The Biden administration is intent on forcing large private businesses to have their employees vaccinated against Covid-19 or to produce weekly test results. The governor of Texas issued an executive order forbidding private businesses from mandating the vaccine for their employees. (See Eric Boehm, “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Bans Private Businesses from Mandating Vaccines for Workers,” Reason Magazine, October 12, 2021.)
This illustrates a trend that has been developing for some time whereby anything affected by a so-called “public interest” is either banned or compulsory. In the process, what was deemed private becomes public.
Note that the process has no built-in stopping mechanism. On the contrary, as more areas of life become matters of dirigiste democratic decision, more and more people want their democracy to intervene. For reasons well-known to students of public choice, politicians and bureaucrats are happy to oblige. The left and the right both become more authoritarian. And the process continues. One depiction of this scenario is given in the last chapter of Anthony de Jasay’s The State on “state capitalism.”
One objection to all that is that the condition of mankind has been worse before. The featured image of this post comes from a reenactment of the Battle of Hattin in 1187, during the Second Crusade. (It does not look as terrible as it was.) With the unsteady advance of individual liberty, it took time for religion and other areas of life to be recognized as private matters. My point is that the direction of the trend seems to have reversed during the 20th century and the new century.
On that reversal, two books by Friedrich Hayek are enlightening: The Road to Serfdom (1944) and The Fatal Conceit (1988).
READER COMMENTS
Todd Moodey
Oct 13 2021 at 11:21am
Pierre–
As I mentioned in a comment to another story, there’s a timely example of the phenomenon you aptly describe, coming from (no surprise!) California. Our Governor Newsom signed a bill into law mandating gender-neutral toy sections in large retailers. It seems as though Newsom, and doubtless many others on both the left and right, believe in principle that there’s no realm of society in which they can’t interfere so long as they’re attempting to rectify a wrong according to their lights. Rights now seem like accommodations from the State, to be granted, withheld or removed based on the degree to which the particular issues aligns with the rulers’ views.
Todd Moodey
Brian Tracey
Oct 13 2021 at 12:00pm
Sad to say, very well put.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 13 2021 at 12:50pm
Todd: We could say that what’s good for the gender is good for the noose. More seriously, I wonder why the gender-neutral crowd does not imagine that if it is legitimate for the state to mandate gender-neutral stuff, it is also legitimate to forbid it.
Todd Moodey
Oct 13 2021 at 12:59pm
Pierre–
Nice! And you’re right to question whether those currently on the “winning side” of the legislature’s and governor’s dictat have thought about the long-term implications.
Regards,
Todd
David Seltzer
Oct 13 2021 at 12:53pm
When the cumulative effects of eroded personal liberty becomes the last straw, people will take back their liberties by any means necessary.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 13 2021 at 3:16pm
David: Let’s hope so, and encourage it. But that’s assuming that people remember or know what liberty is. Events like the French or Russian revolutions raise some doubts. See what the optimistic Buchanan thought about the question.
David Seltzer
Oct 14 2021 at 10:25am
Pierre: People will know what liberty is when it is stripped from them.
Roger McKinney
Oct 15 2021 at 9:45am
Well said! Loved your article on Buchanan and fear of liberty. Helmut Schoeck added envy as a reason people demand tyranny in his classic Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior.
Douglass North showed that tyranny is the most robust form of government in history and today. I believe envy is the main reason.
Jose Pablo
Oct 13 2021 at 7:29pm
You mean like in Cuba since 1959 … no “last straw” there for the last 60+ years? or like in China since 1949? … not enough “eroded personal liberty” there in the last 70+ years?
Unfortunately, the “taking back their liberties by any means necessary” looks more like all bark and no bite.
People are begging for more “virtue signaling related mandates” (they feel so good!) and cannot have enough of new entitlements financed by “taxing the rich”.
The Narratives, not The Facts, are relevant. We are living in 1984 (the novel, not the year) and it is not going to improve … not by the doings of The People, that for sure!
We The People is a myth (very useful to draw multitudes to Philadelphia, but a myth nonetheless).
