Life, Liberty, and Property Are Inseparable

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[1]

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.

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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[1] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN (1980) Pg. 111

Politicians Talking Gibberish About Health Care

Every minute of every day, Americans are subjected to politicians and media pundits talking gibberish. There really is no other word for it, whether the particular subject is economics, foreign policy, or even climatology. However, the gibberish that is getting the most attention right now concerns health care “reform.” President Obama is leading the Democrats with the familiar socialist model that has failed in every industrialized nation in which it has been tried. The Republicans are answering with gibberish of their own. You have to especially admire the Republicans, because they are not only fomenting nonsense from a discredited, minority position, but are actually trying to suck up to voters by selling their version of government-run, loot-funded health care as a “free market solution.” Only the party of George W. Bush could be capable of gibberish like this.

To truly appreciate how bizarre the arguments are, let’s break down what our ruling class is really saying. Sometimes the music bed, the interruptions by the self-absorbed interviewer, or even the graphics leading into next segment can obscure the gibberishness of some of their assertions.

Let us start by examining the position of the Democrats. They assert that every human being has a right to health care, and that it is the government’s job to provide for those who cannot afford it. There are three key terms here: right, health care, and provide. Let’s define the first two.

Right: that which an individual is entitled to without the consent of or compensation to anyone else. For example, people have a right to life. That is, they do not need anyone’s permission, nor are they obligated to compensate anyone in order to live. It is appropriate for an individual to demand, rather than ask for, their right to life to be respected.

Health care: a service which primarily consists of the labor of health care providers. For example, a physician exerts his mind and body, utilizing his education and experience, to attempt to diagnose and treat a patient’s illness or injury. That physician’s labor is “health care.”

Let us now restate the argument made by the Democrats, using these definitions in place of the terms themselves.

“Every individual is entitled to the labor of health care providers without compensating them or obtaining their consent. It is appropriate for individuals to demand, rather than ask, that health care providers treat them for free.”

Gibberish.

To be fair, although the Democrats repeat their slogan about the “right to healthcare” ad infinitum, they do not actually propose that the government defend this “right” directly. Instead, they use their own peculiar definition of the third term previously cited, “provide.” Americans continue to be bewildered by this parlor trick, whether because they are easily confused or because it is more convenient to be fooled than not. In any case, “provide” to the government means that they will employ the method described by William Graham Sumner where A & B get together to pass a law requiring C to do something for X. So as not to miss the opportunity to describe this plainly, this really means that they are going to use the brute force of government to force some people to pay for health care for others. That is all it is, when you peel away the doubletalk, jingoism, and spin.

Moreover, it is not just your property that the government will take in order to run its program. It will also require another huge portion of your liberty as well. In a recent speech about his health care reform plans, President Obama suggested that “we” must begin encouraging healthier lifestyles, including getting our children away from computer games and back to playing outside. “We” means “the government.” Of course, when it is the government’s responsibility to pay for the health care of other people, the government now claims a right on behalf of taxpayers to see that those people keep themselves as healthy as they can in order to limit the cost. There are already government-imposed exercise programs in Japan. Americans should be aware that the same rules will apply here. One can almost hear the government “instructress” from Orwell’s 1984 screaming from the telescreen.

“Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade.”[1]

Political gibberish often conceals rather horrifying ideas. Thankfully, we have an opposition party that is opposing these heinous proposals, correct? As the people from Hertz say, “Not exactly.”

It is true that Republicans oppose a government-run health care plan. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the Republican summary of their “Patient’s Choice Act” argues that “ The government would run a health plan "with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office, and the incompetence of Katrina.”[2] All true, but of course the so-called party of individual liberty and free markets fails to argue the main point: the government – we the people – do not have the right to forcibly take money from one person and give it to another, not even for the purposes of paying for their health care. Nowhere in any report made public nor in any interview with a spokesperson for this “opposition party” will you hear this argument. There is a good reason for that.

Of course, the Republicans will argue that their plan works through the tax system and actually let’s families “keep more of their own money” to spend on health care, but a careful read of the WSJ article reveals that the same redistribution scheme is hidden within the stale “free market” rhetoric. First, the Republican plan would eliminate the tax exemption for employers when they provide health insurance benefits to their employees. This amounts to a tax increase on employers, whether they continue to provide the benefits or whether they eliminate them and merely pay taxes on the extra net income. What would the government do with this new revenue?

“Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans.” [emphasis added]

So, in an effort to appear to be protecting the property rights of their more affluent base but at the same time buy the votes of those who cannot afford health care, the Republicans will simply tax those whom they think they can get away with taxing and call their own version of wealth redistribution a “tax cut,” much like George Bush’s “tax refunds” of the past decade. Of course, there is only one word for the suggestion that you can “cut” or “refund” taxes for people who are not paying taxes.

