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The Freedom Files

"Laissez-faire, laissez-passer, le monde va de lui-meme."

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Hello Freedomphiles! A story caught my attention last Tuesday that was printed in The Nando Times, entitled Is a fat tax the answer to obesity epidemic? It concerns a government report that says 61 percent of us are too fat. It doesn't ask the question "Why do they know this and how much did it cost us?" but it does go on to state that "former Surgeon General David Satcher says obesity translates into 300,000 premature deaths each year, and $117 billion in fat-related health bills from eating-related diseases like adult-onset diabetes, and cholesterol-clogged arteries."

Sound familiar? It should. This is the same rhetoric that led to the cigarette taxes and huge tobacco settlements. In fact, the article quoted John Banzhaf, who "developed the legal theories that led to the tobacco settlement," saying, "the concept of a lawsuit against the food industry on fatty food issues can't be ruled out."

The article further says that Margo Wooten, a researcher for The Center for Science in the Public Interest, told them "there are already taxes on soft0-drink sales in more than a dozen states, and a tax on junk food could force a wholesome change in eating habits, especially among youths."

It could, but it won't. That is the same argument used in taxing cigarettes to death, but while cigarette taxes in England are way higher than here, the teen smoking rate is roughly the same.

That, while true, isn't the real issue. It is also true that as free Americans, we have a right to eat whatever we want, when we want, but really, we are long past that. In a country where we are told what chemicals we can and cannot put into our own bodies and under whose authority; where we are told what types of medical treatment we can and cannot seek; where we are told we must wear seatbelts, helmets, and pads; where we are told how fast to drive and in what we can do that; where we are told how we must provide for our own retirement; where we are coerced into buying the "right" products; coerced into stopping unhealthy behaviors; coerced into starting our businesses in the "right" areas, all with our collective hearty thumbs-up, haven't we lost the moral certainty to bitch about it by now?

Before we start a national debate on second-hand cholesterol, we need to look in the mirror and see how we got here. It was really inevitable. As we talked about the evils of Communism, Fascism, Nazism--spoke with spiteful bile of Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Mussolini, Chairman Mao--we were embracing and creating, in the finest Fabian tradition, our own little patchwork Socialist Republic, all the while ignoring the fact that those men didn't create socialism--it created them.

All Socialist roads lead to one place: Totalitarianism. This is not because it opens the door to an evil ruler or rulers. It's not because we aren't enlightened (we've all but forgotten the Age of Enlightenment). It's not because Socialism is a wonderful ideal, ruined by the imperfection of humanity--in fact, it's ruined by man's virtue. It is because the natural impetus of Socialism is toward totalitarianism. There's no way around it. As Ayn Rand said, "The basic issue is only: Is man free? In mankind's history, capitalism is the only system that answers: Yes."

But the more we move in that direction, the more we are in danger of falling into the trap Alexis de Tocqueville saw ahead of us nearly two hundred years ago: "It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity."

And this is the exact road we are on. This road paved with golden promises looks beautiful, but it leads to the same miserable end. This is why:

The biggest problem with Socialism is that--besides the fact that you have to be omniscient to know everything that is happening and everything everybody needs, wants, and has at any given moment--you would have to be omnipotent as well, able not only to direct people against their will to do what needs to be done, but to get them to do it happily.

Say you have only three people in your Socialist Utopia other than yourself, their kind ruler. You have $60 to distribute and, being an egalitarian ruler, you give them each $20 to live on. In return, you have the first man build and keep up the homes, the second makes the clothes and linens, and the third grows and prepares all the food. To each according to his need, from each according to his ability. All they have to do is distribute their $20 back and forth according to what they need, and the objective value of what they buy will keep them consistently at that $20 level. At some point, the carpenter may have $10, but he will also have $10 worth of apples from the farmer, and so on.

But there is one small problem. You've supplied them with their basic needs, but as they say, man does not live by bread alone. As your society starts humming along, the men find they have more free time and start to get a little bored. One day, the farmer is delivering some apples to the tailor, who he hears singing a song as he sews the hem of some pants.

The farmer tells the tailor he has a beautiful voice, and couldn't he come over and sing him a song? No, the tailor is shy, and he really doesn't think he is any good anyway. I'll tell you what, says the farmer. I think I can get by on $15, and I'll bet the carpenter could spare $5 too. If we give you $10, would you sing for us tomorrow?

The tailor realizes the extra stuff he could get with that extra money, without having to make any more clothes, and he says sure.

Thus, capitalism is born. Well, you can't have this. Twenty dollars is just enough to keep them all level and subsistent. Of course, you think, it is their money to do with as they please. But now the tailor has twice as much money as either the farmer or the carpenter, and not because he's worked any harder. He's twice as rich just because he has some arbitrary skill that he was just born with. This isn't fair at all.

