[ExI] Yet another health care debate

[Lee Corbin]

Damien S. wrote
> [Lee wrote]
>> Damien S. writes
>> 
>>> Another take:
>>> communism doesn't work because it assumes away the high-frequency bits
>>> of human nature where we're greedy and looking out for ourselves,
>>> friends, or family, and out to get stuff without working for it.
>> 
>> That's one reason. But having read Hayek, you will recall that he
>> was keen to advance the notion that central planning cannot take
>> into account the myriads of small decisions that must be made.
>> The commissars simply *cannot* know what price to set for shoes
>> or exactly what kind to make. The feedback provided by the free
>> market alone can do it (so far in history).

and now you say 

> Why are you talking about commissars and central planning of shoes?"

Because you brought it up!  Reread the above, please. You mentioned
communism, and I explained why I thought it didn't work, different from
why you thought it didn't work. Or is this somehow a difficult case of
miscommunication too? If you did err, please say so. I did. I do. If I'm
wrong, I'll say so.

>>> libertarianism doesn't work, or rather doesn't last, because it assumes
>>> away the high-frequency bits of human nature where we like taking care
>>> of each other *and* don't like being the only ones to take care of
>>> people.

>> Libertarianism on this narrow aspect did work for quite a number
>> of years: when government was small (and still shrinking) in 1855
> 
> Shrinking?  What was to shrink?

The government, not Libertarianism. We would have to be as twisted
as John or Damien to interpret that as Libertarianism shrinking  :-)

The government had steadily decreased in size from 1787 to 1855,
when suddenly it began to grow again. There was still plenty to it,
though, regulating commerce and all the rest of it that is in the original
constitution.

>> people in America understood that they needed to lookout for
>> themselves and for their friends, families, and neighbors. There was
>> no overweening state to take away this actually vital part of community
>> living.
> 
> This works better if you have a stable community: most people living in
> small rural communities and mobility being low -- hey, 1855 America.
> Not so good with big cities and/or high labor mobility.  Also not good
> if you don't fit in with the small community, on account of being gay or
> atheist or the wrong race or something.

I disagree! If you are gay, hang out with gays (as if they needed to be
told). If you are the wrong race, well either you're a complete sport
or there are thousands like you. The Armenians numbered only 100,000
many years ago, but they all knew each other. Today, the Romanians
have get-togethers. 

Look at the total evil the government perpetrated when it began
paying single mothers child support in the 1960s! It destroyed 
the black family. From reconstruction to 1960, the single-parent
black family had remained at a constant rate until mushrooming
suddenly. What happened was that the Federal government 
replaced the man of the household with a guaranteed check.
The whole idea has always been that men have to be nice to
get women, genuinely altruistic (or so the women calculate),
so that they'll stick around after the kids are born. Hopefully
every liberal on this list can see the terrible damage done.

Today, the government is using the same technique to destroy
community. The vital (and as Herrnstein and Murray argued,
very healthy) role that people had in helping each other out
is being usurped. So living in complete isolation is made more
and more possible by the anonymous bureaucratic government
that has as its only true incentive one thing: growth.

>> No, most poor people figure that the government should make
>> the rich pay for it. The rich figure that the corporations should
>> pay. The costs skyrocket when it's OPM.
> 
> What?

Other People's Money.

>> They wouldn't generally die on the streets. This is *not* what
>> laissez-faire leads to. Again, it leads to allowing the people close
>> (in one way or another) to those in need (and who therefore
>> have the most knowledge) to take charge.
> 
> This can sort of work with food and shelter.  Having it work for
> expensive medical care... point to some examples?

During the depression, many people gave hobos handouts. Today
people *still* drop money in beggars cups, even though they
know that Big Daddy government may already be paying those
people, and that "programs" abound. I myself would have to be
much more generous to some poor souls I know, if it were not
for the government, though I'd have a lot more money to be
generous with. They would be my responsibility much more
than they are now, and indeed they'd need to show that they
weren't just wasting my money, whereas the government 
bureaucrats cannot make such fine-honed distinctions.

>> people would have a hard time of it. Really---nothing works
>> like freedom, and it is unfortunate that most Americans no
>> longer realize that. 
> 
> But lots of those social programs themselves enhance freedom.  The
> freedom to move around securely, the freedom to choose not to have
> children, the freedom to start a small business without being crippled by
> medical costs.

Those social programs only *appear* to be making it more secure
to move around, as you argue, but they really do the opposite.
Before they existed, one could walk the streets safely almost
everywhere. But entitlements and the feelings of anonymity have
really contributed to changing that.

The "freedom to choose not to have children"? How was that
ever denied to anybody? Oh, you mean abortion. I would agree
that people should *choose*, that groups above them should
not overrule their decisions (though they have the legal right
to do so), and the groups above those groups should not 
override the decisions of the smaller groups, and so on.

The freedom to start a business without paying for the costs?
"If *you* start the business, don't reach into *my* pocket to
do so", is what the (most) libertarians say. Look, the knowledge
of what things cost is *local*, and cannot be accurately determined
by strangers in a big room hundreds of miles away. If a businessman
wants to offer his employees health insurance, then there is probably
a good reason known only to him. These "one size fits all" decrees
from the government destroy wealth.

Lee