While I was at the Mises Institute earlier this month, I engaged in a discussion with some other scholars in an effort to answer the question of whether the sciences of human action truly applied to all men and women, or whether there were different sorts of people who could possibly think differently. Karl, who is a brilliant doctoral student at the University of Angers, in France, noted that Mises allowed that human beings evolved from pre-logical creatures into the logical creatures we are now. Would it not be possible, then, for there to have existed some creature that had some of man’s logical features and not others? Would it not be possible for some creatures to evolve from man into super-logical beings? If so, are the findings of economics applicable to these sub- and super-human beings?
This conversation, like every conversation at the Mises Institute, was more interesting and exhibited more wide-ranging knowledge than an entire month of an average history class. We eventually got around to talking about eugenics, and the dangers of classifying human beings. Now, I do believe that lower-class people tend to be more present-minded, while higher-class people tend to be more future-oriented, and that this mindset keeps them in their respective classes (see Rothbard). As far as explaining this phenomenon, I do not know whether to believe that it is caused by an ideological superstructure (see Marx), genetics (see Hoppe), isolation (see Sowell), or scarcity itself (see Mullainathan). This is an interesting topic, worthy of exposition in a much more formal setting than this humble blog post. But the point is not so much what the truth is, but what people believe the truth is, and what to do about it. You see, whatever causes the lower classes to be present-minded, the belief that it was caused by genetics, and the further belief that these genes could be weeded out by the State, is what led to the sterilization of tens of thousands of American prisoners, the infanticide of millions of fetuses, and the attempted extermination of inferior races by the Nazis and other totalitarian regimes.
In bringing a problem to light, you are always inviting people to solve the problem, or at least attempt to. Unfortunately, many people automatically turn to government to solve the problem. This is very dangerous, and always unwise. My project is an attempt to demonstrate that the free market can make our world a better place. However, I must be careful to not present the problem in such a way that people would feel justified in calling upon the government to “fix nature,” as they did in the eugenics movement. That is why it is so important that I ground my project so firmly in general economics. This problem must be presented in the proper light; a light that leaves no doubt about the government’s ability to solve it. Government cannot begin to “fix nature” as well as the market can, and this must be made clear.
Advocates of government intervention sometimes point to the British health care system as an example of the success that comes from adopting solutions on a nationwide level (something that can be accomplished only by government decree, apparently). People argue similarly that solutions to climate change can only be effective if instituted at a nationwide level, and therefore this problem requires a government solution. According to the apologists, Great Britain’s healthcare system, which is not designed to make profits, saves more lives per pound spent as a proportion of national wealth than almost any other country. Okay. So Great Britain is very efficient with its healthcare budget; it’s achieved an economy of scale that American has not. However, any industry can be insanely effective if all of the economy’s resources are devoted to it. The fact is, we cannot tell how successful the British healthcare system is precisely because it produces no profits. Because its revenues are obtained through compulsory taxation and not voluntary payment, we do not know how much people actually value the services they receive, and we cannot know whether the resources that have been devoted to healthcare should have been used in some other industry. Without profit and loss, without economic calculation, the government cannot determine whether its programs are economical or wasteful. It therefore cannot be said that a government program is making us better off than we would be without it.
Can we fix nature? I believe that we can. How can we fix nature? That is a question for the entrepreneurs. Should we fix nature? That’s is not a decision for me alone to make. But should this decision be left to the government? Absolutely not. The government has no rational way of making such a decision. This process of changing the world, of improving the environment, must be left to the market. And my project must be sure to communicate that, or I run the risk of providing a justification for widespread government intervention, something that could cost many more lives than any amount of climate change.
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