Voice For Liberty

Tag: Liberty

  • The Law by Frederic Bastiat

    About a year ago I became acquainted with the writings of the economist Walter E. Williams. After reading his foreword to this book, I understand — as Williams says himself — how important Bastiat’s writings are. As Williams says:

    Reading Bastiat made me keenly aware of all the time wasted, along with the frustrations of going down one blind alley after another, organizing my philosophy of life. The Law did not produce a philosophical conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct.

    And then this:

    …Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them. Clarity is crucial to persuading our fellowman of the moral superiority of personal liberty.

    I am tempted to repeat in full Dr. Williams’s foreword, but you would do well to read it yourself.

    The Law is a book about liberty and justice. One of the most important things I learned from reading this book is that the proper function of the law is not to create justice, but to prevent injustice. This makes the laws we should have quite simple. Instead of deciding how much to take from us in the form of taxes (plunder) and how to distribute it, laws should protect us from plunder.

    This book may be found in its entirety at several places online. One, which includes Walter Williams’s excellent foreword, is at http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss0a.html.

    I wish to thank my friend John Todd, who sent this book to me.

  • Let free markets, not laws, regulate smoking

    Today, in the town of Hutchinson, Kansas, an indoor smoking ban takes effect. I hope Wichita does not pass the same law. I believe the evidence that shows smoking is tremendously harmful to the health of the smoker, and also dangerous to those around the smoker. Personally, I don’t care to be around smokers and I take measures to avoid places where I will be exposed to cigarette smoke. So shouldn’t I favor a smoking ban in Wichita?

    We should let free markets instead of the government decide whether there will be smoking in places like restaurants and bars. In this way, people will be able to smoke or avoid smoke as they see fit. If restaurant owners sense non-smokers don’t like eating in smoky restaurants, they can either eliminate smoking (at the risk of losing smoking customers), or they can build effective separation between smoking and non-smoking sections of the restaurant. Or, if they choose to cater to smokers, they can create all-smoking section establishments. The choice is theirs.

    People, through their free selection of where they choose to spend their dollars, will let bar and restaurant owners know their preferences. After some time we will have the optimal mix of smoking and non-smoking establishments based on what people actually do, not what politicians think they should do. Isn’t that a better way?

  • Vioxx and personal liberty

    A recent column by Thomas Sowell titled Free lunch ‘safety’: Part II (a link to part one is here) started with this paragraph:

    “The government will allow you to risk your life for the sake of recreation by sky-diving, mountain climbing or any number of other dangerous activities. But it will not allow you to risk your life for the sake of avoiding arthritis pain by taking Vioxx.”

    I was quite astonished to see the issue of Vioxx framed this way, but it is perfectly valid to do so.

    It appears that taking large doses of Vioxx increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by a factor of two. In other words, people taking large doses are twice as likely to be afflicted as those who were on placebo.

    That may seem like a large increase in risk. Consider, however, the risk of some other common activities. The death rate for motorcyclists in 2001 was 33.4 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. Passenger car riders have a death rate of 1.3 per 100 million miles traveled, a rate just 4% of that for motorcyclists. Yet riding a motorcycle is perfectly legal. The success of Harley-Davidson in manufacturing and selling them is saluted.

    Now compare the value of the pleasure of riding a motorcycle with relief from the pain of arthritis. And it’s not just a little ache in the knee once in a while. Many arthritis sufferers are in constant misery, and Vioxx helped some. An informed decision by the patient and doctor to accept an increase in the risk of a cardiovascular event in exchange for relief from miserable pain should be allowed. (That is, unless patients start to feel so well that they take up motorcycling.) But the hysterical media coverage of events like this, along with swarms of attorneys advertising for plaintiffs, eliminates this choice for patients and their doctors.

    Dr. Sowell’s article makes the point that drug companies like the makers of Vioxx are “denounced for ‘corporate greed’ by making money at the risk of other people’s lives.” But what about the motorcycle manufacturers and companies that promote dangerous recreational activity? Are they similarly denounced?

  • On Seatbelts and Helmets

    I believe there is little doubt that it is foolhardy to be in an automobile without wearing seatbelts, or to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. Someone inevitably claims that it is better to be thrown clear of the wreckage than to be trapped inside. But ask any race car driver — they who witness crashes all the time and may have even been in several — if they would dare take to the track without making use of their extensive belting systems.

    I believe it would be nice if we had the right to drive automobiles without wearing seatbelts, and to ride motorcycles without wearing helmets. These acts, while dangerous to the actor, don’t pose any real threat to others. If the person who crashes into my car isn’t wearing their seatbelt, it doesn’t change my likelihood of injury to my body. It does, however, greatly increase the danger to my wallet, and that’s where I draw the line.

    The economist Walter E. Williams, in a column titled Click it or ticket makes this conclusion:

    “Some might argue, but falsely so, that the problem with people exercising their liberty to drive without seatbelts, ride motorcycles without helmets or eat in unhealthy ways is that if they become injured or sick, society will be burdened with higher health-care costs. That’s not a problem of liberty but one of socialism.

    There’s no liberty-based argument for forcing one person to care for the needs of another. Under socialism, one is obliged to care for another. A parent-child relationship emerges between the citizen and the government. That was not the vision of our Founders.”

    He is correct that those who are injured often receive care that they don’t pay for themselves, either out-of-pocket or through their insurance carriers. Therefore, the rest of society pays. That reduces the liberty of others because they have to pay so that a few can enjoy their rights. Dr. Williams makes the call in favor of the rights of the seatbeltless, while I argue in favor of those who pay. Not wearing seatbelts or wearing a helmet is a small gratification. Having to pay the healthcare costs — and they are huge — to support those small liberties is oppressive. Until we can limit the economic damage of not wearing seatbelts or wearing helmets to those who cause it, I support laws requiring their use.