Hayek on Social Insurance

From The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 9:

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance--where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks--the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong. There are many points of detail where those wishing to preserve the competitive system and those wishing to supercede it by something different will disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is possible under the name of social insurance to introduce measures which tend to make competition more or less ineffective. But there is no incompatibility in principle between the state's providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom. To the same category belongs also the increase of security through the state's rendering assistance to the victims of such "acts of God" as earthquakes and floods. Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken.

What she's really thinking

From The Guardian:

What I'm really thinking: The abortion patient

There isn't a choice: I am an unemployed recent graduate barely able to afford the pregnancy test, with a boyfriend on bar wages. But after the scan, I want the nurse to find some unfathomable medical reason why termination isn't an option, so I'd be justified in keeping a child I don't want to lose but can't really provide for.

...

This is the "right thing to do", as almost everyone has advised. Hopefully soon I can focus on a career and creating the right circumstances eventually to have a child. But the due date for this baby is seared into my mind now. I won't ever be able to forget it.

Yet another example of an honest expression of need. This is why people like Frederica Mathewes-Green write books like Real Choices. This is why, even in the midst of all the intense controversy, people should still care about the abortion issue, ideally in a compassionate way.

One reader points out in the comments:

This is playing right into the hands of the anti-abortion lobby, or the "pro-forced-pregnancy" lobby as I prefer to call them. They put a lot of stock in the "abortion is a terrible tragedy and so traumatic" narrative. For some women it is, for a variety of reasons, and for some it isn't.

What other "choice" is defended so vehemently by downplaying all the pain it causes to those who choose it?

Hayek on self-sacrifice

If I seem to be portraying Hayek's views in moral terms, this is because I want to make the point that the ideals of a free market economy are not simply ideals of efficiency, progress, and prosperity, but also of justice. Without this, there would be no point in defending the free market.

In the fourth chapter of The Road to Serfdom entitled, "The 'Inevitability' of Planning," one of the issues Hayek deals with is the sacrifices that must be made in order to preserve freedom. One of those sacrifices is one which the whole society must make. He willingly admits that sometimes it is possible that market competition can prevent a particular benefit from being afforded to society. He admits "that it is possible that, by compulsory standardization or the prohibition of variety beyond a certain degree, abundance might be increased in some fields more than sufficiently to compensate for the restriction of the choice of the consumer."

Calvin on Civil Government

At last, a conclusion to Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. It's been ten months in finishing, but it has certainly given me an education in Reformation doctrine from the 16th century. If nothing else, reading this enormous work has forced me to listen to the voice of the past, and it has challenged me to rethink my modern assumptions about the way things are.

Nothing could more perfectly illustrate this point than the last chapter of Calvin's work, "Civil Government." It is, of course, appropriate to be talking about this right after an election. However, what I found as I read this chapter was that every other part of Calvin felt more or less familiar except for this part. Based on this experience, it seems to me that modern Christians have kept alive every controversial theological issue except those related to the social order. For if we stop and ponder for a second, I think we will have to agree that without too much trouble we can find in America today Christians with every possible opinion on predestination or infant baptism, and yet you will be hard pressed to find a single American Christian who does not accept liberal democracy as the best form of government. I have my own suspicions about why this is, but I ought to save that for another time. Let's see what Calvin has to say.

A spirit of partisanship

Well, we've just endured another season of political campaigns and made it out alive. As predicted, the Republicans picked up a lot of seats in Congress, enough seats in the House for a majority, and enough Senate seats to take the majority away from the Democrats, leaving neither party with a majority. Everyone is left wondering what will happen in the next two years. Will Obama be able to get anything done with a Republican Congress? Will the Republicans overturn Obamacare? Oh, the possibilities.

Conventional wisdom seems to be that it would just be so great if both parties could set aside their differences and just work together toward the common good. If only "politics as usual" could take a break so we can deal with the "real" issues.

In my humble opinion, this is completely wrong.

Hayek on the need for self-examination

My next little reading project will be to blog through (maybe not so thoroughly as the Institutes) three classic works of F. A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, and The Fatal Conceit. I've read a bit of Hayek's thought already, mostly through certain essays I was particularly interested in, and I've always found something incredibly attractive about his philosophy. If I could sum it up in one thought, it's that Hayek has a healthy fear of rationalism and presumption. Rationalism, on the one hand, is the desire to only accept those things which you can fully rationally justify to yourself; presumption here refers to the grandiose claim that everything worth accepting can indeed be rationally justified, and thus controlled by enlightened men.

Voting Paradox

Key quote from this video: "While it's entirely rational not to vote...maybe that's not how people decide whether or not to vote."