Government intervention in the healthcare (and employment) marketplace(s) caused the employment-tied mess we have now. And now many conservatives and most liberals are saying that the ‘best solution’ to this failed government intervention is having a completely socialized healthcare system.

THIS IS HOW IT WORKS.

This is how the state grows in power, and the individual and the community lose power. The solution presented for failed partial intervention is always more intervention.

This doesn’t require any theory of a grand socialist conspiracy. It just requires well-intentioned people (as most people are) who have been raised with the idea that government exists to provide solutions and help people. This, combined with the presentation of the failure of partial government intervention in the market as a ‘market failure’, drives public policy in the direction of greater government intervention and a controlled economy. This faith in the government is what we libertarians need to address - we need to speak to that deeper strain of human nature that distrusts control and values the application of individual judgment and conscience in all things.

And why do libertarians value the ‘free market’? Is it because we are all corporate fatcats clinging desperately to our gold hoards? Hell no! We value freedom in the marketplace for the same reason we value freedom in all things - true human flourishing and real human society demands that individuals work together voluntarily to solve our problems as we best see fit.

If 200 million people want to get together to buy health insurance from one provider, that’s one thing. But if 200 million people are forced to pay for health insurance from one of the least efficient, most politically-driven bureaucracies in history, that is the only true way a monopoly can happen - state takeover of the market. And let’s be clear: a controlled market is a controlled population. You can’t have one without the other.

Let people be free to make their own choices. Let us work together voluntarily, in true civilization, rather than be shackled together by force.