How self-interest in medical decision-making leads to the well-being of society
Individuals, not technocrats, know best
Following up on my recent article about the Supreme Court decisions in the vaccine mandate cases…
Democrats seem to believe that there is a collective “We” that can be known and that the purpose of policy is to best serve that “We”.
I do not necessarily hate that impulse. Of course we should look out for each other.
The problem becomes, how exactly should society determine (measure, figure out) the interests of this mythical “We”? For Democrats the answer is technocrats. And it just so happens that (surprise!) Democrats make up the well-educated bourgeois technocratic class in society. And so they have come to the conclusion that only Democrats know what is in the best interests of society. They use this partisan elitist paternalism to justify all manner of totalitarian policies including vaccine mandates, mask mandates, Show-Me-Your-Papers, and biofascism.
In the space of my lifetime, Democrats have gone from — “the working class knows best” (‘has a unique epistemic position that is more true’) to “the technocrats know best and must impose ‘The Good(TM)’ upon the deplorable (read: ‘dumb, racist, sexist, homophobic’) peasants.”
This new technocratic impulse in the Democratic Party has only existed for about 30 years (since Bill Clinton first ran for President in 1992). But it is proving to be a total disaster — for the party and the country.
It has a major epistemic problem because it’s really hard to determine the interests of another, it’s authoritarian because it imposes policy on people without their consent, and it completely ignores the ubiquitous problem of regulatory capture.
Making matters significantly worse, the predatory Pharma/Tech billionaires have figured out that they can ride this new impulse in the Democratic Party (and left parties generally in the developed world) and use these determined technocrats to create a digital fascist surveillance state that fulfills their desire for power, profit, and control — all in the name of looking out for the collective good.
So that’s what we see at Davos and the World Economic Forum — the billionaires and the global elite technocrats hobnobbing and scheming to remake the world to serve their interests which they believe are synonymous with the well-being of society (even though clearly they are not).
There is another way forward and it is a return to our roots
The American system of government is based on the notion that our collective well-being is best achieved through each individual pursuing his/her self-interest.
This is the central idea of Adam’s Smith’s The Wealth of Nations that was published in 1776 and had a profound influence on the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
One can take issue with that notion (indeed I have on many occasions), but it is the principle that underlies our entire economic and political system.
Self-interest is often interpreted as greed but it’s better understood as personal agency and responsibility.
It’s not a crazy idea. The person closest to a problem is usually the best person to solve the problem (he/she just has so much more detailed information than anyone else).
In the case of health it is preposterous to think that anyone outside of me can possibly know what’s best for me.
Health decisions involve a complicated mix of past history and experience; intuition; input from friends, family, and professionals; and a weighing of a wide range of possible risks and benefits — and these factors are unique to every individual.
Yet, everyone wants to be healthy and so of course each individual will be motivated to achieve the best result.
So pursuing self-interest when it comes to health is by definition the best path to achieving our collective well-being.
Any attempt to impose medical interventions from the outside is always tyrannical because it is replacing my self-interest in my own well-being with someone else's interests (and who knows what all goes into that — profit, ego, control, power, and sadism are among the possibilities — THAT’S the problem of capture).
Thinking “I know better than you what’s best for you” is at the root of so much evil in the world and it is the logical fallacy that leads technocrats toward fascism.
The American way can solve this pandemic and any other problem thrown at us.
It’s time to jettison the biofascist technocrats who are causing ruin and return to individuals using logic, common sense, and reason.
I would much rather have the 210,000,000 adults in America applying their best judgement to solve any problem than have 15 captured bureaucrats in Washington D.C. (or literally just two captured political appointees — Woodcock and Walensky) telling everyone what to do.
What do you think?
Many 1950s traditional “big R” Republicans believe that the best way to arrive at “We” is through hierarchical institutions — the military, churches, corporations, and membership organizations (Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, Boy Scouts).
But depending on how they are set up, hierarchical institutions often suppress individual viewpoints and talents. Sometimes the whole is much less than the sum of the parts so it’s just a different bunch of players in control (than the Democratic technocrats) but it’s a society run by an elite top-down cadre nonetheless.
Only “small r” libertarian republicans tend to understand the sacred role of the individual in society and how protecting individual rights can also produce the best overall outcomes for society. There are lots of “small r” republican elected officials in state governments in red and purple states and they tend to be the biggest defenders of medical freedom.
I think there is an extraordinary opportunity here for a political realignment that rejects the technocratic impulse of the Democratic Party and the institutional impulse of the Republican party and instead coalesces around the sacred rights of individuals to make medical decisions (and all decisions) for themselves. This new political movement unites “small r” republicans and former progressive democrats who became politically homeless when the Democratic Party abandoned its principles and slid into Pharma fascism.
Indeed I think that this new political realignment is already happening and that political candidates who realize this and embrace it will be rewarded by voters in November and beyond.
Agreed. I have called it "induced helplessness" - more systemic and engineered than Marty Seligman's "learned helplessness" and the denial of personal agency over health. I have always been surprised how many politically progressive people I know are so conventional and ignorant about matters of health. I used to work with people with cancer and what was then called "alternative cancer treatment" and unpatentable natural remedies that were opposed and suppressed just like now. People have been deeply entrained in the allopathic medical model and passivity. Like we need to teach civics in schools, we need to teach children mastery over their own bodies and how to build strong immunity. Thanks for your interesting analysis.