How is this a Right? “Atlas Shrugged” and the Healthcare Debate
Last semester I had the rare privilege of studying abroad in Segovia, Spain. On of the things I packed was a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, something I had been meaning to read for a while but had yet to begin reading. Little did I know that I would find such a defense of capitalism and (for lack of a better term) classic liberalism/libertarianism. My surroundings while reading this book allowed me to also view a nation that portrays just how our nation might end up if we continue down our current path of increased government intervention in our daily lives.
First, for those who don’t know, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is a Russian novelist who immigrated to America in 1926. She wrote several novels dealing with Communist Russia in her early years, but later in life began to concentrate on her own political philosophy. Atlas Shrugged is commonly referred to as her magnum opus, as it sums up her thoughts on capitalism, socialism, government and the individual. While her book takes place in a fictional United States in what was then modern day (circa 1954), her characters certainly can describe people who exist today, with their thoughts and words still retaining meaning.
In recent years the common perception of just what a right is has changed significantly. While we all still agree that we have, to name a few, rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as freedoms (or rights to) speech, religion and trial by jury, some Americans would also add rights to education, healthcare, food, a job and shelter. I think even conservatives would say such things are necessary and therefore good. However, a good question to ask about such entitlements would be—Are education, healthcare, food, work and shelter truly basic rights?
To answer this, we must first answer, what is a right? In Atlas Shrugged, Rand shows us that these things, though good, cannot possibly be basic rights. Through her characters and their dire situation, she shows that these entitlements are not so easily secured because they must be provided by someone. In her novel, it becomes increasingly hard to ensure everyone has a job when the majority of the greedy capitalist pigs who created the jobs have disappeared. It becomes impossible to feed, clothe and house everyone when even the richest have trouble finding a few morsels of food. How then can we equate a right like the freedom of speech to healthcare? The answer is we cannot. On one side of the equation we have something like the right of free speech. This right is a condition of existence for all men and women; it is not given by anyone but comes from ourselves-this is clearly evidenced by the fact that you are able to speak unless someone forces you to be quiet. On the other side of the equation we have the right to healthcare. Is a person born with his or her own personal physician? The answer is clearly no; how then does a person acquire healthcare? He or she must trade with someone able to give healthcare. For one to force a doctor to provide him or her with healthcare is to become a tyrant and partially enslave the doctor. On this point Rand and I are of the same mind: a right is something that exists intrinsically; anything that can or must be bought or sold is not a right; but something else—a good.
At this point, dear reader, you are likely either seeing some validity to my argument or can’t believe I would be so heartless to suggest that humanity isn’t entitled to education, healthcare, food, clothing and shelter (how can the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights be wrong?!) However, we must realize that no matter how necessary healthcare or food is to human existence, it must be created using human effort. What effort created our right to free speech? What effort created our right to assemble peaceably? The answer is that no effort was required; that is what makes those freedoms basic rights. When a government tries to mandate that a good is also a basic human right to which every person is entitled, the consequences are never good and are at their worst, disastrous.
Let’s look at an example from Rand’s novel that shows the government’s handling of the distribution of an ‘essential commodity’, in this case, a metal stronger and cheaper than steel.
“Nobody had known how that [Fair Share] Law was to be observed…He [Rearden] had not known how to give every consumer who demanded it an equal share of Rearden Metal…They were not orders any longer, in that old, honorable sense of trade; they were demands. The law provided that he could be sued by any consumer who failed to receive his fair share [500 tons] of Rearden Metal…Five hundred tons of Rearden Metal could not lay three miles of rail…it could not provide the bracing for one coal mine…He said nothing. Everybody had a right to his Metal, except himself.” Now mentally insert, in the place of Rearden Metal, the word healthcare. Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like the current debate on healthcare reform? However, the elephant in the room is the question ‘Who will provide the healthcare?’ The answer, as far as I have found, is “Don’t worry, the doctors won’t go anywhere. They’ll always be willing to provide us with healthcare.”
However, is it reasonable to assume that doctors will always be available and willing to practice? To quote Representative Shelley Berkley, (Democrat of Nevada) “We don’t have enough doctors in primary care or in any specialty.” Already we are faced with a shortage of physicians, how much longer can we continue to pile on regulations and red tape and expect to have healthcare at all? The shortage of people willing to provide perceived ‘rights’ is not limited to healthcare but also extends to education. An article in the April 7, 2009 New York times cites a study published by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) as follows, “’The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends,’ the report says. ‘Beginners are being driven away’ by low pay and frustrating working conditions, and ‘accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems’ that encourage teachers to move from paycheck to pension when they are still in their mid-50s….”
To me it is no small wonder that the two sectors which have seen the most government intervention and regulation in the name of the public good are now the ones in crisis and in ‘need’ of even more government and regulation. By labeling healthcare and education “rights” we are claiming that physicians and educators are obligated, whether they wish to or not, to provide us with their services. I ask again, how much longer can we expect them to labor as public slaves?
While the term ‘public slave’ is admittedly harsh, what is the situation when the government orders that some person perform his or her job, even for pay? The government, which is our representative, uses its force to require a person to, without consent, work and give away the fruit of his or her labor. The question of pay doesn’t enter in to this situation; if any individual tried to do this, he would be denounced for enslaving his fellow man, but if the government enslaves a person in the name of the public welfare, it is lauded as noble and honorable. I find this directly opposed to our nation’s founding platforms. One of the foundations of our constitution is that a man has the right to his life and the right to sustain his life. According to Rand, “Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.”
I understand that for many, the ideas of Ayn Rand may seem a bit strange, if not outright unworkable; however, her basic premise is that a person has the right to his or her life and the fruits of it. Only a capitalist system also affirms this basic right, socialism and government restrained “capitalism” do not; they hold that a person’s labor and effort are the property of society and to be disposed of by the government. The individual is lucky to keep what is left over after the “public good” is accomplished.
The final point to be made, especially in regard to the healthcare debate, is that a capitalist solution does not preclude providing healthcare or any other basic service to those who cannot afford to purchase them. I know I am not allowing in donating of my time and my money to the less fortunate in society and I ‘profit’ from doing so in the sense that I feel rewarded for doing good. This is a capitalist phenomenon: I ‘paid’ my time or money and received a value—the contentment that comes only from charitable behavior. To claim, as Ralph Nader did in 2000, that “A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity”, is absurd. A society that takes, using government force, money from those that have and give to those that need is not more, but less just. A society that gives willingly of its excess to those most in need is not only more just but more compassionate. As the debate on healthcare, education and other issues continues to rage, we cannot forget that support of a congressional bill or political candidate does not help the sick and unfortunate unless the bill is passed or the candidate is elected. Our efforts would be better spent doing what we claim we want to do: help the needy.
I sign off, leaving a list of some of my favorite healthcare charities in hopes that while we await some resolution on America’s issues, we won’t forget those we are trying to help.
Mayo Clinic
New Rochester, MN 55905
507-284-8540
200 First Street SW
The Children’s Health Fund
215 West 125th Street Suite 301
New York, NY 10027
(212) 535-9400
Shriners Hospitals for Children
2900 Rocky Point Dr.
Tampa, FL 33607
813.281.0300
City of Hope
1500 East Duarte Road
Duarte, California 91010
626-256-HOPE (4673)
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