When children bury aged parents, that is to be expected. It is to be regretted of course, but it is part of nature’s plan. When such matters occur the other way around, however, it is horrid. When parents bury their children, it is perhaps one of the most devastating occurrences that can ever take place.
When people pass way before their time, in their twenties, thirties and forties, any time before their properly allotted “three score and ten,” due to heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and other such medical debilitations, that is very much not at all ok. Ditto for death by motor vehicle accident, airplane failure, murder, or anything else of the sort apart from sheer old age.
Then there are the massive untoward deaths due to war. Massive number of innocent people are being killed right now in the Middle East, in Ukraine and Russia, in Africa, pretty much all around the world. In addition to such conflagration between nations, there is also murder; private citizens are killing each other with abandon.
Why, for goodness sakes do these tragedies continually occur? They are due to the absence of libertarianism. If this political economic philosophy were universally adopted, and implemented, such unjustified deaths would approach the vanishing point. Also, “three score and ten” would likely give way to “four score and ten,” in due course.
Let us consider each of these sources of deaths that could be radically reduced if libertarianism were implemented.
But first, what is this “libertarianism?” It is based upon two foundational laws. First, the non-aggression principle: it is illicit to invade or threaten or use violence against any innocent person: thus, only laws against murder, rape, theft, arson, kidnapping, extortion, etc., are justified. Second, private property rights are based upon initial homesteading, and then any and all voluntary interactions. You get to own any and all parts of nature by first “mixing your labor” with virgin territory, and then, subsequently by trading, buying, selling, lending, etc., what you own with others on a voluntary basis.
Why, pray tell, would human health, protection from disease, be vastly improved under such a situation. One reason is due to the fact that we would be immensely more prosperous than we are now, and “wealthier is healthier.”
Which institutions are responsible for our present relative impoverishment? Our poverty is due to both socialism and fascism. What is the former? Government control over the means of production. Examples? West Germany. North Korean. Cuba. Venezuela. The USSR. China. What is the latter? Very little, almost no government ownership of capital goods whatsoever, but heavy regulation of business firms. Instances? Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and many western countries such as the US, England, Canada, much of Europe, especially when under the control of left-wing governments such as the Democratic Party in the US or the New Democratic Party in Canada, or the Labor Government of Great Britain.
How can this be? What do these alternative arrangements of the economy have to do with the personal tragedies mentioned above? It is simple. Free enterprise, the absence of such heavy-handed control of economic matters, brings about great wealth. It cures poverty. The more capitalism we have, respect for private property, rights, free enterprise and all the rest, the richer we will become. With greater prosperity we will be able to corral, if not medically eliminate, the medical tragedies mentioned above. It is simple: Wealthier is healthier. The richer we are, the safer we will be, from all sorts of dangers, ranging over medicine, crime, transportation; you name it, and people will live longer under free enterprise than any other system known to man.
There is a second reason. There would be no Food and Drug Administration under a libertarian regime. This organization creates needless deaths. It has a monopoly over approval of new drugs. What happens when it errs, by approving dangerous drugs as regarding Thalidomide? Does it go bankrupt and any certification agency would if it made such a blunder? Of course not. Sometimes it errs in the other direction by taking needless years of testing before approval, while people die for the lack of same? Again, it stays in business. It will not even easily approve of last ditch efforts of people on a veritable death bed who wish to try an unproven drug. Under free enterprise, a competitive certification industry would arise, which would save precious lives.
What about motor vehicle accidents? In the US, some 40,000 people perish. If roads and highways were privatized, and allowed to compete with one another for customers like all other private enterprises, a good estimate is that fatalities would be reduced down to 10,000, saving 30,000 lives in one fell swoop.
Murder? Private police forces, which can go broke if they focus on pretty much anything other that murder, rape, arson, kidnapping, that is, crimes with actual victims, would again save lives. No more busting of “crimes” between consenting adults concerning prostitution, pornography, drugs, gambling, homosexuality, as was previous the case. The death penalty should be passed, and public executions mandated. Research shows for every execution, eight fewer murders occur. Israel, happily, has just passed such legislation. Not only is this pragmatic, it is also justified deontologically. The murderer “stole” the life of his victim. Suppose there were a magical machine that would transfer the life force out of the perpetrator of this vicious crime and back into the dead body of the victim, enlivening him. Would we be justified in compelling the miscreant to be killed in this manner? Of course. He life is thus demonstrated as forfeit.
How about war? If all were libertarians, there would be no such activity. People would settle their disputes in a civilized manner, through courts, which would use as their lodestar, homesteading theory. Consider the case between Israel and its many enemies in the Middle East. The latter claim that the former stole land from them. Under our heroic assumption of universal libertarianism, this issue would be settled, peacefully, in favor of Israel. For, under homesteading theory, the Jews occupied the land for some three millennia, while Arab occupation of the contested territory dates back only roughly three centuries. The Al Aqsa Mosque lies above the Hebrew Second Temple, not the other way around.
