If private property rights are sound principles of a just society, then the welfare state, since it forces people to part with what is theirs even against their own choices, is unjust. To put it simply, it perpetrates legalized theft by taking from some persons what belongs to them and making it available, without the consent of the owner, to others. While the objective the government may serve by this could be justifiable and even noble, the means used to promote that objective are plainly criminal.
Of course, one can ask, how else might those objectives be achieved? The answer is, “In millions of possible peaceful ways, but not by means of the violation of the rights of others.” We are not to be made slaves even with the excuse that the goals of our slavery are laudable. We are not to be deprived of our honest holdings even if we do not use them as generously and wisely as others may have discerned we ought to. Most of all, we are not to be made the subjects of kings, politburos, or majorities who devise the objectives of our lives for us without our consent. What we do to solve our problems—those dire ones that lead some very decent people to yield to the idea of the welfare state—is a matter for us to discover and implement as diligently as possible.
—Tibor R. Machan
Auburn University
The Educational Challenge
Education has always been a major part of the American Dream. Originally schools were private and attendance voluntary. Increasingly, government came to play a larger role, mandating compulsory education, funding education, establishing and administering schools.
We are proud, and with good reason, of the widespread availability of education, but, unfortunately, in recent years our educational record has tarnished. Parents complain of declining quality. Educators complain of the atmosphere in which they are required to teach. Students complain of boredom. Taxpayers complain of growing costs. Hardly anyone maintains that the schools are giving young people the tools they must have for the year 2000.
Public education is, I fear, suffering from the same malady that afflicts so many other government programs. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1928, “The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”
The malady is one of an overgoverned society. In education it has taken the form of denying parents control over the type of education their children receive. The increasing role of government has adversely affected education at all levels. It has fostered an atmosphere that both dedicated teachers and serious students find inimical to intellectual development.
Now, more than ever, we must be able to provide the educator with the necessary tools for presenting in an accurate way the ever-important concepts of a free society. And, in so doing, we must not forget the cultural and historical setting for the development of a market society. It is not enough to understand the relationship of supply and demand. Our teachers must be able to convey to our youth through historical understanding the necessity of a free society in the world in which we live.
The challenge we face is clear. Americans must do what is necessary to re-establish the economic base of a free society. The problems have been identified, solutions proposed . . . success now depends on the will.
—Sheridan Nichols
American Enterprise Forum
The Uninsured
An estimated 37 million Americans lack health insurance, up 25 percent since 1980. Why are so many people going without medical coverage?
According to a study written by John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave for the National Center for Policy Analysis, state regulations have priced many Americans out of the insurance market. Recently enacted laws require many forms of coverage that a lot of people don’t want and can’t afford. For example:
“Thirty-seven states require health insurance coverage for the services of chiropractors, three states mandate coverage for acupuncture, and two states require coverage for naturopaths (who specialize in prescribing herbs).
“At least 13 states limit the ability of insurers to avoid covering people who have AIDS, or who have a high risk of getting AIDS.
“Laws in 40 states mandate coverage for alcoholism, 20 states mandate coverage for drug abuse, and 30 states require coverage for mental illness.”
In trying to expand benefits, state legislators have hurt the very people who can least afford them.
—Brian Summers
What Protection Teaches
Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same—-to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.
—Henry George,
Protection or Free Trade
Reader’ s Digest Reprints Education Article
“Why College Costs Are Rising,” by John Hood, has been reprinted in the April 1989 Reader’s Digest. This article originally appeared in the November 1988 issue of The Freeman.
We have extra copies of the Digest version of Mr. Hood’s article. Please write to FEE, stating the quantity you’d like.