David Seltzer
Oct 14 2021 at 10:18am
Maybe Jose, but the Hungarian revolution in 1956 was a nation wide revolution against a much superior Soviet killing machine. East Germans were shot climbing over a wall to keep them in that glorious dystopia. French, Dutch and Jewish resistance fighters challenged Hitler’s Nazi war machine. When enough is enough, those willing to risk their lives in the face of superior forces will do so. In fact this nation was born with that mentality. Your “all are bark and no bite” comment underestimates those are who locked and loaded. In the end, understand this, we are not descended from cowardly men.
David Seltzer
Oct 14 2021 at 10:43am
“All bark and no bite.” You underestimate those of us who will bite.
Jose Pablo
Oct 14 2021 at 12:03pm
Hope so, David.
But “freedom fighters” are, in most cases, dangerous creatures, if History is of any guide.
Is not that easy to understand the difference between a “1775 revolution” an a “1789 revolution” and the outcomes are very different (as far as freedom is concerned).
Maybe only Anglo-Saxon countries can do the right kind of freedom fighting
David Seltzer
Oct 14 2021 at 12:26pm
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was nation wide. The WWII French, Jewish and Dutch resistance fought the Nazis. East German citizens risking their lives were shot climbing the Berlin wall. All stood in the face of superior murderous forces. In the end, freedom fighters are not descended from fearful men and women.
Matthias
Oct 23 2021 at 1:15am
Nah, not gonna happen. People rarely take the relatively small, low risk step of voting with their feet. So why do you expect them to go to any means necessary?
steve
Oct 13 2021 at 1:31pm
Just so I can understand if this is a matter of principle or just applies to this particular vaccine, suppose the R was 6 (as bad or worse than measles) and fatality rate 10% .all among people under 60 and the vaccine was 97% effective. Would you still oppose mandatory vaccinations? Bear in mind that through history with every vaccine there has been opposition, at least partially based upon claims of liberty.
Steve
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 13 2021 at 3:09pm
steve: That anything should not be either compulsory or forbidden is a general principle that supports individual liberty, social peace, and prosperity. In truth, it is a corollary of any sensible definition of individual liberty. It does not imply that murder and theft should not be forbidden. Whether or not vaccination may be imposed in certain situations is a valid question, which I discuss in my primer on public health. Despite its imperfections, this paper also provides a non-romantic view of the history of public health and of the nature of the contemporary public health movement. Remember that once vaccination is not a private matter, banning it is not a private matter either (and neither is procreation).
steve
Oct 15 2021 at 2:40pm
So I guess you would oppose all vaccination requirements or at least that is what I take away from your writing. I think of myself as a pragmatist and i see lots of morbidity and mortality in your approach and very little gain.
Steve
Matthias
Oct 23 2021 at 1:16am
The orthodox economic answer to externalities are taxes and subsidies.
Just tax being non-vaccinated.
Jose Pablo
Oct 13 2021 at 8:00pm
The R, the fatality rate and the effectiveness of the vaccine are all irrelevant when discussing the “legitimacy” of the vaccine mandates.
The key issue should be whether or not vaccinated people could spread the virus damaging others.
We are far from knowing this for sure: “maybe yes but very little” according to the last research:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y
In any case the main pro-vaccine argument is that vaccination prevent serious illness. This argument does not provide, by no means, any base for a mandate. The government fatherly protecting me against myself is unnecessary and insulting (thanks but no thanks).
And even if there were serious “externalities” (a word that should be banned, by the way) there are better ways of dealing with it that thru “mandates”. Reading Coase should be mandatory to any person involved in politics.
Using coercion to force people to do things they don’t want to do is a very serious course of action (extremely serious) and should be, in principle, avoided.
The burden of proof should be on the people trying to coerce and should be a very tall one. Unfortunately, this is not even the discussion. Everybody seems to think they know when and why to coerce.
We are all little tyrants deep inside and the worst “tyrants” among us get on top. Particularly during “pandemic” times.
Craig
Oct 13 2021 at 2:59pm
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!
Just wanted to preface this by saying I am currently in a 10 day post-COVID test window, I did get two doses of Pfizer vaccine which I do believe materially reduced the severity of COVID and absolutely think people should strongly consider taking the vaccine.
Between Abbott and Biden which dictate is unconstitutional? Actually the answer could be both, right? Depends on the TX Constitution, I suppose.