What are you going to do? Well, you could take the extra ten dollars back and redistribute it to the farmer and the carpenter. No, then the tailor would have no reason to sing, and the farmer and carpenter would be unhappy. You could prohibit the farmer and carpenter from spending their money, but that puts you in the same boat--except now two people feel oppressed. Another choice is telling the tailor he's not allowed to sing. Now you've got three oppressed people. There's no way out of this mess without taking away someone's freedom.

Your utopia has been brought down by a song.

Now expand this experiment out to controlling 250 million people--250 million voices that do not want to be silenced. How many of them want to paint? To act? Sculpt? Write? Counsel? Minister? Or a million other things that enrich the soul but not the body? The most you could successfully do is force people to do jobs for the mere subsistence of the country, and hopefully your guess as to who'd be good at what is mostly correct. You couldn't even possibly make everyone happy, but you might be able to manage making everyone equally miserable.

You see, money only has as much value as you give it. Ten dollars to a starving person is worth a lot more than ten dollars to Bill Gates. You could work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but at some point, that day off is worth more to you than the extra money. Some people want gadgets. Some simply like a good sunset. The extra day of work might be worth it to the technophile because the extra money means extra gadgets, so the extra money has more value than the time and energy lost and day of rest lost. The extra day of work to nature-lover means one less sunset, making the value of the extra day's work zero, or even negative.

And just as the value of the extra five bucks to the carpenter and farmer is less than the value of hearing a song, the value of the extra ten bucks to the tailor is greater than the value of the stage fright. So the ten bucks means more to the tailor and the song means more to the buyer, so they all have a net gain in value, even though the other two lost ten dollars. This is the nature of every free-market transaction. To think of the situation in merely dollar terms is to ignore the value judgments of the three--or the 250 million--and make them all miserable.

So, you decide, you'll let them do what they want to do; live how they want to live; be free to earn money in ways and amounts that they desire, trading it for things that are worth more to them. But there are still some things that you could take care of for them. There are still certain needs people have that you could fulfill for them, so they'd be free and happy in their own way, without having to worry.

For instance, you could take care of a vital service, like healthcare. Surely, the value of healthcare is the same for everyone. After all, no matter what happens, they say, at least you have your health. Don't be so sure. My wife can't get me to take medicine, even when I'm sick. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I have a pretty good immune system and never stay sick for very long anyway. So the sick time I save for myself is very small, and that time doesn't have enough value to me for me to take the medicine.

You could assure yourself an almost sickness-free existence if only you would spend your life in a plastic bubble. But what kind of life would that be? There are no absolutes when it comes to value judgments. People have unprotected sex all the time because the pleasure of that moment is worth more to them than the vague, distant threat of AIDS.

That is why people give speeches, do public service announcements, wear red ribbons, write books--to bring the threat of AIDS to the front of people's minds, more clear and present, and thus raise it's value when the time comes to make that choice. In fact, that is why I write The Freedom Files, to persuade you that the value of doing something to protect your liberties is greater than the value of at least the least important thing you do with your spare time.

So what then happens to the value of healthcare when you provide it for free? In monetary terms, there is no choice. You give up nothing to see a doctor except some time. And what do you suppose that does to the demand for healthcare?

It goes through the roof of course. If you get a cold, and a trip to the doctor costs $40, you have a choice to make. What do you do without? An evening at the movies? A new Walkman? Gruesome Death 12 for the Playstation 2? Are the value of any of those things less to you than your doctor visit? If not, you don't go. After all, you will get better on your own.

But if the price is zero, of course you would go.

And so would everyone else.

So what then do you suppose happens to the supply of healthcare? It plummets. When pondering the fate of your 250 million subjects, you can look to the experiments of socialized medicine around the world to see what happens when demand expands exponentially like that.

For instance, you read Doctor Jane Orient's book Your Doctor is Not In and learned that socialized medicine always leads to shortages and long waiting lists for even the most urgent medical care, as in Canada, where "the average number of weeks waiting for hand surgery was 12.4; for hysterectomy, 16.3; for colonoscopy (a diagnostic procedure that might find a cancer), 6.2; for hernia repair, 24.6; for cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal), 31.7; coronary artery bypass, 23.7; other open heart surgery, 21.4; prostatectomy (which relieves difficulty in urination and often finds treatable cancer), 30.9; cytoscopy (often done to diagnose cancer), 23.6."

Well, you know that this is no good. You want your people to be happy, and they definitely won't be happy dead, so you better think of something else. Well, there is the possibility that you could means-test it, that is only provide free healthcare to those who really need the assistance.