Gibberish.

As usual, the American public is served up a carefully framed debate that attempts to appear to have two sides but doesn’t. In either case, we are getting “reform” of the health care system in the only way that any government can “provide” anything. They are going to forcibly take away the property (taxes) of one group of people and use it to provide property (health care) to another group. Lest anyone mistakes this brutal practice as “the wrong means to a compassionate end,” let us remember the only reason that politicians from either party suggest this: to buy the votes of those who believe that they will benefit from it. Since there are more who would receive benefits in the voting base of the Democratic Party, they are more open about what they are really doing. Since there are more of those who will be forced to pay in the base of the Republican Party, they try to spin their redistribution scheme as a “free market solution.” However, it is dressed up, it amounts to one thing; stealing.

In addition to ignoring the fundamental violation of rights that is part and parcel of any government provided service, both the Republicans and Democrats seem completely unaware of the root cause of the problem: health care is only so expensive because government already provides so much of it. This is the other elephant sitting in the corner whenever politicians from either party start talking about health care reform.

Last year, total health care spending in the United States amounted to roughly $2.4 trillion dollars. Medicare and Medicaid alone accounted for over $800 billion, or 33% of that. Add the Veteran’s Administration and other smaller government health care programs, and government is directly providing almost half of all health care delivered in this country. What does this have to do with the price? Any first-year economics student can tell you.

Price is determined by the intersection of supply and demand. Demand has two components: the desire to buy a good or service and the ability to buy that good or service. Let us assume that the desire for health care services is unlimited, as it is for many other goods or services. In that case, the only factor that can limit demand for health care services is ability to pay. This is the factor that most influences the price of every other good or service provided in the marketplace, including food, clothing, and shelter, which are even more vital to human life than health care. It is the finite amount of money that the buyers have to spend which keeps the price down and makes most goods affordable to those on limited budgets.

However, when government makes something an entitlement, demand suddenly becomes unlimited. Since the government now must provide the benefit and they have the option of taxing or printing what money they need to provide it, there is no longer anything holding down the price. This is the reason that we have seen health care prices skyrocket in recent decades. They will continue to rise until all resources are consumed trying to provide them.

State and local governments have already been experiencing this for years because of the exploding cost of their shares of the Medicaid programs (half of Medicaid benefits are paid by the states, some of which require their local governments to pay a percentage as well). They cannot print their own money, so they have instead cut their police forces and other legitimate functions of government in order to divert money to the insatiable Medicaid beast. In one local county in upstate New York, 100% of the property taxes collected in that county and $40 million dollars of sales tax revenue – the county’s only other revenue source – went to pay that county’s share of the Medicaid bill for their recipients. Now, it has been reported that the majority of the TARP funds that were supposed to go to “shovel-ready infrastructure projects” are instead being earmarked for “existing state social programs.” An audit of these payments would undoubtedly reveal that the bulk will go to Medicaid.

Economic laws are like the forces of nature. They can be held off, as a levy holds off a flood, but they will eventually overwhelm any attempt to violate them. The most fundamental economic law is this: you cannot consume more than you produce without taking the difference from someone else. Government produces nothing. Therefore, any health care benefit that government provides must be funded with money taken by force from someone else. There is no political theory, mathematical equation, or black magic incantation that can change this.

However, even if we are able to put aside the moral repugnancy of this practice, we cannot do so forever. Once voluntary exchange is abolished, market forces are suspended and the price of providing health care will rise until the government is no longer able even to steal enough to pay for it. That day was only a few decades away for the existing government health care programs before the economic crisis we find ourselves in now (which was similarly caused by government for all of the same reasons). If government attempts to provide everyone with health care, the end will come much sooner.

This sheds light on a fundamental misconception that underlies all of the societal problems that American society faces today: the belief that there is a conflict between individual rights and the “needs of society.” This conflict doesn’t exist. Protecting the rights of every individual serves the needs of society. Violating those rights, for whatever purpose, destroys society. In fact, it is by violating the individual rights of its constituents that government causes nearly every societal problem we face. The high price of health care is just one example.

There is only one moral and practical answer to the high cost of health care: we must get government out of the health care business entirely. That includes rejecting new programs proposed by either major party and figuring out a humane way to get our children out of the existing entitlement system without cutting off those presently dependent upon the benefits. The only lucid argument I’ve heard so far has been put forth by former presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul. He suggests that we dismantle our $1 trillion per year overseas military empire and use that money to pay Medicare and Social Security benefits while our children are allowed to enter the workforce without enrolling in the system themselves.

What do you know? A politician moved his lips and something besides gibberish came out.

