RE: Visions of a Voluntary World (A primer on Voluntaryist/anarchist thought).
It's always interesting to read your posts bro and I'm trying to dig more into your thoughts every time. As much as I agree about the idea of self-ownership I'm still wondering what are we doing with those people who just CAN'T do it. The elderly or the sick for example, are we really ready to share willingly with those people who really need it? Without being forced to by some authorities? I don't have the answer yet. Most human beings (including me) are thinking about them first, what should be in our nature of course, but it also makes us very egoistic and often not willing to give to those in need.
Social Health Insurance is a good example, without having an affordable insurance for everybody, many people will lose everything when they discover they are suffering some bad disease which is only treatable when they spend shit-loads of money. So an Insurance system (which -of course- is implemented by force) could be a solution here.
Well, just some of my thoughts, still looking for the right answers myself....
I disagree with this assumption. Most people I know, when they have the resources available, are more than willing and actually eager to help others.
The private sector has been providing and innovating for centuries now, usually hampered by the state. Doctors have been helping patients who cannot afford their care for hundreds of years as well.
Ultimately, though, the question is a moral one. Is it ever morally legitimate to force someone to pay for something under violence/threat of violence? No. That's it.
Take away the red tape and the market would be there in a second offering affordable help and care, and plenty of volunteer work as well to help people. Look at what the state does. It arrests people attempting to help the poor, sick, and elderly (see soup kitchens being shut down in the US), and cages people for possessing plants or collecting rainwater, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, and ruining countless lives.
People are self-interested, first and foremost, and that's a beautiful thing. That's what makes the smart people want to help others--compassion and understanding that to continue living in a plentiful world of give and take (a selfish goal) one must give.
Like I said, most folks that are able are willing to help, and even in the weird case of the one who's not, it's still not moral to violate this person.
"Without slaves, who would pick the cotton?"
Would be nice if you are right with your assumption, but I'm not really sure.
Let me just get back to the idea of heaving a mandatory health insurance. It is against the idea of voluntarism, but as I wrote before it might be the only way to provide affordable health care to everybody.
Without, way to many people would be left alone with horrendous costs they can't deal with alone and the other people wouldn't want to cover. Especially for those people who aren't the most appealing to us. The weak will often be left alone
That is just my assumption. Maybe the world is a better place than I think
If the only way to provide healthcare is at the end of a gun, then perhaps it is better for humanity to expire. Thankfully, I know this is not the case.
In the absence of violence-backed monopolies such as the ones all modern nation states employ when it comes to the medical/pharmaceutical industry, prices decline precipitously as a result of heavy competition, equating to greater affordability for everyone. As it stands now, the market is synthetically cornered.
Statistics even in very poor, violent places support this.
Even war-torn Somalia is doing much better without a state.
http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf
I look around me and see most everyone I know willing to help others, and willing to make the world a better place.
The state has killed 262 million people in roughly the last century alone, not counting wars.
I dare say we can do much better than that ;)
Yes we can do much better.
Health care is a wide field, it's not only medication, also a lot of technology is involved there. If the free market could be really able to provide those technology to everybody who needs it, I'm with you. But I still doubt it, new innovation will be reserved for those who can pay the price for it, until it might become affordable for everybody a way too long time will pass
About Somalia, even it is not called a state there anymore, but they do have authorities people need to follow if the want to survive the next day
Can you substantiate this claim with evidence? It seems to me that the opposite is true, as historically and economically speaking, every time competition is allowed in the market, new innovations become progressively more and more affordable. State-backed violent monopolies do not work this way.
This is why I can now type this on a tiny hand-held supercomputer called an iphone, but some people cannot afford medicine which has been stuck at the same high price for years and years and years.
Of course they become affordable but only if there is a market to make profit at.
To bring out medicine for some rare disease there isn't really an incentive to do all the expensive research and go through the long process of developing, if the market is only driven by supply and demand.
So those kind of products won't really become affordable for a lot of the people who really need them
That's another claim with no substantiation and the opposite has been true, historically. If there is a disease, there is an incentive. A robust, privatized free market would allow anyone and everyone interested to try and provide the cure.
Individuals in a region not affected by the disease may not be as interested as someone in the same region, and this is why the violence-backed regulations (aside from being immoral, on the face) need to be removed, opening the opportunity to provide a service to parties other than the state and its select few "chosen ones."
The reason it doesn't happen now is because the market is artificially centralized and regulated. This is why folks in the US often fly out of country for medical procedures.
I don't agree with you.
If the disease is too rare and difficult to treat the incentive won't be big enough for all the research or development. Of course some companies will try to find a product to sell, but only to make money not to heal. Why should they be interested in finding the cure when it won't pay off?
That's why we have this big market with supplements. Easy to produce and no real need to back up your claim. People in need might be desperate enough to buy it because there isn't an alternative.