So you pick a wage, and everyone under that gets free healthcare. You soon learn that you've unintentionally created a plateau, above which few people strive to climb. It's common sense--and the smart, reasoned thing to do. If you are right at the cusp of that cut-off point, and you use $2000 of healthcare a year, you'd have to get at least a $2000 raise to make it worth it. And how much over that $2000 would you have to make to make the extra work and responsibility worth the effort? When a $2500 raise really only equals $500, what is the value of that $500?

And what if you make $1000 over the cut-off? You've suddenly lost $1000. You make $1000 less than the guy on assistance. Is it worth it to hang onto that job or work those extra hours? The value of that extra $1000 is negative because it forces you to lose $1000, as is the value of the work you do to earn it. It would be very reasonable and correct if you somehow slipped below that line and got a $1000 raise for less work. It would be the smart thing to do.

So people, doing what you would do, find ways to become eligible for your program, and now their are way more people taking advantage of the free healthcare than you had anticipated. But that's okay, you're still doing the right thing, and while it's going to cost you a lot more money than you'd originally thought, you'll find some way to make it work.

Oh, but there's another unintended consequence of your program. In the same way a person will have unprotected sex when the threat of AIDS is distant, people tend to behave in unhealthy ways because the consequences are far in the future. Add to that the fact that they know they don't have to worry about old-age medical expenses, and people seem to be getting more unhealthy all the time. This experiment is costing you more money every day. How are you going to keep this up?

Somehow, you have to get people to lead healthier lives. Well, smoking is dangerous, obviously. You could ban smoking, but that won't work. Remember alcohol prohibition? People don't like to be forced to not do things that only harm themselves, and your goal is to keep your people happy. You have to find some way to discourage them from smoking.

So you tell the people who make cigarettes to put labels on them, warning your subjects of the dangers of smoking. For their part, people promise to quit...someday.

You could concentrate on unhealthy food. You make sure that the food industry puts all the nutritional information about their product on the label, and for their part, the people promise to go on a diet...tomorrow.

People are getting cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and despite all your warnings, no one is changing their behavior. You are starting to realize that no matter what, people are going to do what they want to do, and sometimes those things are really stupid decisions that threaten their lives. But you can't make those choices for them.

But maybe if you make it more expensive, people will quit smoking. After all, if the value of a nicotine fix is less than the price of the cigarettes, they'll stop, or at least slow down. So you impose a tax on cigarettes, but for some reason, people are still smoking. The value of that fix is way higher than you thought. What's worse, now your people are poorer from the tax, which is the exact opposite of your original intent.

This isn't working at all, and you're handing out more and more money every day. You can't hurt these people even more. In a way, they are victims of their own short-sightedness, victims of the blinders of their current health, victims of the...cigarette industry. You could go after the cigarette manufacturers, sue them for the money you've spent taking care of people who got sick because they chose to use their product.

So you do. The cigarette industry says, hey, they chose to smoke, and you chose to pay their medical bills, so why is this our fault? This logical--if insensitive--argument falls on deaf ears, and you manage to get an ungodly sum out of them. So what to they do? With unmitigated gall, they actually try and save their businesses and recoup their losses by raising their prices. Once again, you've somehow managed to make the people you were trying to help poorer.

You'e at the end of your rope. You consider just ending the whole program that you now realize you never should have tried in the first place, but by now, you've convinced people that this program isn't just something nice you're doing for them, but their right-- they think they are entitled to it. They would feel abandoned if you end it, and they might even revolt! So what's a benevolent despot to do?

Well, there's always the junk food industry...

Here in America, it's not even that easy. With out intuitive love of freedom and our learned love of money for nothing, we have two opposing forces in a game of tug of war. Trying to cram socialistic practices into a capitalistic framework and a free people, we've now got something that's not quite capitalism, not quite socialism, but definitely quite impotent.

This socialistic side is wreaking inconceivable havoc on our prosperity and our freedom. No one seems to stand up for capitalism because it is the only right and moral thing to do, but only apologize for it's harshness and explain that it is "the best way so far to promote the public interest." But you know what? Capitalism is the only system compatible with a free society. Once again, as Ayn Rand said, "Do not however, make the error of reversing cause and effect: the good of the country was made possible precisely by the fact that it was not forced on anyone as a moral goal or duty; it was merely an effect; the cause was man's right to pursue his own good. It is this right--not its consequences--that represents the moral justification of capitalism."

In the long run, you have to choose--freedom or totalitarianism--because you can't last hovering in the middle for too long. As we fight this ultimate tug-of-war, we have to realize, one way or the other, as the Beastie Boys say, "something's got to give."

And which side are you on?

Until next time, make every day a good one,

Rick

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