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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[1] Orwell, George 1984 Part I Ch. 3
[2] Adamy, Janet “Republicans Offer Health-Care Plan” The Wall Street Journal May 21, 2009

How Do We Defeat Racism and Discrimination Once and For All?

....Why, Capitalism, Of Course!

We haven’t heard a lot lately about discrimination in the job market. Perhaps the economic crisis has pushed it into the background. “Progressives” may be too busy promoting their economic gibberish (Keynesianism) to fall back on this tried and true “divide and conquer” issue. However, as surely as night follows day, there will come a time when our friends in Congress will again need a different reason to try to tell people how to conduct their business, and nothing garners more support than railing against discrimination. When that shoe finally drops, I have a suggestion. Let’s not go back down the road of affirmative action, quotas, or any other idiotic idea that our retro-liberal Congress is likely to resurrect. There is only one remedy for discrimination in the workplace: free market capitalism.

I can speak from personal experience that this is true. I have interviewed thousands of people for jobs over the course of my life. The candidates were black, white, Hispanic, male, female, young, and old. How did I decide who to hire? I chose the same way every time. I picked the candidate that I believed would make me the most money. When I chose a black candidate or a woman, I did not do so because I wanted to promote diversity or equality. I did not do it out of altruism or for women’s rights. When I made those decisions, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind – profit.

Sometimes, I chose a white male over a black female and didn’t give it a moment’s thought. Sometimes, exactly the opposite was true. Nonetheless, in each case I chose based purely on my own self-interest (or that of my employers). I did not hire people to help them and they did not come to work for me to further some missionary cause (or even because of my sparkling personality, believe it or not). They came to work for me because the opportunity I offered them would benefit them personally more than any other available to them at the time.

The people that have worked for me in the past and who work for me now are my equals. They have skills and services to sell and I am their customer. We deal with one another in the same way that people deal with one another when buying or selling a house. I am looking to get the highest quality work that I can for the best price. They demand the highest price that they can get for their services. They choose to sell those services to me because I am willing to meet their price. If they call me “Mr.” or “Sir,” it is not out of subservience any more than the owner of an exclusive restaurant is subservient when he calls you “Sir” or “Madam” while you are paying him $150 per plate. When someone buys your product, you show gratitude for the high compliment they have paid you. They have chosen what you have to offer over all other alternatives.

Were I to make hiring decisions based upon anything other than the profit motive –based upon racial discrimination for example - the market would punish me. It would reward my competitor with a more talented employee and an advantage in the market. If I were to do this habitually, my competitors would soon have more talented employees throughout their organizations and I would be forced out of business. Anyone who has run a business knows that one cannot afford to discriminate based upon anything but profit. The market forces me to ignore race, creed, or sex for my economic survival. Only politicians remind me that I should consider demographics.

The plain fact that no politician in history has ever understood is that the market requires no altruism for everyone to benefit. Competition for employees creates higher wages and better benefits. If competition for jobs drives wages down, then the cost of production drops with wages and real wages rise despite the nominal decrease. There is no need to “balance” profit and social justice. The profit motive creates social justice. People exchanging their goods or services with one another by mutual, voluntary consent is social justice. It is only coercion that is unjust.

When people are left to themselves to deal with one another by mutual, voluntary consent, the profit motive will trump racism and discrimination every time. Show me a firm that passes on superior talent because of race or sex and I will show you a firm that is not going to be around for very long. Show me an entire industry that has put the best talent on the sidelines due to race, sex, or age, and I will be open for business in that industry the very next day. Within six months, I will be that industry’s next billionaire. The company with the most talented employees wins - every time.

This relationship between employer and employee – between buyer and seller of services – is one based upon all parties acting in their own self interest. My employees do not need my help or my altruism – they need my business, just as I need the business of my customers. They strive to perform at the absolute highest level that they can so that they can demand even more money from me for those services. I happily pay it when their improved performance increases my sales or my profits. I offer less when I can get the same performance at a lower price.

The beneficiaries of all of this are our customers. I am constantly trying to lower my costs and raise the quality of my products. I do this to gain market share and increase profits. My employees continually improve their service to our customers so that they can make more money for themselves. Higher performance from my employees is what raises the quality of my products.

Neither I nor my employees bother to stop and take note of the color of anyone’s skin or whether they are a man or a woman. We cannot afford to and, quite frankly, we just don’t have the time. This is the way the real world works. Just ask anyone who has to make a living in it. Only politicians and the people they are able to confuse see it any differently.

So, the next time your politicians bring up discrimination in the workplace, try to explain all of this to them. Tell them to put away their pamphlets and spend some time with you - working for a living. Six months spent actually earning a living rather than living off taxes collected at gunpoint would make capitalists of them all. You may say I’m a dreamer, but just imagine the freedom and prosperity that would result.

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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