I actually do think a private company should be able to make getting a vaccine a precondition to employment or continued employment/retention. Nevertheless, I am just a member of the mobile vulgus and I’d suggest the public debate is beyond any form of nuance at this juncture.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 13 2021 at 3:22pm
Craig: I broadly agree, but remember what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci said: “Pessimisim of the intelligence, optimism of the will”! (I quote from a reading Gramsci’s work in French of so many decades ago that I have to calculate it on a log scale.)
johnson85
Oct 15 2021 at 3:20pm
Biden’s “mandate” (he hasn’t actually issued a mandate other than for federal workers and contractors) would be unconstitutional if he issued it.
Abbot’s mandate is probably constitutional as a federal matter, unless you buy into some negative commerce clause argument.
I would be pretty critical of Abbott’s order except that so many companies are being strong armed into issuing mandates because of some sort of connection to the federal government that I think it’s an appropriate push back against the federal government.
I don’t think employers should mandate vaccines at least for healthy people, even though they likely do bear some of the costs through insurance. I do think they probably should be able to provided they don’t have something like a government protected monopoly or market share. And I think they should be free to only make at risk people take it since they are the ones that are reasonably likely to have an expensive hospital stay. We’re basically at 120th best solutions at this point, so as much as we have infringed on liberty of employees and employers, I don’t think the freedoms of the business/owners are sufficient justification to avoid providing freedom to the workers in this instance. Pushing to preserve freedom of choice for the employees seems like a reasonably thing to do, even though in a reasonable world it would be an unwarranted intrusion into the relationship between employers and employees.
Monte
Oct 13 2021 at 9:52pm
“Note that the process has no built-in stopping mechanism”
And the pandemic has catalyzed it. Like blood, authoritarianism will have authoritarianism.
Of particular concern to me, however, is the authoritarianism being displayed by our current president, whose behavior is illustrative of the Dunning-Kruger effect compounded by anosognosia. Paralleling that performance is his administration, which has been nothing short of an incompetence opera deserving of the Ig Nobel prize in Politics for misleading by example.
Matthias
Oct 23 2021 at 2:25am
Dunning Kruger’s original paper didn’t actually show what people commonly understand as the Dunning Kruger effect.
Niko Davor
Oct 18 2021 at 2:26am
Republicans like Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis are pushing for personal freedom to let adults choose whether to get the vaccine or not, free from government imposed consequences. Democrats are using the coercion power of government to coerce people to get the vaccine and punish those that do not.
Republicans are the good guys in this fight. It’s absurd that Lemieux suggests both sides are equally authoritarian in this.
I would agree that, in theory, private companies should have the right to set a vaccine mandate. However, Democrats control the federal government apparatus, they are pressuring private companies to enact vaccine mandates, and Republican governors using state authority to protect individuals from federal authority is entirely principled and reasonable.
David F
Oct 19 2021 at 1:31pm
Perhaps we have no other choice but to fight authoritarianism with authoritarianism. If Abbott had passed a mandate affirming the right to require mandates, or done nothing, Biden’s mandate would still obtain. Is it preferable to bow to the authoritarianism of the left so as to avoid sullying our scruples?
As a rule I would rather see any authoritarianism confined to the smaller political unit, which is better aligned with the 10th amendment and the overall ideal of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers, so I find Abbott’s mandate less objectionable. If the authoritarianism is national it is obviously harder to avoid.
True, your right to work at a company that compels vaccination is infringed by Abbott’s mandate, but your right to make the decision for yourself about whether to vaccinate remains intact (assuming your employer obeys Abbott’s mandate rather than Biden’s). From a practical perspective I count that as a net gain in individual liberty compared with doing nothing and thus falling under Biden’s mandate. If Biden would just knock it off then Abbott would have scant reason to act.
But Biden won’t knock it off, clearly, so I applaud Abbott’s countermeasures. It’s not because I want “my” democracy to “intervene”; it’s because I want to be left alone, and if someone has to be forced to leave me alone, so be it! I see far more authoritarianism on left these days, but I don’t see what can be done in response except act tactically to provide a counterbalance. The typical libertarian response of exiting the fray in order to denounce both sides equally is lackluster and insufficient.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 22 2021 at 12:07am
David F: The current situation (and evolution) is where competitive authoritarianism has led you. You write:
If “you” are an executive or a shareholder of a large company, you are not left alone in this instance of competitive authoritarianism. And as an “ordinary” individual, “you” are not left alone much on balance.
The federalism issue you raise is indeed important.
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