A Passion for Liberty
Tibor R. Machan @ Rational Review
Posts tagged egalitarianism
Column on them Philosophical Differences
Feb 25th
How about them Philosophical Differences?
Tibor R. Machan
President Obama and others at the summit Thursday (2/25/10) kept talking about philosophical difference between his team and the Republicans but what did they have in mind?
By “philosophical” most mean “basic,” or “fundamental.” Possibly “systemic” could also be meant. Bottom line is that believing in an extensive role of the federal government in determining the health care requirements of American citizens differs from believing in an extensive role by individuals and their providers doing so. The president is right, however, to point out that it is now too late for any Republican to beef about heavy federal involvement in medical care and insurance, given that the Food and Drug Administration has been around for many decades and Medicare is also a near fixture on the American scene, not to mention the vast amount of government regulations, federal, state, municipal, we have in our mixed economy. So any Republican who complains about extensive federal involvement is way too late–we already have it in place, now it is just about how much more of such involvement should be accepted.
There is another philosophical issue that’s hovering around the debates and that is about whether everyone in American must have nearly equal coverage and care. Republicans keep trying to resist this objective for a variety of reasons, including the enormous expense it is projected to involve; the huge differences between different (groups of) American citizens for whom no one-size-fits-all health care and insurance approach will work; the differential burdens such a system will create for Americans, with the young carrying the bulk of it and the old the benefits, and so forth. So it doesn’t look like Obama’s full egalitarian agenda has a chance, not if practical considerations matter in the decisions that will be reached.
On the other hand, the rhetoric of equal provisions for everyone–whether with or without pre-existing conditions, whether prudent or imprudent in their health management, whether fortunate or not as to vulnerability to ailments–is difficult if not impossible for Republicans to rebut. They have no philosophical equipment with which to respond to this egalitarian pitch, so they just have to swallow when the president’s team brings up how unacceptable it is when an insurance company considers pre-existing conditions as disqualifying someone for insurance. Of course any responsible insurance company management would take that into consideration! It may be lamentable but there is nothing unjust or morally objectionable about this. To maintain otherwise is to deny the insurers their basic right to choose with whom they want to do business and to pursue a profitable enterprise rather than a losing one, etc.
But in order to present this kind of point, one must drop all the hand wringing about what is admittedly lamentable but cannot be helped. People who have been sick, especially with chronic ailments, are not a good risk to insure and those who want to make a living by selling insurance will tend to avoid doing business with them. And that is, really, their basic right in a free society unless they present themselves in the market place as not concerned with the issue, as open for anyone’s business regardless of pre-existing conditions. But to force the insurers to do business with anyone, never mind their own terms of prudence, is wrong and should not be proposed in a free country however nice it would be to help everyone.
But Republicans are philosophically disarmed from making this point, especially from making it insistently, emphatically, because the Obama team is ready to pounce on them as being mean and nasty if they do. And Republicans are ill equipped, philosophically–that is to way, when it comes to their basic principles–to keep insisting. For them to do so they would have to return to the founding principles of the American republic, to mentioning individual rights and so forth. But then, of course, Obama and his team could point fingers at them for being inconsistent, for lacking integrity, seeing how they have accepted a great many egalitarian government edicts, regulations, policies over the the decades.
The little commitment to individual liberty and free market transactions left within the ranks of Republicans just isn’t going to give them intellectual–philosophical–leverage against a clever bunch of egalitarians.
Equality’s Irrelevance
Dec 10th
Equality is Irrelevant
Tibor R. Machan
Equality is a deceptive political concept. In the hands of the American Founders it had great merit since it was based on those aspects of human nature that everyone not crucially impeded does in fact share, namely, everyone’s basic rights.You and I and all the billions of people in the world and throughout human history are and have, of course, been quite different from one another while we also possess our basic rights to life, liberty and property.
In certain respects the difference among people stems from the plain fact that human individuals are at a certain level utterly unique, irreplaceable. This is why no substitution can be made for a deceased friend, a spouse, a member of one’s family. Once you grow close to someone and know him or her intimately, there is just no one like that person. Which is one reason the deceased are mourned so much–they will be missed because no substitution for them is possible.
Human beings are in some limited respects the same but in most respects different. And this is further complicated by the fact that some of their differences as well as some of their similarities are innate, just a matter of what they were born to be, so to speak, or accidental, due to circumstances over which they have no control at all; other differences and similarities are the result of their choices, be these good or bad ones, by they trivial or morally significant.
So both equality and uniqueness are part of normal human life. The results of this can be extremely wide-ranging and the last thing that would be sensible to expect is that some pattern of equality, be it economic, social, religious, ethical, medical or anything of this sort can be implemented or should be attempted. The Procrustean temptation is an incredibly hazardous one. Its sources are many, some benign and some mendacious but all to be guarded against.
For example, often people find a way to carry on in their lives, including how they drive, bring up kids, cook dinner, arrange the furniture, choose a career, invest in the market, etc., and so forth, and this often suggests to them that others need to follow suit. Wouldn’t the world be just swell if everyone followed one’s example, seeing how it has been so fruitful for oneself? But, of course, different folks, different strokes, more often than not. Different people will enjoy different sports, entertainment, tourist attractions, cuisine and all. And even more importantly, they will actually be better off pursuing different objectives, ones that really suit them well but not their fellows, certainly not most of the time. Indeed, this is well borne out by the fact that when people recommend things, they can usually do a creditable job only when they do so to someone they know very well, at least within the sphere of the recommendation. “You just have to see this movie or go to this store or eat at this restaurant or take your vacation here, etc., etc.,” said to a total stranger tends to be quite risky, even reckless.
On the continuum from what is universal, applicable to us all as human beings, to what is only right for a given individual human being, there is a vast array of options suited all the way from what suits millions to what only some here and there and, finally, to just a solitary single one individual. This is what the American Founders, guided by their study of political history and thought, especially the ideas of John Locke, suggested, which is why their claim that we are all created equal had to do with “equal with respect to having certain basic rights” and not with equal opportunities, equal conditions, equal consequences and the like. Equality under the law, of course, is what their idea clearly implies but not other kinds of equality promoted to much these days.
Yes, Virginia, there are those very influential, even powerful ones, who want us all to be engineered into one type, all to be serviced by the same public policies (“options” is a really insulting term since they are not optional for citizens to, say, pay for!). Yet, what a just society is characterized by is that its principles are suited to an incredible variety of citizens, all carrying on as they choose, provided they do this in peace, without invading others or their realms. Egalitarians would toss all this out to institute their one-size-fits-all policies, except of course for one element, namely, that they alone should run the show, no one else. Sharing power isn’t on their agenda, especially sharing it with everyone by letting everyone enjoy sovereignty.
Finally, in answer to the claim that equality is necessary to stop envy, I wish to quote Nobel Laureate Edmund S. Phelps:
“The idea that ordinary people are anguished by the thought that other people have extraordinary wealth is also cultivated in fashionable circles without the presentation of any evidence. Most people are practical enough to see that when, say, they have to go to the hospital for tests, what matters is whether the right kind of diagnostic machine is there for them, not whether there is a better machine for others somewhere else.”
