I would much rather work on a short-term, constantly accountable, monetary relationship with a business than on a long-term, one-time promise, power transfer with a government.
Rights vs. Products
I posted the following video on my Facebook page, indicating that it should scare every citizen of the United States: Senator Harkin \'creates\' Rights
A friend of mine replied, asking me why health care should not be a right – and I responded with the following … which I now want to share here on my blog:
As far as health care not being a right …
A ‘right’ is something inherent to ourselves, not provided by any other individual or group of individuals. Rights are a part of natural law, or – if you believe in God – God given. We are born with our bodies – and therefore have a right to use our bodies as we see fit, as well as enjoy (or suffer through) the results of those actions — including any property (wages, products, etc) we receive from them. We have the right to develop our personality, to think whatever we want, to say whatever we think, to defend ourselves, to make our own way in the world.
A ‘product’ is something provided by ourselves to others – or by others to ourselves (or, in some cases, by ourselves to ourselves). Food is a product … clothing is a product … transportation is a product … shelter is a product … and health care is a product. Health care is the result of the productivity of another individual – and to try to claim it as a ‘right’ is to steal away the property (and therefore the rights) of another human being. When you produce something – it is your right to sell it or give it away as you see fit, and the right of others to buy it or not buy it (or take it or not take it if you’re giving it away) as they see fit. Any outside force that comes in and attempts to control how a product is distributed is practicing tyranny (infringing on the rights of individuals through force).
The video I posted, however, had less to do with health care and more to do with the fact that Senator Harkin believes that he and other members of Congress can CREATE rights. THAT is what is scary. Rights are not created or destroyed by men — it is a founding principle of our Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (It’s interesting to note that ‘pursuit of Happiness’ was originally ‘property’, but the delegation feared that stating ‘property’ would give slave states rights to keep slaves forever … so it was changed to ‘pursuit of Happiness’, which infers the freedom to create property/product and pursue ones own dreams … note also that it is ‘pursuit of’ … not ‘achievement of’ … happiness is not guaranteed – only the opportunity to pursue it).
… Anyway … I digress. Quoting the Declaration is meant to point out that rights are given by the Creator … and if you don’t believe in a God, then by Natural Law. Rights CANNOT be created by a government and granted by said government to the people. The very act of doing so is an act of deifying ones self over the rest of society. THAT is what is scary.